Work Text:
September 6th, 2012
1 week since Ryan’s birthday party
“Good morning! Rise and shine, sunshine.”
Z groans, clutching her cellphone and rolling over in bed. “It’s still dark in California, Bill, don’t bother me.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, you asked me to wake you up this early.”
“Well, that was a mistake.” Z sits up and pulls the cord of the lamp by her bed, flooding her pitch black bedroom with light. Yanking the drawer of the bedside table open, she rifles through the clutter. “Give me a moment to find my calorie notebook.”
“You track it on paper? How old-fashioned of you.”
“Jealous of every inanimate object that’s thinner than you, hm?”
“Ouch, no need to point it out.”
Z chuckles lightly and pulls out a notebook. “Aha, here we go. Yesterday I had a total of 1290 calories and burned 390, giving me a grand total of… 900.”
“390? You usually burn more.”
“My knee started to bother me halfway through my walk.”
“Excuses, excuses. You could have done arm exercises then.”
“Next time. So what’s your total?”
“684. Didn’t really burn anything, though.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s incredible!” Z slams her notebook shut. “How do you do it?”
“It’s all the honeymoon phase, sweetheart. I’ll start slacking in a few weeks.”
Z smiles and says sweetly, “You know I won’t let you.”
“I know, I know. You’re the one keeping me in line, darling. Don’t forget it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Z slides out of bed, slipping her feet into a pair of fuzzy black bunny slippers. “So, what’s the plan for today?”
“I’m about to head off to the gym after I finish this black coffee.”
“Exciting. I think I’ll be doing the same this morning. Do those arm workouts like you said.”
“Send pics. I wanna see those twiggy little arms you’ve got.”
Z giggles, slippers padding across the floor to the kitchen. “Alright. I’m gonna make my black coffee now– I’ll weigh myself after it sends me running to the bathroom. Call again tonight?”
“Of course. After dinner, we’ll talk about what we ate. It’ll keep us more accountable. Talk to you later, doll.”
“See ‘ya.”
William hangs up and puts his IPhone down on the kitchen table, glancing back at his laptop. Maybe he’ll peruse just a few more pictures from his thinspo folder, and then he’ll head off to the gym.
Gabe and Pete wait at a plastic table in a room that has been painted blue, with locked windows and a previously-used whiteboard that has a list divided into pros and cons of an eating disorder– Gabe’s a little surprised to see no pros. The cons are all things like growing apart from friends & family and hiding it all the time and anemia and osteoporosis and depression, but no pros. It’s quite black and white what sort of patient you’re supposed to act like here, and Gabe would almost feel sorry for Patrick if not for the fact Patrick watched Pete and Gabe fuck, then promptly passed out. The guy needs much more than a little push.
Pete reaches for Gabe’s hand, warm fingers entwining with his. “You okay, babe?”
Gabe nods, looking away from the whiteboard. “Of course.”
Pete’s voice drops to a whisper. “You don’t have to be.”
“I know.”
Another minute of waiting ticks by on the analog clock on the wall, and the door to the room finally swings open. Patrick drags himself in, wearing a sweatshirt with the cord taken out and a pair of jeans with no belt that sag loosely on his hips. He slides into a chair across from them at the table and mutters, “Hi.”
Pete grins, attempting to infuse some energy into the conversation. “Hey, what’s up? How are you feeling today?”
“Fine. A little tired.” Patrick yawns. “They adjusted my meds again since the Zoloft wasn’t doing anything. And we had to get up earlier than usual to get blood taken this morning, and I didn’t even have the chance for a nap because weigh-in and vitals were right after.”
“How’s your vitals?”
“I don’t know. Fine enough, I guess. I didn’t really pay attention.”
Pete nods forgivingly. Gabe exhales a breath through his nose and pleads with the universe for this visit to go by quickly.
“So…” Pete speaks once more. “Do you wanna keep talking or play a board game or…”
“I don’t know.”
“I see Monopoly on the shelf, maybe we could–”
“There’s pieces missing. It’ll suck.”
“We can play something else. Like…” Pete squints at the shelf. “Yahtzee?”
“Some rexie wrote her calories down on the scoresheets.”
“Okay. Then not that, I guess.” Pete squints at the shelf again, and Patrick crosses his arms, blinking as tiredly as a lazy lizard. Gabe, supposing he’ll make an attempt, asks, “So what do you usually play then?”
“They all play cards. I don’t really join, though.”
Gabe raises a brow and asks, “Why?”
“Because I’m the only fucking male anorexic in this program and I’m fucking tired of it!” Patrick snaps. “I sleep with all the cutters and schizos in a different part of the building and have to wake up every day at 5 A.M. to sit in a hallway with a fucking blanket only to step backwards onto a scale and get judged by the nurse and not even get to know how many fucking pounds of fat I’m putting on, and then I have to go and drag myself to another nurse to ask to borrow my shaving razor from the sharps bin, and then after all that I have to drink a fucking nasty Ensure on top of a greasy, fatty breakfast that only a six-hundred-pound person would be caught dead eating. I can see my stomach jiggle when I slather body wash on in the shower now, y’know. This place is turning me into a fucking sloth!”
Pete and Gabe sit in stunned silence for a few moments, before Pete whispers, “But I like sloths.”
Patrick huffs and slouches. “Oh great, Pete, that really fucking helps.”
“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean it like that.” Pete clears his throat. “I know it’s hard, but you need the help–”
“No I don’t,” Patrick says. “I want out. I’m an adult and if I want to check myself out, I can.”
Pete sighs. “No, you won’t, because you can’t. You were involuntarily admitted–”
“And when my insurance runs out?” Patrick asks. “I’ve seen it happen. They let you go right then and there, no matter how sick you are. It’s just a matter of biding my time–”
“If it runs out, I’ll pay as much as it takes to keep you here until you get better.”
Patrick scowls. “It’s like you want to see me get fat again.” He stands, chair scraping against the floor. “Well, I’d rather go sit in the corner and watch a bunch of severe anorexics play cards or make friendship bracelets, so I think I’ll go do that. Nice seeing you two.” Choking back tears, he flees through the door.
Gabe realizes Pete has let go of his hand, and so he curls his fingers around one of his wrists. The bone is comforting.
The visit concludes, and with the sky bright blue without so much as a speck of cloud, Gabe and Pete weave through the parking lot to their car. It’s a quiet walk until Pete broaches the topic of:
“So, what do you want to do about lunch?”
Gabe shrugs, looking away. His eyes are conveniently drawn to the reflection of his body as they pass by a car window. “I’m not really that hungry.”
“How can you not be hungry? You only had a banana and coffee for breakfast.”
Gabe catches his reflection in another car window; the muscle on his arms is gone, appearing more like misshapen lumps of fat. “I’m just not hungry right now.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Gabe shakes his head, managing a reassuring smile. “I’ll have a snack later. The visits with Patrick can just be… hard.”
“I understand.” They stop at the car they’ve rented for the time-being–Patrick going inpatient thousands of miles from home wasn’t exactly the plan when they flew over for Ryan’s birthday–and Pete takes Gabe’s hand in his, lifting it to press a light kiss to the top of his knuckles. “But at least try to call your therapist soon, okay? You’ve come so far, I know you don’t want to backtrack now.”
“I don’t want to, either.”
But Patrick saw you and Pete fucking. He saw your fat jiggling and heard your fat clapping and he SAW he SAW HE SAW YOU AND YOU’RE FAT!!
Gabe takes a sharp intake of breath, hoping the oxygen will clear away his deluded thoughts. “But that’s not going to happen anytime soon,” he adds, forcing a smile. “I promise.”
Patrick retreats to the telephone booth, floating on medication as a numb ghost, a stranger in a body with vibrating fingertips and aching bones. The interaction with Pete doesn’t exactly feel real, more like a side effect of the cocktail of medications and the surplus of nutrition sloshing in his veins. He wouldn’t be surprised if he dreamed it all up somehow, and he’s about to wake hazily in bed sheets that smell strongly of lemony Lysol. It’s too much stress on his system– he feels like hallucinations would make sense at this point.
But as soon as he shuts himself in the glass walls of the telephone booth and takes a seat on the bench bolted to the floor, he’s afforded enough clarity to realize it all was unfortunately real, and Pete really does want to keep him here in this hellhole against his will. Lovely, Patrick thinks, his eyes flooded with a sudden onslaught of tears, Just lovely. This is just great.
Slumped against the wall, he takes a crumpled list of different numbers out of his pocket– although he’s allowed to use his cellphone, it’s kept in his sharp bin and he can only use it in the common room so he isn’t tempted by searching up thinspo or diet tips.
At the top of his list of scrawled contacts are his parents; Patrick calls them from time-to-time, of course, but being from another generation, they really don’t understand eating disorders as a whole, along with the fact they’re naturally fearful Patrick will become the next Karen Carpenter– he’ll call them some other time when he’s calmer. Pete and Gabe are out of the question, for obvious reasons. Ryan and Jon are… well, Patrick already ruined their lives enough by ruining their party. Andy is probably busy about now, considering his dedicated workout schedule. Joe might be free, but… none of them would really get it, would they? Most of the people on Patrick’s contact list, in fact, wouldn’t get it.
After some time, Patrick realizes the answer is staring him straight in the face: William. Sure, he’s not perfect, but he gets it. And Patrick hasn’t already troubled him so much. Well, he probably has troubled him a decent amount, but not as much as everyone else, and that’ll just have to do for now.
Using the fabric of his shirt to wipe the sweat away from his forehead, William steps off the slowing treadmill and approaches the mirror covering the gym wall. He can’t linger too long and bodycheck in such a public place, but a quick once-over will satisfy for the time-being.
He turns to look at his side, then his front again. His stomach is still bloated from dinner, of course, jutting out slightly even under his baggy t-shirt. His arms are still layered in fat, thighs misshapen and rubbing against each other through his polyester gym shorts. Looking at himself, it’s hard to believe he ever looked different, and even harder to believe he ever let himself go. There used to be air between his parted thighs and in his concave armpits, and there wasn’t so much as an ounce of spare fat to be found on his tight and toned boney body.
Sighing, William pinches the fat on his chin. He knows it takes more than a mere week to see the change, but patience is a virtue he can’t afford at this age.
Then, his phone starts vibrating from his pocket. He sinks down onto a bench, back aching, and checks the caller. As soon as he reads Patrick’s name, his former disappointment disappears– they haven’t talked since the day he was rushed to the hospital, and perhaps this is a good sign for their friendship.
William immediately taps to answer. “Hey, man! Good to hear from you again, how are things going?”
Patrick sniffles over the line, and then chokes out the word, “Horrible.”
“Oh.” William’s smile fades. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s just… well, I hate it here. I’m trying so hard, you don’t even know how hard, and Pete today had the audacity to say–”
For fifteen minutes, Patrick continues to rant about everything from the visit to Ensure drinks to group therapy sessions to cold showers, and when he’s done, William lets him breathe for a moment before jumping in with, “I agree, all this shit is so fucking stupid.”
“Really?” Patrick says hopefully. “Pete usually says it’s a part of the process…”
“But the process is pointless, isn’t it?” William asks. “It’s another damn competition of who’s going to get better first. It doesn’t solve a thing. They’re not addressing the real issues, it’s obvious the nurses and therapists don’t care about you. You’ve gotta be in one of those places that just wants to fatten you up and throw you out.”
Patrick chuckles a little. “To be honest, you’re probably right. As long as you drink the so-called ‘meal supplements’ they shove at you, they could care less.”
“But maybe that’s a good thing for you? I don’t know what your plans are for when you get out, but relapsing afterward will be pretty easy, just saying.”
“Not exactly. I’m sure I’ll have Pete watching me like a hawk, but you’ve definitely got a point there. So, enough about me. What have you been up to?”
“Oh, not much. I’ve been going to the gym every day since I got back though, so I guess that’s something.”
“You’re not… relapsing, are you?”
“And so what if I am?” William asks. “It’s the natural life-cycle of the anorexic. Like a soul stuck in purgatory, forever caught between two worlds. Are you really surprised? It was inevitable.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry. Like I said, it’s inevitable. You didn’t do anything, really. It was going to happen one way or another.”
“Still, I… whatever. Anything else exciting in the life of William Beckett?”
Smirking, a hint of suggestion creeps into William’s voice. “I’m still in touch with Z.”
“Ah,” Patrick deadpans. “Of course you are. You guys really did hit it off at the party.”
“We’ve calmed down though, no need to worry,” William assures, although he wouldn’t exactly consider their so-called ‘anorexia pact’ as ‘calming down’ in any way, shape, or form. “She’s a stunner, though. She really is.”
“Of course only you would use the word ‘stunner’ in 2012.”
“Cut me some slack, I’m a man in love.”
“You’ve known her for… what, a week?”
“And we’ve bonded tremendously in that one week, for your information.”
“Uh huh, sure.”
“Are you jealous? No hot pieces of meat at the hospital?”
“It’s an ED ward, William, no one has any meat. And like half of them are teenagers.”
“Nevermind, then. That’s just sad.”
“Well, personal time ends in like… three minutes, so I should get going. I should get to dinner before any of the nurses accuse me of trying to skip it. But… thank you so much for listening, man. You really get it more than anyone else.”
“Of course, dude. I’m not going to forget my past like I’m better or anything. You can talk to me, anytime. And when I say anytime, I mean anytime. All you’d be interrupting is a compulsive exercise session or phone sex. At least until the anorexia starts to diminish our libidos, then it doesn’t matter–”
“Okay, Bill,” Patrick interrupts, “that’s more than I wanted to know. I get the point. Thank you.”
“No problem!” William chimes proudly. “See ‘ya!”
After kindly updating his therapist on the events of his birthday party, Ryan finishes with, “And that’s why I want to relapse.”
There’s a short pause before his therapist raises a brow and asks, “Do you think relapsing would help?”
Ryan groans, leaning back into the couch and checking his watch. Only five minutes left. It’s not that he doesn’t find therapy useful, but it’s akin to ripping off a band-aid– he wants to get it done as quickly and painlessly as possible. He doesn’t even feel there’s much of a bandaid to rip off anymore, really, but after… well, everything, Jon thought it would be wise to discuss that before making any concrete decision to discontinue his monthly meetings with his ED specialist located in downtown L.A. So, Ryan came in expecting to act as normal and unaffected as possible, but unfortunately, as soon as he started to explain, the emotions began to seep through. So that probably wasn’t happening now.
“I don’t know,” Ryan says. His finger traces the boniness of his knee cap through his jeans– even though it’s a ninety-degree day, he’d decided to forego shorts. The clinic is air-conditioned, after all. “I think it’d help me cope.”
“In what way?”
“Being numb. But I know I can’t, realistically. Jon would get worried. He’s already worried.”
“Is there anything else you can think of that’s a reason not to relapse?”
Ryan thinks for a little bit, and draws a blank; there’s nothing there. But wanting to get the appointment over with and reduce any possible worry, he starts listing the bullshit list that would never be enough to stop him. “I don’t want to end up in the hospital again.” You won’t, because you’d rather die first. “And I want to finish the second Young Veins album.” You wrote your best lyrics while you were starving yourself. “Plus I don’t want to end up like my dad.” Alcoholism and anorexia are two different things. You’ll be fine. “And Jon and I are planning our wedding… I can’t miss out on that.” Well… you don’t want to be fat at your own wedding, right?
The conversation is usually fairly straightforward by this point. The therapist encourages Ryan to think of his priorities, how far he’s come, etc. Ryan agrees and pretends that he’s fine.
Because it is all fine, isn’t it? Ryan knows at the end of the day he won’t really relapse. A salad here and there isn’t a relapse.
It’s
Just
Healthier.
Jon usually waits in the car for Ryan after his appointment, but this time he’s standing in the hallway outside the office suite that the clinic is located in. The lingering anxiety causes Ryan’s heart to beat a little faster, because this isn’t normal.
“How was the appointment?” Jon asks.
“Good,” Ryan lies. “I think it helped.”
Jon is a little more wisened to Ryan’s moods, but he doesn’t press; they both know that the minute Ryan can’t bottle it up, he’ll be sure to let Jon know. “So, I was thinking… do you want to stop at Starbucks down the street before we head off?”
Ryan knows this isn’t purposeful, but a fact about Ryan is he has two very definite and distinct orders at Starbucks; a grande caramel frappuccino with whipped cream or an iced caramel macchiato, sometimes with a chocolate chip cookie, is his usual recovery order. However, a coffee with almond milk and sugar-free vanilla means a relapse is on the way– and a doppio espresso is a sign Ryan is already far into danger territory.
Gritting his teeth, Ryan smiles. “Starbucks would be great.”
On the elevator down, he knows he’ll have to order one of his usual sugary concoctions to keep Jon off his back. But that shouldn’t matter, because Ryan is fine. Obviously.
Still, it doesn’t stop him from wondering what he would order if he could successfully fly under the radar.
“A tall iced caramel macchiato,” Ryan finally decides, “with nonfat milk.”
As the barista scribbles it down on a plastic cup, Jon uneasily glances at Ryan. “You don’t usually get nonfat milk.”
Ryan takes out his wallet. “I’ll pay.”
“I was the one who suggested getting Starbucks–”
Ryan ignores Jon and inserts his credit card into the chip reader. Jon sighs, and Ryan guesses this is because he’s mixing up the relapse signals– it’s for the best, of course.
While they wait for their drinks, Jon mentions, “You don’t usually order a tall drink.”
“After breakfast, I don’t want too much sugar.”
“What’d you have again?”
“A piece of toast with nutella and strawberries.” As soon as Ryan says it, there’s a twinge of regret in his gut. Nutella? You just couldn’t use jam?
“And you don’t usually get nonfat milk either.”
“Okay… I don’t,” Ryan admits. “I’m not getting a black coffee, though! Progress, right?”
“If you think so, sure.” Jon turns toward him. “But honestly, how did things go with the therapist? Did it make things better or worse?”
“Better, definitely better. Seriously,” Ryan promises. “I just… well, with everything that happened this week, it’ll take a little time to get over it. You know?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Jon nods. It sounds reasonable. “I’m glad to hear the therapy went well. And if you think things might take a turn for the worse, you can always talk to me, okay?”
“Of course, babe, I know.”
“Do you think having Gabe and Pete staying in the apartment is affecting you in any way? Because if it is, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind leaving–”
“No, no, of course not.” Ryan shakes his head fervently, and for once he’s actually telling the truth– for now, at least. “I know they can afford a hotel, and trust me, if it wasn’t helping, I’d let them know. But they’re great guests, really, and with Patrick being in the hospital… we’ve all got to be there for each other, y’know?”
“Jon!” a barista calls out, and the two turn toward the counter. Jon grabs his drink: a grande hot coffee with almond milk and splenda, the absolute epitome of ARFID that could be expressed in a paper cup.
“You ordered a hot one?” Ryan asks. “It’s ninety degrees. Aren’t you hot?”
“I don’t like iced coffee,” Jon says with a shrug. “The ice just melts and then your coffee becomes bean water– which it is anyway, but it’s more noticeable… you’re not getting me at all, are you?”
Ryan shakes his head. “Nope. Not at all. But I love you anyway.”
Jon chuckles. “How kind of you.”
Then the barista calls out Jon’s name again, and Ryan grabs his own drink. Luckily, his caramel macchiato tastes practically the same with nonfat milk, something he takes note of.
“So, speaking of Gabe and Pete,” Jon mentions as they walk out of Starbucks and down the road, toward the parking garage the car is parked in, “since we’re all on good terms, and we’re all in the direction of starting to plan our weddings, I was thinking… a distraction from all this would be nice, right?”
Ryan raises a brow with suspicion. “What are you planning?”
Barely able to hide his excitement, Jon cracks a smile. “I found out about a cake tasting event two days from now. That’d be fun, right?”
“We haven’t even picked a date for the wedding, and you want to go cake-tasting?”
“Well, we don’t have to make a commitment right now. We can just go and see what our options are, and then that’s one less thing to think about if we like the cake, right? Plus, like I said, it’s a great distraction, and we’ve barely had a chance to hang out with Pete and Gabe since Patrick went to the hospital.”
Looking up, there’s no way Ryan can say no to that smile on Jon’s face. “If Pete and Gabe have no problem with it, I guess… I’m down.”
It isn’t until later Ryan realizes what he’s agreed to. Cake tasting? That’s not exactly conducive to his relapse-that-isn’t-a-relapse.
Patrick’s roommate–some guy with schizophrenia he rarely sees since he’s in another program–is fast asleep. The room is dark and the door is shut. There’s a nurse on shift in the hallway, but that guy on shift tonight is obese and seemed near-exhausted from herding around patients all day, probably about to nod off and dream of strawberry-frosted donuts filled with cream and topped with sprinkles.
The coast is clear. Patrick slides out of bed, grateful that the tile floor is silent and can’t groan underneath his feet. He begins his pacing of the small room– to the door and then the window at the other wall, then the door and the window again. Over and over, over and over. The floor is cold against his bare feet, but the grippy socks would make noise– a very quiet noise, but it can’t be risked. Also, the stickiness would slow him down.
Only his thoughts keep him company. He doesn’t have his phone, and it’s too dark to read a book while pacing. So Patrick tries singing old Fall Out Boy songs in his head, seeing if he can remember all the lyrics that have been branded into his brain from years of performing. I’m coming apart at the seams, pitching myself for leads in other peoples dreams, like buzz, buzz, buzz, Doc, there’s a hole where something was…
He doesn’t stop until he’s sore all over, not only in his calves but also his back and, oddly enough, his left shoulder. He finishes reciting I’m a leading man and the lies I weave are Oh, so intricate in his head and then stops, rolling into bed with a stifled moan.
When Patrick is woken up to have blood and vitals taken a few hours later, he somehow feels a pound heavier.
“No Gabe today?” Patrick asks, when he walks into the room for visits and finds Pete at a table, setting up the ridiculously juvenile board game of Candy Land. If Patrick didn’t feel as heavy as a pile of bricks, he would laugh.
“He wasn’t feeling well,” Pete answers, glancing up from the directions sheet. “Ryan and Jon said they want to visit tomorrow, though. What color gingerbread man do you want to be?”
Patrick takes the red gingerbread man and puts it on the starting space. “Let me guess. I upset him.”
“No, no, it’s not you,” Pete rushes to reassure. “It’s… well, the hospital reminded him of his own inpatient stay.”
“I thought his inpatient went fine.”
“It did, it did.” Pete takes the purple gingerbread man. “But now that he’s past those kinds of things… you understand what I mean, right?”
“Uh-huh. How do I play this game again?”
“You pick up a card and move to the nearest same-colored space.”
“Oh, wonderful. A game of chance. No strategy at all. Clearly a game meant for grown adults and not four year-olds. Why is this even here?”
Pete shrugs and picks up a card, moving his gingerbread man to a yellow space. “Your turn.”
Patrick leans back in his seat. His hipbones throb, the muscle stinging, but he can easily hide the pain by now. “I don’t want to play Candy Land.”
“What else are we supposed to do?” Pete sighs. “Our visits are only about five minutes long, because you don’t want to talk. And I know you’re tired from going on medication and adjusting to–” Pete waves his hands around. “--all this, but you could at least make an effort. I drive forty-five minutes from Ryan’s apartment through traffic every day for you, man. At least be nice.”
“Thank you, Pete, for single-handedly keeping me from killing myself.” Pete frowns at the sarcasm, and Patrick, severely depleted of energy, realizes he can’t keep up the snarkiness much longer. “Sorry, that was rude. I guess let’s play… Candy Land.”
Pete motions to the deck of cards, and Patrick picks one up and moves his gingerbread man to purple.
“So… speaking of candy, tomorrow Gabe and I are going cake-tasting with Ryan and Jon.” Pete picks up a blue card. “Are you guys allowed outside food? I’ve seen some of the other patients getting ice cream and pizza from their families when they visit, and I was thinking I could try sneaking you some cake…”
“Thanks for the thought, but it’s against the rules for ED patients.” And thank fuck, too. “We have to stick to the meal plan. Refeeding syndrome and binge-eating disorder and hoarding… that kind of thing. Lots of issues.”
“Yeah, makes sense. Sorry about the cake, then.”
“I wouldn’t eat it anyway, so don’t worry. But… have fun, I guess. Why are you doing cake-tasting now, though? You only got engaged a few weeks ago.”
“It’s a–” Pete stops, figuring that ‘distraction’ isn’t the best wording to do here. “I think it’s the excitement of finally getting married setting in,” he lies, although the thought does summon a genuine grin. “And Jon was looking at Facebook and saw an event nearby, and figured it’d be fun for us to do it together while we’re in California. But hey, if there’s another cake tasting event, you’re totally invited. Like, who knows? It’s so early in the planning process, and we might not even like this place.”
“You mean if Gabe decides he’ll only have an organic, plant-based, gluten free cake?”
Pete snorts. “All he’s doing is going to the gym.”
“It’s a slippery slope,” Patrick says lightly.
“Yeah.” Pete considers it for a second. “Yeah, it is.”
Sensing a touch of concern behind Pete’s reaction, Patrick quickly reverts to a different topic. “So… you mentioned Jon and Ryan wanting to visit?”
“Oh, yeah.” Pete flips over a card, moving his gingerbread forward. “Only if that’s okay with you. I’ve got a business meeting about Decaydance; we’re thinking about signing some new bands to the label, maybe revamping our image– big picture, long-term stuff. So I just don’t want to leave you alone while that’s going on. But I’m sure I could leave the meeting early if–”
“No, no, you should be there for that kind of thing,” Patrick assures. “I’m alright with Ryan and Jon visiting. Maybe it’ll be good to talk to them and apologize for ruining their proposal.”
“Sure. You didn’t ruin anything, though. It’s not your fault that–”
“I did plenty of regrettable things that night.” Patrick clears his throat, looking away and hoping the heat flooding to his face isn’t noticeable as he tries to shake the image of Pete pounding into Gabe. “Anyway, keep me updated on what you decide to do with Decaydance. Just because I’m in the hospital doesn’t mean I want to be completely out of the loop– it’s my baby, too.”
“Of course. I’ll print out the meeting minutes and everything. And… don’t think I didn’t forget about the idea of getting the band back together, either,” Pete mentions. “I might bring it up, so… if that’s something you’re still interested in…”
Patrick glances at Pete's eyes, and nods seriously. “Always.” Then he grabs his gingerbread man, and collects the cards, packing them back into the Candyland box. “You know what? Let’s play a different game. This one is too childish.”
The cake-tasting event is taking place at a blue house in the suburbs that has been converted into a bakery and cafe, tastefully decorated inside with whimsical furniture and watercolor paintings and bookshelves filled with old novels and stacks of board games. The tables have been set with blue tablecloths and little pink buckets of mini plastic forks, and the owner of the bakery, an older woman with graying hair, greets all of the couples personally and hands out business cards. Luckily she isn’t phased at all by Ryan, Jon, Gabe, and Pete, the only two gay couples there, and tells them she watches Will & Grace. They take the remark nicely, knowing it’s considerably good compared to what other same-sex couples face when trying to get a mere wedding cake.
“Do you know how many flavors we’re tasting?” Gabe whispers to Ryan, as they take their seats at a table. He shakes his head, and Gabe lightly taps his fingers against the tablecloth before turning to Pete. “Want to go to the gym together tonight?”
“We have dinner reservations at six-thirty,” Pete says.
“We have time in between.”
“Gabe, I know what you’re thinking.” Pete takes Gabe’s hand. The engagement ring on his finger radiates warmth. “It’s just one day of eating cake. You don’t need to work out to make up for it. Enjoy yourself.”
“I still want to make time for the gym.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but as long as you don’t restrict–”
“Of course I won’t. Don’t worry.” Gabe smiles warmly. “I’ll enjoy myself now and at dinner. I will.”
Just as he says that, menu cards of all the flavors they’ll be tasting are handed out along with the first samples of cake, served on individual little plates. According to the menu and the bakery owner, “The first flavor is one of our favorites to win you over: Caramel Apple, a light vanilla cake filled with caramel mousse and topped with fresh caramel apple slices. It’s perfect for anyone here planning an autumn wedding.”
“Should we have an autumn wedding?” Jon asks Ryan.
Ryan is silent for a moment as he takes a bite of the cake, then his eyes widen. “Holy shit, maybe we should. This is amazing. Jon, taste it, taste it!”
Jon takes a bite of his own cake, and practically moans. “Wow.”
“I know!”
Meanwhile, Pete looks over at Gabe. “What do you think?”
“It’s good, but I feel like with the apples, it’s not indulgent enough for a wedding cake.”
“Caramel apples are very indulgent, I’ll have you know.” Pete takes another bite of the tiny piece of cake. “So no autumn wedding for us?”
“It has yet to be decided.”
The next cake flavor to come out is Chocolate Orange Citrus, which is “a chocolate cake made with Grand Marnier, chocolate ganache, and orange marmalade.”
Jon skips this cake–apparently he’s not a fan of the texture of orange marmalade, even if it’s mixed into the cake. The others still dig in, and Ryan tries to keep his reaction as undramatic as possible so as not to disappoint Jon. But with how much Pete and Gabe are making heart-eyes at the cake and exclaiming, “Holy shit! Fuck!” it’s a pointless task, but at least Jon doesn’t mind. There’s still many other cake flavors to try, after all.
“It’s too bad Patrick can’t be here,” Pete says. “I’m tempted to swipe him some cake anyway, even if it’s against the rules. This is too good to miss out on.”
“I think just tasting this would cure him,” Gabe adds. “You’ve gotta get some for him, babe.”
“Maybe I’ll ask after if they’ve got leftovers… we’ll say it’s for our nonexistent sick, terminally ill nephew, of course.”
“Of course, of course,” Gabe agrees with a smirk. “They can’t possibly say no to that.”
Soon afterward, Chocolate Mint comes out. The cake itself is flavored chocolate and mint, layered with and covered in decadent chocolate buttercream frosting, and each little slice is garnished with a mint leaf. It’s highly recommended for winter weddings, especially around Christmastime.
They dig into the slices. “Maybe a winter wedding is in the cards instead,” Ryan remarks, going for a second bite.
Jon nods, having just swallowed his bite, but just as he opens his mouth, he coughs, eyes wide. His fork drops from his hand. Another sputtering cough comes, and another, and he reaches up to his throat. His breaths are shallow and short, his face pale. Suddenly, Ryan realizes. “Holy shit, Jon, are you choking?!”
Jon tries to nod, but the coughs keep coming. Pete immediately shoots up from his seat, rushing to Jon. He grabs him by the shoulders and lifts him out of his seat, standing behind him and wrapping his arms around his waist. Ryan and Gabe watch, utterly still, as Pete makes a fist with one hand and positions it above Jon’s navel, then grasps his fist with his other hand. Then he presses hard with a sudden, upward abdominal thrust, so forceful it nearly lifts Jon off his feet. This is repeated several times, causing Jon to hack and wheeze, his eyes red and watery.
Finally, something flies out of his mouth, and Pete releases his fists. Jon sucks in a breath, coughing and leaning over the table. Ryan bolts out of his seat. “Jon, you okay? Talk to me, baby, breathe, it’s okay.”
“Fine, fine, I’m fine,” Jon gasps out, and he sinks into his chair. His voice is weary. “Thank you, Pete. Is there water? I need water. Holy shit.”
While grabbing Jon’s cup of water, Ryan spots the culprit that has landed right in the middle of the table– covered in spit and wet cake crumbs is a large piece of eggshell. He picks it up, staring at it in disbelief. Rage sparks up like a lit flame, making his flesh hot.
“Ryan,” Jon croaks, detecting the sudden change in mood, “it’s fine–”
“It is not fine!” Ryan marches up to the bakery owner, who has been staring bewildered in the corner, and sticks the eggshell in her face. “My fiance could have died choking on that eggshell! How the hell did an entire piece of egg shell get into the cake? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I… I mean, I didn’t bake them, one of my bakers must have–”
“Oh, I see, lay the blame on someone else instead of taking responsibility for what is clearly more than a lapse in attention! This is… I should call the Health Department, because this isn’t fucking safe, this cake is a choking hazard!”
“Sir, I can’t express how sorry I am, and I promise I’ll look into it and make sure it’ll never happen again. You won’t have to pay anything for your cake–”
Ryan laughs. “After this? We’ll be taking our business elsewhere–”
Before he can finish his sentence, he’s interrupted by a sudden retching noise from behind him. Spinning around, Ryan watches as Jon leans to the side and vomits half-digested cake onto the floor. Between the sickening convulses of his stomach, a sob breaks from his lips, the tears having finally escaped his eyes.
When they get back to the apartment, Jon collapses onto the couch and curls up as he bawls. Ryan turns to Pete and Gabe. “Get him a fresh change of clothes.”
Pete and Gabe nod, and head off to the bedroom. Ryan sits at the opposite end of the couch, absolutely unsure how to proceed. “Baby? Is there anything I can do to help?”
Jon shakes his head and sniffles. “No, no. It’s… it’s fine.”
“You had a panic attack in the car because you thought you were choking again, it’s clearly not fine.”
“I know, and it was stupid.”
“No, it wasn’t–”
“I need to get these fucking clothes off.” Jon sits up, throwing his shirt over his head. “I need a fucking shower.” He undoes his belt and yanks it off, then pushes his pants down to his ankles. “I smell like puke and if I keep smelling this shit I’m going to throw up all over again and I’m going to choke!” Unable to hold back the tears once more, Jon crumples to the couch and buries his head in his hands, sobbing.
“I can run the bath for you–”
“No, I need a shower!” Jon wails, and he bites back another sob, gulping in a breath. “Sorry. I just… I just can’t sit in all the grossness. I need a shower. I need a shower.” He scrubs a hand over his facial hair. “I need to shave all this off, too. It’s all over, I can still smell it.”
“It’ll be fine if you wash it.”
“No, I’m shaving it. It’ll grow back. It’s fine. It’s fine.” Jon slowly rises from the couch as Pete and Gabe come back, holding a fresh outfit of a shirt and jeans. “Thanks. You can put them on the bathroom counter. I don’t want to touch it until I’m clean.”
Pete and Gabe rush off to put them in the bathroom, and Ryan asks, “Do you want me to shower with you? If you don’t want to be alone…”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll be okay.” Jon inhales, wiping away the tears. “I just need a minute to myself.”
Ryan nods sympathetically and watches as Jon walks away to the bathroom. Then Ryan stands and plucks the vomit-stained clothes that Jon had thrown off of the floor, deciding it’d be better to do the laundry now rather than let the gross clothes just sit there. As he takes a laundry basket out of the hall closet, Pete pokes his head out of the nearby guest room door. “You need any help?”
“I’m good for now. Just gonna do some laundry.”
“Okay, cool. Um… you wouldn’t mind if Gabe and I went to the gym? He’s insisting on going now.”
“Yeah, I don’t mind. I get it if he needs to blow off some steam. Maybe it’d be better for Jon and I to have a bit of time alone while he calms down.”
“Cool, cool,” Pete says, and pops back into the guest room.
Ryan collects the laundry and chucks it all into the washing machine in the hallway nook. While pouring out detergent, he watches as Pete and Gabe silently leave the guest room. While Pete wears an appropriate muscle tank and shorts, Gabe wears an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of track pants to hide his figure. While inattentive, the detergent overflows the little plastic cup, sticky thick liquid coating Ryan’s fingers. Shaken out of his stupor, Ryan stops pouring and dumps the excess of detergent into the washer, slamming the lid shut.
He takes his engagement ring off to wash his hands in the kitchen, watching as the silver glints in the afternoon sun’s rays. Ryan wishes he could go to the gym, too. All the sugar from the cake is rattling in his veins, the extra energy vibrating through him. If he doesn’t do something about it soon, it’ll all turn into fat. When was the last time you worked out?
Ryan dries off his clean hands and then sits down on the kitchen floor. The tile is hard, but he counts sixty-three sit-ups before he can hear the shower shut off, the pipes in the walls falling silent. Then Ryan forces himself back to his feet and slides the engagement ring back on his finger.
After Jon has changed into a fresh pair of clothing and had the opportunity to calm down by shutting himself in their studio/office room and strumming his guitar for about an hour, he emerges to sit down on the couch next to Ryan and asks, his voice still a little dry, “Is it okay to hug you? You don’t have to if I’m still gross…”
“Of course it’s okay,” Ryan reassures him, and Jon’s arms wrap around his shoulders, Ryan’s curled around his waist. Jon’s grip is firm and emanating warmth, the comfort that Ryan has grown accustomed to. And he’ll never admit it, but it’s nice to be engulfed like a frail skinny little creature in need of protection, even if for once this isn’t about him.
The next words come unexpectedly. Jon tightens his grip and whispers: “I don’t want a wedding cake anymore.”
“What?” Ryan pulls back to look him in the eyes, Jon’s arms loosening. “I mean, I know it’s been a rough day, but give it time, babe. We don’t even have a wedding date yet–”
Jon shakes his head, eyes wide and petrified. “I don’t think I can risk it. What if I choked to death on our wedding day? What if you did?”
“We’ll get a different baker–”
“If it’s happened once, it can happen again. We’ll do something different… like ice cream. That’s fun, right? I was googling it and we could have a froyo bar…”
“If worse comes to worse, then sure, but we have time.” Ryan smiles in an attempt to convince himself of confidence and reaches up, his thumb stroking Jon’s smooth freshly-shaved jaw. “I know you can overcome this. You like cake, and you’ve conquered other fear foods. If I can do it, so can you.”
“But you’ve never choked on an eggshell. Do you know what it’s like? To have your life flash before your eyes?”
“Jon–”
“I swear to God, I saw everything. I saw my first guitar, the time I skinned my knee on a hike and had to get stitches, my junior prom, the time I did makeup for you, my first show playing for Panic– hell, I think I even saw my mother giving birth to me! People aren’t made to remember those kinds of things!”
“Okay, that part had to be a hallucination or something. You were short on oxygen–”
“Do you not believe me?” Jon shoots up from the couch. “Out of everyone, at least you could try to believe me!”
“I do believe you!” Ryan sits up, but then sinks back into the couch. “I just… it’s barely been a few hours. Give yourself time, Jon. I know you do want a cake, and you’re scared.”
Jon sighs, his shoulders still tensed up. Raking a hand through his hair, he turns away. “I don’t know. Sorry. I’m being a total dick right now.”
“It’s fine,” Ryan says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “It’s fine.”
Suddenly, Jon strides into the kitchen, determined. “I’m going to have some cereal.”
“Oh…” Following, Ryan gets off the couch. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine, I’m hungry anyway.” Swinging the cabinet door open, he pulls out a box of Cheerios. “I have to get over this bullshit at some point.”
“Don’t rush yourself, baby.”
The Cheerios rattle into the bowl, but only a few– Jon tilts the box upward again, staring at the few pieces of cereal that have fallen.
“Shit,” he breathes.
“What?” Ryan asks, although he can also feel his heart clenching with dread. “It’s… cereal. It’s not going to have an egg shell in it.”
“Doesn’t matter. There’s still a chance I could choke on it— look at them.” Jon points at it accusingly. “You wouldn’t give that shit to a baby.”
“Actually, plenty of people give Cheerios to their babies.”
“Well… they shouldn’t!” Jon sputters, and slams the cereal box down on the counter. “Man, I make no sense, do I?”
“No, no, you do.” Nope.
“I thought there could be nothing wrong with cereal,” Jon continues. “It’s always consistent. It doesn’t change. It’s simple, you can’t really get cereal wrong. And now something is wrong.”
Cereal has always been one of Jon’s top safe foods, sometimes the sole meal when he was at his worst, and after years of watching him eat it, Ryan feels a pang in his heart. Would Jon even be able to eat solid food?
“God, I’m sorry babe,” Ryan mutters under his breath. “What if I make you a smoothie? Does that sound okay? I mean it’s a liquid, so…”
Jon considers it for a moment, and nods. “Okay. I think a smoothie is fine.”
As Ryan empties the rest of a bag of frozen strawberries into the blender, outside of the kitchen he hears the front door slam shut. Tossing away the empty bag, he peeks out of the doorway. To his relief, it’s just Gabe and Pete coming home from the gym, and Jon is still in the apartment, wrapped in a blanket and watching The Big Bang Theory with a soulless expression– which is pretty normal, actually.
“Hey, how was the gym?” Ryan asks.
Gabe, pale and soaked in sweat, only says, “I need a shower,” and skulks off to the bathroom.
Luckily, Pete is a little more receptive. “Eh, it was alright. I don’t think anyone recognized us, so I guess peaceful workouts are a perk of fading into obscurity.”
Ryan nods. “That is nice.”
“Jon, how are you holding up?” Pete asks, turning toward the couch.
“Better,” Jon says, his eyes still on the TV. “Ryan, could you get back to the smoothie? I don’t want to sound demanding or anything but… I’m kinda getting hungry.”
“Of course, baby, it’s coming right up.” Ryan steps back into the kitchen, and opens the fridge. Pete follows.
“So… how do you think he’s faring?” Pete whispers.
Ryan takes out a jug of 2% milk and unscrews the cap, pouring a splash of it into the blender. “He’s calmed down.” He twists the cap back on the milk. “But he can’t even eat cereal right now, and that’s always been a safe food for him, so that’s been hitting him hard.”
“Man, I’m sorry.”
Ryan shrugs. “It’s whatever. Grab me a banana from the fruit bowl?”
Pete takes a banana out of the fruit bowl and hands it over. “So… I’m guessing this is a ‘no’ to the dinner reservations?”
Ryan huffs and yanks the peel off the banana. “God, I forgot about that. Well, what do you think is the answer to that?”
“Yeah… I should have guessed.”
“I mean, you and Gabe can go by all means.”
“Yeah, I mean, probably. I want to make sure Gabe eats something substantial after that workout. He barely did any weightlifting before he spent an hour jogging on the treadmill.”
“Wow. For sure, feed that rexie a burger.” Ryan breaks the banana in half, dropping it into the blender. “Or a veggie burger, in your case.”
“Do you want us to bring anything back for you?”
Ryan shakes his head as he opens the freezer and takes out a few ice cubes, which go plunk! into the blender. “I’ll forage around the kitchen. No need to worry, you guys just enjoy the impromptu date night.”
“You sure? It’s really no trouble.”
“Yeah, really, I’m okay,” Ryan assures. “I might end up having some of that leftover pizza in the fridge. Or I’ve got some bagged salad mix and chicken I could bake. Really, don’t worry.”
“If you insist.” Pete shrugs. “Well, as soon as I get a shower after Gabe, we’ll be leaving then. But if you change your mind…”
“I’ve always got you on speed-dial, Wentz.”
Pete smiles, blushing a little. “You still do? Really?”
“I need someone to call in case I start writing self-aggrandizing prose again. You keep the ego afloat.”
Pete chuckles. “Okay, but really, if you decide want me to bring back anything, like some fucking crab cakes or a slice of cake—”
“You’ll be the first to know.” Ryan fastens the top onto the blender and presses down on the blend button, filling the kitchen with a loud, grinding rrRRRrrrRRRrrr as the banana, strawberry, milk, and ice swirl together. After the usual amount of time, Ryan lifts off his finger, reaching toward the top.
“Babe?” Jon calls out. “Could you blend it for just fifteen more seconds? Please? Just to make sure it’s all blended?”
“Of course.” Ryan barely hesitates before pressing down on the button again, filling the kitchen with the sound again as the smoothie sloshes around again. He counts in his head. One mississippi, two mississippi…
After the fifteen seconds are up and Ryan lifts his finger, he barely has a moment before warm arms are wrapping around him. He’d forgotten Pete was still in the kitchen, lingering behind him. And although he smells like sweat and a little like he didn’t put on enough deodorant, Ryan leans into the hug, because there’s still something so comforting about Pete’s uniquely Pete scent, like fresh cloves, incense, and the sweet undertone of Ryan’s honey and orange shampoo he’d probably borrowed when he showered the other night.
“I’m always here for you, y’know,” Pete reminds him quietly. He sways a little the way they used to while hugging for a while, when Ryan was pent-up and bleary-eyed, a wiry little doll that could float like air with the slightest motions. “I know what it’s like. To care about someone so much and watch them fall apart.”
Ryan nods, although his gut twinges at that mere oversimplification. “Thank you.”
They stand like that for a little while more, flowing like a field of wheat in the wind, until Pete lets go and silently leaves the kitchen. Ryan pours out the smoothie into a glass, and they return to the present once more.
Patrick sits in the lounge, curled up in the corner of the couch and watching whatever happens to be on the TV– today, it’s a rerun of Twilight, and Patrick decides Kristen Stewart is an acceptable form of thinspo considering he’s limited in what he can get his hands on. One of the bulimics is sitting on the floor and half-watching it with him, half-skimming through a celebrity gossip magazine her family brought for her. As Patrick continues to glance over her shoulder every so often, he’s relieved that he doesn’t recognize most of the faces or names in it– the last thing he needs is more speculation on the mental health status of anyone formerly in the Decaydance Weightloss Competition, but it seems the events of the previous week are kept secret for now.
Speaking of which, Patrick glances up at the clock on the wall. There are only fifteen minutes left of visiting hours, and then he has some therapy group that’s somewhat to the tune of Alcoholics Anonymous, just without the official-sounding name, to go to. His heart sinks. So Ryan and Jon won’t be visiting after all.
Sensing Patrick’s disappointment, the bulimic–Patrick thinks her name is either Zoe or Zora–turns away from her magazine and asks with a tone of sympathy, “So, your boyfriend isn’t coming today?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“It’s okay if he is,” Zoe-or-Zora says. “I wouldn’t tell.”
Patrick groans. If he didn’t have any tact, he’d suggest she spent a little too much time on LiveJournal. “He is my friend. And he had a business meeting. That’s it.”
“Okay, okay,” Zoe-or-Zora mumbles, turning back to her magazine. “Sorry.”
Knowing he’s about to reach a boiling point, he huffs and gets off the couch to find the nearest supervising nurse. Luckily, it’s one of the nicer ones, the one who’ll let Patrick only drink half of his Ensures. “Hey, since I’ve got fifteen minutes until group and I’m not expecting visitors, would it be okay to make a quick call?”
She glances up from a chart she’s been looking over. “Sure. I’ll remind you a few minutes before group starts.”
“Thanks.” Patrick rushes out of the lounge into the hallway, where he finds both of the phone booths wonderfully empty. Grabbing the phone, he dials not the number he knows best, but the one that he certainly can’t forget.
“I swear it was wider when I measured it."
“Well, you definitely weren’t sucking in your stomach,” William says, watching through his laptop screen as Z unwinds the bright pink measuring tape from around her waist. “You lost weight. When was the last time you weighed yourself?”
“Before I started fasting,” Z answers, bending to wrap the tape around her thigh. “I’m not weighing myself until right before I finish it, though. Just for good measure. Haha, get it? Measure?”
William laughs, wrapping his own measuring tape around his thigh. “Save some bad anorexic puns for me.” Studying the numbers on the tape measure, he frowns. “I only lost about an inch off my thigh, damn it.”
“That’s still a lot of fat. Have you not weighed yourself either?”
“No, I have. Just haven’t measured myself in a while.” He sighs. “I must have only lost water weight, then.”
“Come on, an inch is good.”
“Well, how much have you lost around your thighs?”
Z glances down and admits, “One and a half.”
“Damn it,” William grumbles. “I’m going to have to fast, too. How long are you going for?”
“Seventy-two hours. I’m finishing tomorrow night.”
“Okay. If I start a fast now for the same length… that’s three days. Alright, I can do that. What do you think? Should I fast, darling?”
“If you’re fasting, I want to do it with you,” Z immediately says. “I don’t mind doing it for just a bit longer. We all know I need it.”
William grins. “That’s why I love you, doll.”
“You’re not going to exercise while fasting, right?”
William opens his mouth to answer, but the vibration of his phone on his desk interrupts him. “Sorry, one second.” Letting the tape fall, he picks up his phone to see the caller ID– an unknown number, but from California. “I think this might be Patrick. I’m going to mute myself, but you just keep measuring yourself for me on the screen all pretty like that, hm?”
“Of course,” Z chimes sweetly.
William reaches over to his laptop to press the mute button, and then answers the call on his phone. “Hey, Patrick, that you?”
“Yeah. Sorry to bother you, I just need a moment to complain.”
“Oh, sure, of course. Don’t worry, I wasn’t doing anything but… um… tuning my guitar.” William glances toward his laptop, heat brimming in his stomach at the sight of Z wrapping the measuring tape around her twiggy arm. “Nothing important, really.”
“Great.” Patrick sighs in relief. “So… Pete had some meeting he had to go to, so he couldn’t visit. No big deal. He said Ryan and Jon would visit today instead. And guess what? They never showed.”
“Really?” William asks. “You don’t think something happened to them?”
“No. I’m sure Pete would have called if that was the case. And I’d rather they’re doing fine and didn’t get into an accident or whatever you could possibly come up with as an excuse, but… I think it hurts more that they didn’t, because they either forgot about me or they chose not to come.”
“Seriously?” William remarks, smiling at Z and giving her a thumbs-up. “That’s so fucked up of them.”
“I wish they’d at least fucking told me. Even that would have been a little better. But no, I’m sure they decided it would be so funny to leave me hanging, right? And some other patient noticed I wasn’t getting any other visitors, and asked if Pete was my boyfriend. I can’t fucking believe I have to sleep in the same building as some of these obsessive freaks.”
“That’s so gross and freaky,” William agrees, tapping his neck. Z takes the hint and measures her neck next. While she does, William balances the phone between his ear and shoulder, freeing his hands to type into the chat box, You’re so fucking tiny. “I really can’t believe Ryan and Jon would do that. They must think they’re so much better than us now that they’re all normal.”
“Yeah, seriously. Although I did fuck up the proposal–”
“Oh, please. It was their own fault. It was everyone’s fault. If everyone hadn’t been a dick to you, you wouldn’t have felt the need to drink a shit ton and throw up. They’re avoiding taking responsibility, that’s what.”
“Even Gabe can’t visit me anymore. Last time, only Pete showed up.”
“Why? Is it because you were too anorexic for his comfort? He’s gotten so cozy in his fattening little bubble…”
“I’m sure it’s partially that, and partially that I watched him and Pete have sex.”
“Oh, he can’t really be that sensitive about it. We’ve all seen each other's dicks at some point.” As Z sucks in her stomach, revealing her ribs, William lets his jaw drop in a silent but exaggerated moan at his laptop camera and types into the chatbox something best left unsaid. “Maybe Gabe’s jealous of how skinny you are. I’m sure it reminds him too much of the good old days.”
“I doubt it. I’m not even close.” Patrick chuckles a little, leaning against the wall and feeling over his leg with the palm of his hand. “I mean, even my sweatpants are baggy at this point, but it’ll never be enough. You should see my stomach. It’s always bloated with how much they feed us– I look fucking pregnant.”
William tsks. “I still can’t believe they locked you up in a place like that.”
“Well, Pete started crying when I tried to say no.”
William giggles. “Are you sure that’s not gaslighting?”
“He did seem really worried,” Patrick protests. “It’s not that funny.”
“Sorry, sorry. But seriously, what is up with normal bitches acting like it’s the end of the world? Jon doesn’t even really have much of a reason not to visit you– maybe Ryan does, but Jon has never been anorexic. Hell, he doesn’t have a real eating disorder. Ryan just likes to pretend his boyfriend understands.”
“Well, I don’t kn– you know, you’re kinda right. They don’t even have an excuse for not visiting me. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.”
“It’ll be hilarious. Ten bucks says car troubles.”
“Ten bucks says they had a ‘sudden burst of inspiration’ and cranked out an entire mod pop album in an afternoon.”
With a chuckle, William sinks down into his desk chair, knees tucked to his chest, and watches as Z measures her flat chest. “Don’t change, Patrick.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t plan on it.”
“I really need some new shirts,” Gabe pleads. “I only brought enough clothes to last for a few days, and I can’t just wash and wear the same clothes over and over. People talk. We’re kinda celebrities, dude.”
The truth is that all of Gabe’s shirts are too small. It isn’t that they fit correctly– they do, of course, and that means they show off too much of Gabe’s body’s shape. He used to like the slight hug of his toned figure, but now all he sees is fat when he looks in the mirror.
“Like, who knows how much longer we’ll be here?” Gabe adds, tapping the kitchen counter ever-so-slightly. “We need shit. You were just at a business meeting, and maybe I’ll end up doing an interview or two while I’m here or some recording– like, I know we’re staying for Patrick, but we can only really see him for less than two hours a day and we’re going to end up going out and doing stuff, you know?”
Pete nods, seeming convinced, and licks mint ice cream off the spoon he’s been using to eat it out of the tub. “Okay, I guess you’ve got a point there. I guess I could use a few things, too. Patrick’s probably going to be in inpatient treatment for… a while.” And after that, the future was uncertain. “So, wanna hit up the mall?”
“Sure.” Gabe hopes that this will be nothing but a trip to buy clothing; however, knowing Pete, the temptation of greasy food will eventually kick in. He’ll have to suggest stopping at the first trendy vegetarian cafe they see and hope an artisanal omelette will fill Pete up too much to think about cheese fries or fro-yo. Leaning toward the living room, Gabe calls out, “Hey, do you guys want to go to the mall with us?”
“When?” Jon calls back.
“Like, probably soon.”
“I’m down. It’d be nice to get out.”
“Sure,” Ryan says. “But you need to eat first, Jon. You haven’t had a thing all day.”
“I can’t eat, though.”
“Let me see what we have.” They hear Ryan spring up from the couch, and then he appears in the kitchen, snatching the tub of ice cream out of Pete’s hands. “Don’t eat it straight out of the tub, Pete, jeez. We have bowls.”
Pete smiles and licks dripping ice cream off his spoon. “I used to let you eat ice cream out of the tub when you lived with me.”
“You let him do a lot of things when he lived with you,” Gabe teases. Pete fake-pouts, feigning annoyance.
“Jon, how about ice cream?” Ryan calls back to the living room. “Ice cream is fine, right?”
“Is that the mint chip, though? The chocolate chunks in the brand we get are too big, I think.”
Ryan sighs, handing the tub back to Pete. “Well, you can have at it, actually.” Ryan turns toward the fridge and opens the freezer, scanning the contents. “Shit, I don’t think we have any other flavors.”
“Crap,” Jon groans from the couch.
“I bought more frozen fruit this morning, though,” Ryan adds, taking out a bag of frozen blueberries. “Want another smoothie?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Ryan starts taking out more ingredients for the smoothie, and Pete continues to contentedly eat his tub of ice cream, offering Gabe a bite. He shakes his head. “Come on, babe. Just one. It’s good.”
“Fine, fine, just one.” Gabe lets Pete feed him a bite of mint ice cream. “Oh, shit, that’s kinda good.”
“See? I told you."
“Just one more,” Gabe mumbles, and Pete spoons out another bite for him.
Then, Jon wanders into the kitchen, a blanket around his shoulders. “I just wanna watch you make the smoothie,” he explains, when Ryan spots him. “Just to make sure it’s not, like, too chunky or anything.”
“Uh… sure.”
“You sure you don’t want ice cream?” Pete asks, offering his spoon to Jon, who shrinks back and shakes his head. “Gabe, you want another bite?”
Suddenly, a strange fear seizes Gabe. This is such fatty behavior of you. He has no choice but to shake his head. “No thanks. I’m gonna… um… find my wallet.”
He walks out of the kitchen. Pete shrugs in response and keeps eating the mint ice cream. “More for me.”
“What do we wanna hit up first?” Pete asks as they walk into the mall. Already, the greasy smells of a nearby Five Guys waft into Gabe’s nose, and he decides it’s his duty to steer them away from unhealthy, fattening food as soon as humanly possible.
“How about we go up to the second floor first?” Gabe suggests. “That's where all the good shops are.” And also, according to the mall website, a build-your-own-salad place that also sells juices and smoothies. Perfect for me, perfect for Jon, perfect for everyone.
“Sure,” Pete says. “Oh, Ryan, isn’t there an Auntie Anne’s on the second floor? Let’s go there first!”
Fortunately, Ryan seems a bit unnerved. “I don’t think I want to make Jon jealous.”
“I don’t mind.” Jon’s definitely cleaned up and had a shower since the morning, but even so, there’s an uneasiness in his straight, wary posture, and even in the radiant sunlight that shines through the glass ceiling, his skin is paler than ever. “I don’t want to hold you guys back. I’ll like… buy a soda. Do they have soda?”
Pete shrugs and looks at Ryan. “Do they have soda?”
“I don’t know if they have drinks. I haven’t been there in years.”
“Wait,” Pete asks, “have you not been there since you recovered?”
“It’s not that I have a problem with it, it just hasn’t really come up. I don’t go shopping much anymore– I’ve kinda grown up from being a mall emo.”
“Well, how about I buy you one? It’ll be… a little engagement present!”
Gabe glares at Pete, while Jon mildly stares. To their relief, Ryan shakes his head. “No, I’m good. I think I need something more substantial than a pretzel. Let’s just go up the escalator and see what’s around.”
Luckily, Pete doesn’t seem offended– after all, he’s quite used to it as Gabe’s fiance, and shuffles onto the escalator without a complaint.
“So, how did Patrick take it?” Jon asks, leaning against the railing as the escalator climbs. “I still feel so bad.”
Looking up, Pete gives him a weird look. “What do you mean?”
“Uh… you did tell him about what happened the other day when you told him Ryan and I couldn’t visit, right?”
Pete opens his mouth to automatically respond, Well, of course, but then pauses; he realizes he never told Patrick at all.
“Shit,” he murmurs, as they step off the escalator, and then louder: “Shit!”
“What?” Patrick snaps, as soon as he picks up the phone receiver after a nurse told him he had a call. Dinner is approaching quickly, and it’s around this time he gets irritable, still anxious about food and meal supplements. “Do you want to tell me about your fun business meeting while I had to spend the visiting hour alone and watching Twilight and getting asked why my boyfriend wasn’t here?”
“No, that’s not why I– wait, who is your boyfriend?”
Patrick rolls his eyes. “Nobody. There’s a fucking bulimic Peterick shipper here.”
“ Oh. Makes sense.”
“So, what is it you want to tell me?” Patrick’s fingers tap the phone. “Because unless you want to tell me that you’re taking me out of this place today and letting me go home, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Look, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you before, but there’s a reason Jon and Ryan couldn’t visit today–”
“I’m sure there was,” Patrick retorts. “So, what was it? Car failure or the swine flu?”
“Patrick, could you shut up and listen for a fucking second?”
The harshness of Pete’s tone silences Patrick, his gut twisting in regret. “Sorry. Did something happen?”
“They’re both fine, I didn’t mean to scare you, but… yeah. Something did happen.” Pete clears his throat. “While we were cake-tasting yesterday, there was a piece of eggshell in one of the slices and Jon choked on it. Luckily I jumped up and did the Heimlich maneuver right away and he was okay, but… since then, he’s been having a pretty hard time. Especially with the ARFID and everything. He’s only had smoothies since– no solid food.”
The fire of jealousy is stoked from deep within, the heat of it rising through Patrick’s limbs and causing his grip on the phone to tighten. I wish that was me, he thinks before he can know better, I want to be too scared of food to even eat. “That’s horrible.”
The ounce of envy is barely detectable in Patrick’s voice– it goes through Pete’s ears unnoticed. “Yeah, it is. I mean, hopefully he’ll get up the courage to eat soon, but I can’t imagine going through something like that and having enough food issues already. So I have no idea whether he’ll be able to visit soon, we’ll see, but he seems to be doing better today since he’s at the mall with us.”
“You’re at the mall?”
“Yeah, Gabe was saying he needed new clothes since we only brought so much to California.”
The jealousy blazes. Patrick’s skin is red hot. “Ah.”
“Anyways, I’ll keep you updated, and I’ll definitely visit tomorrow. We can talk more then since I don’t wanna keep the others waiting. But sorry about the fan being there– hopefully they’re not too crazy?”
“Right,” Patrick says stiffly. “See you tomorrow.”
“See ‘ya.”
Along with the jealousy, there coexists an emptiness at the tone of Pete hanging up.
“You could try this on,” Pete says, holding up a tank top on a hanger as Gabe scans a shelf of folded jeans.
Gabe shakes his head. “It’s September. The weather’s already getting cooler, I don’t know why they’re even still trying to sell that.” Really, the reason is that he’d rather not show off his arms right now– they’re growing wider by the day.
“Oh, true.” Pete puts the tank top back on the rack, and wanders around the store a little before returning to Gabe. “How about this?”
Gabe turns around, and is accosted by the sight of an obnoxious galaxy design t-shirt with a cat shooting lasers out of its eyes on it. “Um… interesting, but that’s more 2007 Gabe’s style.” And it looks way too fitted. Even laser cats can’t distract people from your disproportionate waist. “I’ll have to pass.”
“Boo. Night Shades has made you so boring.”
“Believe me, I know,” Gabe mumbles. “But ‘You Make Me Feel’ is going to help pay for our obnoxiously expensive celebrity wedding.”
“We don’t have to have a huge wedding,” Pete says. “It can just be a small thing with family and a few friends.”
“I don’t need anyone criticizing our big day any more than they criticize my big fucking body already.”
“Babe.” Pete’s eyes soften. “You are not big.”
“That’s not what the gossip magazines said a few months ago.”
“The gossip magazines can go to hell. They don’t have any right to comment on how you look now after they kept discussing you at the height of your sickness like it was all in the name of concern.”
“Either way, we still have to have a fancy wedding. People will have high expectations for us.” Gabe sighs, glancing over at Ryan and Jon, who are going through a rack of sweaters. “I’m almost jealous they’re practically irrelevant now. Nobody is going to expect as much from them, that’s for sure. Am I being too mean?”
“I mean, just don’t let them hear that,” Pete says, lowering his voice. “I get it. But at the end of the day, I just want to make you happy. Not some stupid magazine. If the pictures get published, all I want is for everyone to be jealous of the love in our eyes as we exchange vows.”
Gabe’s heart warms a little, and leans down to peck Pete on the cheek. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that from me.”
Pete returns the kiss on the cheek. “Me neither.”
“Hey, get a room you guys!” Jon calls out from nearby.
“We were just about to get a dressing room, actually,” Pete remarks.
“Ha-ha,” Ryan responds with an air of sarcasm, as he and Jon walk over. “You’re so funny. We’re about to go try stuff on, too. Did you guys find anything good?”
“Just this,” Pete says, holding up the galaxy laser cat t-shirt despite Gabe’s incessant swatting and protests of no, put that down! “Gabe refuses to try it on, though.”
“Oh, come on,” Jon says, grinning mischievously. “Gabe, now you have to.”
Gabe grumbles non-committedly. “Well, what do you guys have?”
Now, it’s Ryan’s turn to look mildly annoyed as Jon lifts up a pair of coffee-colored bootleg jeans embroidered with flowers. “I’ve been trying to tell him he’d look so good in these for our next album.”
“We don’t even know what we’re doing for the next album,” Ryan bemoans. “The hippie Woodstock vibe is too predictable. I’ve been saying we need to subvert expectations and try post-modernism–”
“Post-modernism is a load of bullshit,” Gabe interrupts.
Ryan glares. “Spoken like a true philosophy major. Besides, it would obviously be a critique.”
“Just try on the jeans,” Jon begs. “Please? They’d look cute on you, we don’t have to buy them.
“Fine.” Ryan sighs and takes the pair of jeans. “As long as it will get you to consider my concept.”
“Ryan,” Jon says, taking his hand and looking him straight in the eyes. “I promise to listen to every single idea that comes out of that beautiful brain of yours for the rest of my life. But I refuse to tempt Warhol’s ghost into haunting us.”
“Maybe I want to be haunted by Warhol–”
“Yes, and I’m not sharing you with Warhol–”
“Well, we’re going to the dressing rooms now,” Pete says, taking a step back, “so feel free to join when you’ve finished your threesome with Warhol.”
Ryan and Jon scramble after, figuring there will be plenty of time to argue about the merits of hypothetical ghost fucking.
As soon as Ryan pulls the jeans up his thighs and glances in the mirror, he knows he’s made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let Jon talk me into this.
It’s not that they look bad, per say. The pair of jeans itself is cute, nothing wrong with it. They even fit perfectly, the zipper sliding up with ease and fitting snugly on his hips. But they show off too much of his thighs, misshapen blobs rather than the angular sticks they used to be. He barely has a thigh gap anymore unless he leans forward to fake it– which doesn’t count, of course.
Ryan traces his palms up and down the denim, his expression almost a snarl as he stares at his reflection in the mirror with disgust. He looks bad and he knows it. A quick turn reveals even his ass looks huge.
“Babe, you almost done?” Jon calls from outside the dressing room. “Let me see!”
Disgruntled, Ryan exits the dressing room and thinks to himself, I want to die.
“Woah, those look good.” Jon’s eyes roam Ryan’s body. “Your ass—”
“Don’t say anything about my ass,” Ryan warns. “Can I take them off now? I look awful.”
“Nah, you look great,” Pete chimes in, sitting next to Jon on the bench, eyes trailing the stitched flowers. “You could say they’re… Pretty. Odd.”
Ryan inches back into the dressing room while shooting daggers at Pete for making the worst joke ever.
As soon as Ryan slips back into the dressing room, he takes another look in the mirror. Maybe they aren’t that bad; they’d look good if he lost maybe ten or twenty pounds. The embroidered flowers would trail up his straight, lithe legs like a trellis, an accessory to his skinniness.
If only I could relapse, he thinks. When Jon gets better.
As he imagines his hypothetical relapse, it comes together like a formulated plan. Three months will be enough time for Jon to get over choking, right? Ryan thinks it’s a quite generous estimate. And depending on when they schedule the wedding date for, that’ll give him about a year, give or take, to lose weight for the wedding and inspire envy as he walks down the aisle. Sure, Jon would worry like usual, but as long as Ryan attributed it to eating better or a rigorous workout habit–all in the name of health–there would be no reason to slam him into the hospital. And they wouldn’t want to ruin the deadset wedding date or lose the deposits for the catering or venue, right?
“You know it wouldn’t work like that,” Ryan mutters to himself, wrapping his hands around his thigh. Although it is a nice thought to imagine his engagement ring tumbling off his finger that would soon become too thin to keep it on.
After he’s done trying on the rest of the clothes (too small, too tight, makes me look fat) he exits the dressing room with a pile of clothes he immediately throws onto the rack of other clothes waiting to be put back by a minimum-wage sales associate.
“You’re not buying anything?” Jon asks and Ryan shakes his head.
“None of them were quite right.” Maybe it’s better to wait on buying clothing until I lose the weight. He turns around upon hearing another dressing room door slam shut. “How about you, Gabe? Find anything?”
Gabe shrugs, similarly throwing a pile of rejected clothes onto the rack and holding up one white t-shirt with a fairly standard graphic of some kind of geometric design. “Just this.”
“I still think you should size down,” Pete suggests, moving the shirt to the front of Gabe’s chest. “It’s huge on you.”
Gabe waves him off dismissively. “It’s a style choice.”
“Right,” Pete says with an air of skepticism. “Let’s check out, then.” They strut away from the dressing room area toward the cash registers. “Maybe we could head to the food court for lunch–”
Jon shakes his head. “All the smells are going to make me hungry.”
“That’s kinda the point of a food court–”
“I don’t see the point in going to a food court if I don’t want to eat.”
Gabe stops in his tracks, terse. Ryan shoots him a guilt-inducing stare. “Jon, baby–”
“Sorry, sorry. I know that’s a touchy statement. You guys go get whatever you want, I’ll get a smoothie from the place we passed and we’ll meet back up afterward–”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ll get a smoothie too,” Ryan says.
“You really don’t have to.”
“I want a smoothie anyway.” Ryan takes his hand. “We’ll catch up with you guys later.”
As Ryan and Jon walk away, Pete turns to Gabe, who stares after them clutching his shirt. “Are you okay? If that upset you–”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Gabe shakes his head, and wrings the shirt in his hands. “I get it. Let’s just buy the shirt and eat.”
After dinner, a nurse hands out mail– surprisingly, one of the letters is addressed to Patrick in pink pen, and decorated with multiple drawn hearts and cartoon food stickers. Patrick can’t tell if it’s a joke or William is embracing his effeminate side as a part of his skinny little relapse.
Patrick waits until he’s alone in his room during his hour and a half of downtime before bedtime– he’s not really sure where his schizophrenic roommate has gone, but he’ll definitely be jealous if the guy actually has friends.
He rips open the envelope and dumps the contents onto his bed. Out falls several pieces of paper, all folded together. The top sheet is a handwritten letter, the margins decorated with even more egregious food stickers. Flipping it over to reveal the rest of the pile, Patrick’s breath catches. William has not only printed out numerous thinspo photos, but assorted them all into collages with patterned cardstock paper, glitter glue, and scraps of paper with cringey proana quotes to boot. Patrick almost wishes he could hang them above his bed to display them, but that would probably be much more concerning than artistic.
He giggles, the euphoria rising in his stomach. “Bill, you didn’t.”
After staring longingly at the photos for a while, Patrick realizes, Oh right, I should read the letter, and grabs the first sheet of paper.
My dearest Patrick,
I do so hope you are enjoying your stay at such an upstanding sanatorium, AKA the fucking ED unit. I also hope you like the envelope– Z bought me the stickers online as a joke and I just had to use them in case looking at cartoon burgers cures you or whatever. I was bored while fasting so I googled ‘things to do while fasting’ and one of the results that came up was a proana site that suggested making a thinspiration board, so I went up to the craft store and indulged in supplies instead of food (are you proud?) then dusted off the thinspo folder on ye olde laptop for all the best pics. It took up quite a few hours, so my efforts better have been worth it. It definitely ate into the time I was going to use to write music though, so now I have to catch up on that… don’t be surprised if my next EP uses hunger as a “metaphor” LOL…
Anyways, it’s your choice what you choose to do with the collages. Hell, even throw them out if you have to, I know how it is. But I hope it doesn’t come to that. This is just a reminder to stay strong. We can do anything we want. We can be better. The definition of that is up to you.
Love,
William xoxo
P.S. Call me when you get this!
Patrick grins, reading the letter over and over in order to cement the words into his head before he hears footsteps in the hallway. Panicked, Patrick folds up the letter and collages, tumbling off his bed to grab a duffel bag from under his bed and stuff the paper into it just as his roommate enters and asks, “Whatcha doing?”
“Um… just looking for a book,” Patrick responds, fumbling around in his bag before he takes out the first one he can find. “All good.”
“Ah, a man of taste,” the roommate sarcastically comments. “ An Amish Christmas Farm Love Story. One of my favorites.”
Patrick flips around the book to see the cover. Oh God, when did Pete sneak a romance book into his belongings? He’s really going to kill him this time, he swears. “Um… this isn’t mine.”
“Look, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m just glad you’re not one of those guys that thinks Catcher in the Rye is a good book.”
“Well…”
The roommate sighs. “You know, I think the real Patrick Stump would–”
“I’m real!” Patrick protests. “Can’t your new meds start working already? God.”
“They’re just putting us on medication because they know we’re close to figuring out the truth! The government–”
“Don’t you have a card game or something to play?” Patrick asks. “I’m sure everyone else would just love to hear your theory.”
“Whatever. I can tell when I’m not wanted.” The roommate grabs a sweatshirt, the cords removed, from under his bed and pulls it on. As he leaves, he mutters, “At least you definitely act like him.”
Patrick rolls his eyes at that. He has more to worry about than the schizophrenic basically calling him a reclusive dick– like the images of thinspo branded into his retinas, flickering across his memory. He reflexively wraps his fingers around his wrist, then his thighs– even a week here has ruined him. Fat has begun to line his bones again, and he’s eager to scrape it off like moldy grime off a plate; maybe it’s natural, but it’s gross and simply doesn’t belong.
Once he works up the courage, he looks over the thinspo collages sent by William again. And after the lights are out and his schizophrenic roommate is asleep, Patrick rises from bed and starts his nightly pacing from the window to the wall, the window to the wall. The sliver of moon in the sky watches, its white light cast into the room and illuminating every step.
The next morning, while rubbing his sore knees, Patrick is informed that due to his progress, he has been moved up to level two of the program, and he can now go on pre-approved outings with family and friends.
When he gets a moment to himself, he giggles a little. He hasn’t made any progress at all, he’s just gained water weight. And it’s about to get even worse– his meal plan is also being adjusted from the low amount it already was in order to avoid refeeding syndrome, to a much more substantial amount. Patrick’s heard whispers that is when the real weight gain starts, when the pounds pile on and your cheekbones and hipbones are lost to fat. And that’s not even the worst. Eventually, when he thinks it can’t get any worse, he’ll be put on an even heftier meal plan, and he won’t be released until either his insurance runs out or he can waddle out with his tummy bursting out of his jeans. Unfortunately, the latter is looking to be more likely due to Pete’s money.
Time is running out. Patrick needs to do something now while the weight is still reversible, and fast.
“I can’t fucking stand this anymore,” Ryan says as soon as he gets his therapist on the phone. “I suggested putting protein powder in his smoothie so he’d at least get some nutrients, and he said no! Apparently it’ll ‘ruin’ the taste, but I wouldn’t even put that much in, but after I said that he started crying because smoothies are the only safe food he has left and it’s like I don’t even get it– but I do get it! I used to be anorexic, for crying out loud!”
“I can see how that would be frustrating, but you’re going to have to back up a little. Is this about your boyfriend–or fiance now–I assume?”
“Yeah.” Ryan leans against the fencing. He’d come out to the porch for privacy, while Jon was taking a nap and Pete and Gabe had already left to get breakfast and see Patrick afterward. “Basically we went cake-tasting a few days ago…”
After the choking incident and its consequences have been fully explained, his therapist says, “I’m sensing that this is causing a lot of strain on your relationship. Has anything like this happened before?”
“Not really. So far he’s been pretty good with his ARFID– he’s been able to get over some fear foods on his own pretty well. His attitude towards food has always been so much more… positive. But now it’s like it’s all been undone, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
A few moments pass as his therapist considers his words and says, “First of all, from what you’re telling me, it sounds like you care about his wellbeing a lot, and because of your disorder, you understand what he’s going through on some level. But I sense you feel an obligation to help him out because of that.”
“Yeah. I mean, I’m his fiance. I have to be there for him. He helped me get better, so it’s only right I help him as much as I can. I love him.”
“Does Jon have any other support aside from you? Family, friends, a therapist?”
“I mean, he’s got his family, but they can only do so much since they’re in Chicago. And he doesn’t have a therapist. Not since he was a kid.”
“Alright. I think it’s important to keep in mind that although he’s been a big support all through your recovery process, he wasn’t doing it all on his own. You had me as your therapist and the rest of your outpatient team, the ED group therapy you were apart of, and your friends who were also going through a similar process as well. In order for you to be able to support him to the best of your ability, you can’t shoulder it all on your own, and he needs others in his support system to reach out to when you can’t be available for him. Of course I don’t know Jon so well and you’re my client, so I can’t give much advice pertaining to him, but in my opinion it would be to both you and his benefit if he potentially considered getting professional help with someone who has experience with ARFID– how do you think that would go over with him?”
“Um… I think he would be open to it. I know he cares about my wellbeing too, and he’s aware it’s been a lot on me. I’m just afraid to bring it up because he didn’t have such a great experience with exposure therapy when he was a child and I don’t want him to be hurt more than he already is…”
They discuss this a little more as Ryan paces back and forth on the porch– he says he’ll think about talking about it with Jon and looking into their options, and he and his therapist go over a few ways he could bring it up as a conversation in a concerned and caring kind of way. There’s a sense of relief in finally being able to get all of his frustrations out, and have not exactly a roadmap but a tangible goal to help out Jon.
But of course, his therapist specializes in eating disorders, and Ryan is obviously the focus of her treatment, so it should come as no surprise that she eventually asks him: “Has this situation been triggering for your eating disorder in any way?”
“Uh…” Ryan really doesn’t want to admit Jon has been just slightly triggering him a little tiny bit– he’s Jon, of course he’d never want to do that on purpose. Plus, it’s not like the thought of relapse wasn’t present beforehand, and the thoughts aren’t really that serious. But he’s been this therapist’s client for years, through thick and thin, and she knows his thought process well; is it really believable if Ryan isn’t triggered at all? It would be a difficult lie to sell for sure.
“It’s been a bit difficult maybe,” he says. “I mean, seeing him not want to eat certain foods is hard, of course, because it’s a lot more comforting when he’s able to eat the same things as me and make me feel normal. But I think I’ve come a really long way in that whatever disordered thoughts I have, I don’t take them seriously. I know that even though we relate, our eating disorders have differences, and that just because he doesn’t want to eat a certain thing doesn’t mean I can’t eat it, it’s his own personal issue and not one with me. Besides, I think having to take care of him right now makes me realize I have to be there for him, and that means not relapsing into my ED and giving myself enough energy and nutrition so I can be fully there for him, because he matters so much more to me than being skinny.”
Apparently that was the right answer, because Ryan is immediately validated, and told he has made a lot of progress and that his line of thinking is good overall aside from a few pointers to keep him on the right track.
However, all he’s said is wishful thinking. He wants to relapse. He wants to relapse so so so bad. And if it wasn’t for Jon’s choking incident, he would do it. And maybe he will. All Jon needs is a therapist and Ryan can then focus on his selfish disorder once more.
Ryan Ross will be skinny again. Not yet, but soon.
Ryan Ross will be skinny for his wedding.
Pete and Gabe had breakfasted at a nearby cafe that was totally “Instagram-worthy, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.” The walls were brick, the tables pure white, and their bagels were served garnished with cilantro.
But they sat near the windows, and Gabe could not stop staring at his reflection. Even in the baggy t-shirt he’d just bought, his vision was swallowed by a horrifying monstrosity. His arms had never been muscled or even slightly toned like he’d thought he’d seen in the gym mirrors the other day– pride was only an excuse to gorge himself, wasn’t it? No, they were sagging flabs of fat, thickening with every passing day. How was anyone to know that there was muscle under all that? His face was worse too. If he squinted, he swore he could see the pocket fat of a double-chin beginning to form. He scrubbed a hand over his jawline– no way was he going to grow a beard to hide the decomposition of the chiseled facial structure he’d always prided himself on. He had to do something, and fast.
“Good bagels, right?” Pete had asked, munching on his own, spread with nutella and some kind of raspberry sauce, blissfully unaware of how deeply Gabe’s mind had spiraled. Neurotransmitters were flying all over the place, sparking a deep feeling of dread and a heightened sense of anxiety, and all Gabe could do was sit there and nod, poking a stiff finger at his own cream cheese and lox bagel.
“Not as good as the ones in New York,” Gabe said, even though he’d only taken one bite out of his. Although everything in him screamed not to, he picked up the bagel again and took another bite, and another– he couldn’t let Pete onto the inner chaos of his head.
Pete nodded. “True. We’re going to have to get some real bagels the minute we get back, right?”
Gabe didn’t even want to think about even more bagels. The minute they would eventually land back in New York, he’d need a new plan, and he’d have to follow it to a T without letting Pete onto it– which, on second thought, probably was possible. “Yep,” Gabe mumbled mid-chew, hoping his fiance would forget.
On the drive to the hospital for yet another visit with Patrick, Gabe could feel the contents of his stomach sloshing around, clogging rather than filling. He knew there wasn’t much he could do about it though. It had been years since he had last purged–
Oh. Hadn’t the solution just been staring him in the face this whole time?
“You sure you still want to stay in the car?” Pete asked, as soon as they’d parked. “I’m sure if you wanted to, Patrick would love to see you–”
“Maybe next time.”
And as soon as the car door is slam shut and Pete is out of eyesight, Gabe searches the car. It’s a rental, so of course it’s spick and span, and he almost loses hope before he clicks open the glove box and lo and behold– someone has left an old plastic bag behind. Gabe smiles. How convenient.
He turns up the radio, and searches for the perfect music to purge to. Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae is a little too upbeat for the current moment, and Stereo Hearts is… well, Gabe’s not going so far to purge to Travie’s music right now. Eventually, he lands on a station playing Breathing Underwater by Metric. Not his first choice, but it’ll do.
Gabe unfolds the wrinkled plastic bag and puts it in his lap, bending forward as much as he can to reduce spillage. Then, he pushes his fingers into his mouth. The grooves of his teeth scraping against his skin, the sudden convulsion of his stomach– relief floods his body. His raspy, forced coughs and the violence of his trembling almost drown out the music, but there are a few lyrics he can pick out.
Is this my life?
Am I breathing underwater?
Then it finally comes out, with a mix of elation and pride. He did it. He’s still got it. If Gabe’s throat wasn’t filled with vomit, he’d giggle in glee.
He empties his stomach. The plastic bag seems to get all of it, but even so, the car is filled with that nasty, thick stench. As soon as he catches his breath, Gabe turns down the music and cracks the windows. He ties the handles of the plastic bag, watching as the liquid and chunks of undigested bagel swish around, glad he’s free, glad he’s empty.
The bag is then tossed over the fence in front of the parking lot, probably into someone’s backyard. It doesn’t matter, as long as it disappears.
When he gets back in the car, there’s something familiar on the radio. It takes him a second to register that it’s now playing one of his songs, The City is at War.
Nostalgia floods back– on the day of the music video shoot, his stomach was empty apart from a 5-Hour Energy drink since he didn’t want to risk the temptation to purge in a pristine white suit. He and Pete weren’t yet official, and although Gabe did catch himself staring at Pete a few times even in his shoddy fake mustache and ill-fitting policeman costume, he was equally as drawn to the vanilla frosted donuts Pete had to eat. And now that Gabe thought about it, he’d stared at the pies they’d thrown at the actors for the video a little too much, despite the fact they were only made of unbaked pie crust and some floury paste. And the glasses of milk… he’d refused to so much as sip it, afraid he’d accidentally swallow it, and argued with the director about it for five minutes before Pete stepped in and lied that Gabe was having ‘digestive issues.’ Which wasn’t that much of a stretch, considering black coffee is a poor replacement for fiber.
Man, those were the days. He could get through an entire day of filming a music video on only caffeine and sheer will, and nobody was none the wiser to his eating disorder. Nobody suspected the growling of his stomach was the signifier of something bigger, something less innocent than simply being too busy to eat…
And now, the last time he’d looked back on the video years later, Gabe had realized just how skinny he had already been back then. His wrist bones were starting to pop, his neck was lithe and his jawbone strong. And while the suit hid his figure, it was easy to tell what lay underneath the loose fit– a flat stomach, maybe hipbones. If he’d only realized it back then when he looked in the mirror. If only he’d realized he didn’t have to go any further. Then again, his weight upon checking into the inpatient program was something to be proud of…
However, those days are gone. And although the feeling of purging still brings up a sense of pride that he’s still got it after all these years, there’s also burning regret. His dentist had told him the enamel on his teeth were wearing away, and if he hadn’t stopped purging when he did, he’d probably have had to have a few pulled by now. Once in a while, when he bends down, he has to swallow back the vomit that rises in his throat on pure reflex.
And most importantly… he’s supposed to be the recovered one. The good one. If he relapses, Patrick wins.
But Patrick can’t win, he can’t let him, not after he watched them… but wouldn’t it be winning if Gabe stole all of Pete’s attention away? Wouldn’t it be the sweetest revenge?
Gabe turns the radio off. It’s too much thinking for one damn song, and maybe the silence will help steady the pounding of his heart.
“I can’t believe you snuck an Amish romance book into my bag!” Patrick says, all the while Pete can’t contain his giggling. “When did you even have the time to do that?”
“Right before you were transferred here and Gabe and I went to Walmart to buy you a new toothbrush and stuff, we were looking at the books and there was a whole shelf– I thought it’d be a fun surprise.” Pete raises a brow. “So, was it? It was, right?”
Patrick can’t help but grin– it’s so nice to be able to laugh with him again. “Now the schizo thinks I’m crazier than him, but yeah, really great surprise.”
Pete’s smile stiffens. “Who’s the ‘schizo?’”
“My roommate. It’s a fair enough nickname; he’s so crazy he literally thinks the government is trying to control him and that I’m not the ‘real’ Patrick Stump.”
“Um.” Pete shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. “I mean, do you even know his name, though?”
Well, shit. Abort, abort. Now I look like a jerk. “Of course,” Patrick lies. “He’s fine with me calling him that, don’t worry. It’s an inside joke between us.”
Pete still seems dubious, so Patrick quickly switches topics. “Anyways, want to hear some good news?”
“Oh, sure.”
“I’ve been moved up in the program,” Patrick says, watching as a smile forms on Pete’s face. “Apparently I’m being very cooperative.” Too cooperative. But not anymore.
“That’s amazing!” Pete says enthusiastically. “So, what does it mean?”
“Well… my calories are being increased.” Patrick swallows the nervous lump in his throat. Little do they know… “But my showers are no longer supervised.” A perfect opportunity to purge; I’ve perfected doing it quietly. “I can swap my scheduled snacks with some junk from the vending machine.” Which will be easy enough to hand off to the schizo. Maybe I’ll gaslight him a little so if anyone asks, he’ll be too preoccupied with denying my existence to let onto me skipping a snack. “Not much more than that. Oh, I do get to go on outings now. Maximum of four hours, they have to be set up at least twenty-four hours in advance by someone already on my visitor list, can’t skip any of my groups. But I can eat.”
“That’s awesome! We gotta celebrate this– any ideas?”
Patrick shakes his head, but smiles a little. “I’ll try to come up with something. Gives me something to think about while spacing out, I guess. It’ll be nice to get to hang out with you one-on-one, not in some crowded visiting room…”
“Totally! Gabe and Ryan and Jon will be so excited too, I feel bad leaving you out of everything we’ve been doing. Maybe we could all see a movie, get some pizza…”
“Oh.” Patrick hides his disappointment behind his now worn-thin smile. “Yeah. I’m sure it’d be great to hang out with the others.” But pizza? Really? That’s a fucking calorie bomb. “I mean, I’ll have to think more on it.”
“Yeah, no problem. We might have to wait a few days anyways. I’ve got another meeting tomorrow, and Gabe said he might be doing a small interview with a magazine in a few days, Jon is… well, Jon. We’ll make it work, though. I’ll pencil you in.”
But Patrick doesn’t want to be penciled in. He wants Pete to clear his entire schedule just for him. He’s literally in the fucking mental hospital after a health scare, and he still can’t have all of Pete’s attention? “Oh. That’s alright. I get it, you want to get stuff done in L.A.”
Pete nods. “Thanks for being so understanding. It’s just a lot with Jon, you know?”
Jon isn’t in the fucking HOSPITAL!!! Patrick seethes, I bet you’re not even doing anything to help him, just letting Ryan put the entire burden on himself. “Yeah. I get it. Too busy with Jon and business and wedding-planning… yeah. I get it.”
Never mind the fact that after Pete’s attempted overdose in a Best Buy parking lot, Patrick had visited him at the hospital as soon as he could. And although the band did have a small U.K. tour to go on with a substitute bass player while Pete recuperated, Patrick made sure to call him whenever he got the chance and emailed him as many pics as Yahoo Mail would let him attach. When they finally got back, despite the jet lag, Patrick would manage to coax Pete out of his room every so often to watch whichever of his favorite movies Patrick had rented from the Blockbuster down the street that day. He knew Pete’s wellbeing wasn’t exactly dependent on him, but Patrick did the best he could in between his own issues (re: his developing bulimia).
Was it too much to expect Pete would at least make more of an effort, when Patrick was stuck thousands of miles from Chicago and his family and few remaining friends? Visiting everyday was nice, but even that’s now unreliable.
Patrick starts to consider faking a mental breakdown later, just so a nurse would shoot him up with sedative. He’s understandably tired of being sober. But then he’d probably have his new privileges taken away, and Patrick is already barely flying under the radar as is.
So, he plays a board game with Pete, and selfishly wishes for a little more attention.
For once, it seems the universe listens.
William faints in the shower.
He really doesn’t know why. He’s only been fasting for a few days, after all.
“I don’t really get it,” he says, shivering on the bathroom floor with his cell phone held up to his ear. “I have plenty of fat to burn. It doesn’t make sense. One moment I was scrubbing my hair, and those black dots were getting bigger and bigger, but I really felt fine.”
“Bill,” Z says. “You need to eat.”
William laughs, his bruised knees shuddering. “No, I don’t. You’re being ridiculous. We’re almost done fasting anyway–”
“I’ll eat if you do too–”
“ No!” He almost sounds offended at the idea of her eating. “I mean, I don’t want to do that to you. We can make it a little while longer…”
“Look, William, you know perfectly well what you’re doing. You’re exercising, you’re not drinking enough water… also, you already put your body through years of anorexic hell. Even after a few years of recovery, you don’t have the same limits you did as a teenager. Now you’re nearing your thirties and–”
“And it’s no excuse for me to get fatter,” he finishes.
“You’re in deep,” Z mumbles. “Barely two weeks of relapsing, and you’re fainting in the shower.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Maybe we should stop,” Z admits, although William detects a hint of doubt in her tone. “I don’t want to hurt you…”
“Baby,” William interrupts, doing his best to portray a sense of assuredness, “I know how to be an anorexic. You’re fretting over nothing, really. I’m going to be fine, and you’re going to be fine, and we’ll be skinny before we know it.”
“It’s going to catch up to you,” she continues to insist. “It sure caught up to Patrick. You’re not… scared?”
“No. Are you?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then I don’t see why you’re panicking over this. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll eat something, but I do know what I’m doing. Really.”
“Okay.” Z pauses. “But… well… do you think you’ll be in L.A. anytime soon?”
“Why?” William asks. “I’m sure I’ll get out there at some point.”
“I just miss you,” she confesses. “It would make me feel a whole lot better if we were doing this together. Like, not just Skype calls and texts. If we could really look after each other.”
“I miss you too,” William says. “I do know what I’m doing. But if it would make you feel better, I suppose I do have a lot of miles saved up… and maybe we could pay Patrick a visit while we’re at it, too…”
“Please?” Z’s pout is evident by her tone. “You already know how many inches I’ve lost off my thighs, imagine wrapping your hands around them now…”
William moans, even though he doesn’t even have the energy to be horny. Maybe an apple and a black coffee will fix that. “You make a compelling case.” One hand braced against the countertop, he slowly stands, knees shaking. “I’ll get my laptop and order myself a ticket right now. Plus a snack, of course, if it makes you feel better.”
“You’ll definitely burn it all off walking around O’Hare and LAX,” Z adds. “Maybe eat a little extra– I don’t want you passing out on me while we’re getting reacquainted with each other.”
“Whatever you want, babe.” Maybe two apples, then.
.
As Pete climbs into the driver’s seat, he pauses with his seatbelt buckle in hand and sniffs the air, then glances around the car. “Did something die in here? Jesus, what is that smell?”
Gabe sniffs the air. It’s considerably better since he’d opened the windows, but unfortunately still lingers. “Oh, damn. Maybe there’s a skunk nearby?”
“That is not what a skunk smells like."
“Maybe in California it is.”
“But aren’t they nocturnal?” Pete sniffs the air again. “That’s totally not a skunk. It’s like… rancid, man.” He reaches over to the glove box, clicking it open. “Did someone leave rotting food in here or something? The rental car place is going to fucking have it if they didn’t clean this out…”
“I’ll check under the seats,” Gabe offers, getting out of the front seat to pretend to look underneath. “Nothing here.”
“Look in the back.”
Gabe opens the back doors and checks under the seats. Nothing, of course. “Maybe if we just keep the windows open, it’ll go away.”
Pete sighs. “Yeah, maybe it’s some trash or some sewer drain nearby. It’s L.A. after all. But if it’s not gone later…”
Gabe slams the back door shut and slides back into the front. “So, how was Patrick?”
“Oh, it was great,” Pete says, as he turns the radio back on and lowers the volume, filling the car with pop. “We can take him out on outings now. They have to be approved beforehand though. I’m thinking whenever we’re all free…”
“It seems a little soon,” Gabe points out. “I was at the hospital for over a month before I was allowed to go out with you.”
“Apparently he’s been really getting with the program.” Pete puts the car into reverse, eyes darting back and forth as he pulls out of the parking spot. “It does seem a little quick, considering how long he’s had an eating disorder for. I thought he’d be a little more resistant, but hey, I’m not complaining. Maybe the idea of getting the band back together is more motivating than I thought it would be. Gives him something to get better for, right?”
“It is odd…” Gabe nods. It’s a little too fast for his taste– although it’s a selfish thought, he was hoping Patrick would at least have the decency to wallow in guilt first. Through gritted teeth, he mumbles, “Good for him.”
“I just can’t wait to move on from all of this. Get our lives in order, make music again, get married. It’ll be really nice to finally have some normality and stability.” As Pete stops the car before turning onto the road, he reaches over and lays a hand over Gabe’s. “I’ve been waiting to relax for so– what is that on your shirt?”
Gabe’s hand bolts to his shirt, where Pete stares; his fingers land on wetness. The stain on his white shirt is evident. So not all the vomit landed in the plastic bag, after all.
“I…” Gabe sputters, but the truth is so obvious he can’t hide it from Pete. Quietly, he admits, “I… well, I…I purged the bagel.”
Pete’s lips purse. “So that’s why the car smelled…”
Gabe nods.
Pete opens his mouth, but a car honks from behind them, complaining they’re blocking the parking lot exit. “We’ll talk about this when we get back.”
“It’s just one time,” Gabe promises. “I won’t do it again.”
“I want you to call your therapist,” Pete states. “I believe you, but… we just can’t do this again, Gabe. You saw what purging has done to Patrick. You won’t survive a relapse.”
That pisses Gabe off a little, because he knows he could. Pete doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he never has, he only cares when it’s convenient…
HONK! Interrupted again, Pete turns back to the wheel and drives, leaving Gabe to stew inside himself.
When William lands in LAX later that evening, he looks at his smartphone and briefly considers telling Gabe or Ryan he’s back once more. He shakes his head and then continues to grab his baggage.
As he waits at the baggage carousel in the crowd of fellow passengers, his phone begins to vibrate with a call. He recognizes the number easily; it’s Patrick calling from the hospital.
“Patrick!” William says, beaming despite the ache in his knees from walking and the soreness in his shoulders from lugging around his carry-on. “You’ll never guess where I am!”
“Your girlfriend already called to tell me you’re flying in,” Patrick says. “I know you’re just visiting because of her, but I appreciate that you’re going to make some time for me.”
“Of course, how could I not?” William says. “When should I visit, so I don’t run into Pete? I don’t think it’s the best idea to run into him just yet.”
“Even better than that, you can take me out for a few hours.”
“Oh! Amazing!” William grins, but then sympathetically asks, “So… I’m guessing that means you’ve gained?”
“It’s mostly water weight so far,” Patrick says. “But as part of it, my calories are being increased. I’ve figured out a plan, though. No need to worry about me. I think I’ll be able to get out of here soon with minimal damage.”
“Good, I’m glad you’re taking it in stride. Anything you want to do in particular?”
“Not really, honestly. Pete suggested a movie and pizza, so feel free to steal that idea from him.”
“Sure. Movie and pizza, got it. When should we pick you up?”
“You’ll have to call the hospital yourself to arrange it. You’ve always been on my visiting list, so it should be a breeze. It has to be at least twenty-four hours from now and it can’t cut into any of my groups… so two days from now will work. I don’t think Pete will be able to visit on that day, anyway. Another meeting or something.”
“Great. I’ll arrange it as soon as I get to Z’s.” Spotting his suitcase on the carousel, William rushes toward it. “I see my suitcase, so see you soon!”
Shoving his phone into his pocket, William fumbles for the handle, pulling with all his strength. Pain shoots up his arm, causing him to cringe and grit his teeth as his suitcase falls to the floor. He rubs his arm and quickly recovers, pulling the suitcase upright and the handle out. Nothing to see here.
“Recovery doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” Patrick’s therapist had forewarned him. “You need to learn how to deal with social situations and being faced with eating outside of a hospital environment, where nobody will be looking over your shoulder. Considering your progress, I think you’re ready for this.”
Patrick almost wants to laugh thinking of it now; leaving the hospital does not mean escaping supervision. William is just a replacement, watching him with intensity as they walk into the movie theatre and straight past the snack counter. The scent of buttery buckets of popcorn waft over, tugging at Patrick’s will. Almost reading his mind, William turns to him and says, “We don’t need snacks. We’re getting pizza later, after all.”
“Or we could just not eat at all,” Z teases, then laughs. “Just kidding. I haven’t eaten all day to prepare for this.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Patrick mutters.
William pats Patrick on the back. “Don’t fret. We understand.”
Despite his claim, Patrick sincerely doubts William would still be very understanding if he ate one too many slices of pizza. “What are we watching, anyway?”
“Some movie called Cosmopolis. It’s got Robert Pattinson in it.”
“Oh, the Twilight guy?”
William glares as he hands their tickets to a theatre employee. “He was also in Harry Potter, for your information.”
“Sorry, forgot you’re still obsessed with that.”
“I’m not that obsessed. Do you remember when the first movie came out, though?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Patrick shrugs. “I was a teen though, I didn’t really care.”
“Well, I was too, but I read the books as a kid, so I had to. Anyways, I just remember… it was a nice memory to eat out of a whole tub of popcorn–not that I ate the whole thing, I shared it with someone–but it was great, when I could just enjoy myself.” William sighs. “Now I bloat if I eat too many carbs. I’m in an eternal state of bloating.”
“So basically just being fat?” Patrick lightly jokes.
William doesn’t take the comment too kindly. “I’ll have you know I lost three pounds by fasting before I fainted in the shower.”
“Sorry man, I was just joking. I didn’t mean it like that…” Although, Patrick does think, three is nothing to brag about, unless he’s somehow incapable of water weight.
“Oh, of course.” William looks away, trying to ignore the heat creeping to his cheeks.
“Don’t worry baby,” Z reassures. “I can already tell the difference. Especially since it’s easier for you to fit three fingers inside of–”
“Holy shit, Z, I don’t want to know that!” Patrick shivers. “You could have just said his fingers look smaller and leave it at that. I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Well, the bathrooms are right there,” Z giggles, pointing behind them.
“When’d you eat breakfast, anyway?” William asks, an edge to his voice. “I’m sure you’d love to throw up no matter the circumstance.”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Patrick says flatly. “I doubt I’d get much up by this point, anyway.” Because I already purged it.
“Probably would be better to save your energy for purging pizza anyway,” Z says. “If you so choose, of course. I won’t judge if you eat or don’t eat, or go to the bathroom or don’t. Personally, I’ve already decided to chew and spit.”
“The pizza is going to be my only meal,” William chimes in, as they stop at the door to the theatre they’ll be seeing the movie in, and holds the door open for them to go in. Quieter, since they’re now in the theatre, he whispers, “I’ll probably only eat two slices.”
“We can give the rest of the pizza we don’t eat to the first homeless guy we see,” Z adds. “So really, this makes us such good people.”
Patrick can’t remember much about the movie afterward– being in treatment has unfortunately brought back his hunger cues with sudden force. All he can think about and concentrate on is the thought of food– the buttery aroma of popcorn floating around the theatre, the picture in his head of greasy and cheesy pizza. Empty used to be a comfortable and soothing feeling, one of numbness and staid confidence. Now, as he looks down at the pizza menu, his stomach growls with ferocity, and Patrick feels rather fat.
“This is going to be so expensive,” Patrick bemoans. “And we’re not even going to eat most of it.”
“Z will pay,” William says, eyeing her. “She’s got daddy’s money. Right, babe?”
Z lightly punches his shoulder. “For your information, I’m completely financially independent–”
“Because of that trust fund,” William finishes.
Z clears her throat. “Anyways, just don’t worry about the price. I already set aside money in my budget for my monthly binges. Either way, it’d be going to ‘wasted’ food.”
“Thanks, Z,” Patrick says, smile gritted because of the stabbing of his stomach. “I really appreciate it.”
“It’s the least I could do. I can’t imagine surviving a hellhole like an ED ward.”
Patrick eventually decides on a barbeque chicken pizza, while William and Z decide to split a spinach artichoke pizza with goat cheese. They also order beers, of course, subconsciously agreeing that alcohol calories don’t matter today. Patrick wonders if they’ve forgotten about his alcoholism problem or they just don’t care, but he doesn’t mind either way. He’s not going to drink that much; as he said in Run Dry, his mindset is still very much one more shot and then I’m quitting forever, and his therapist is too busy trying to work out his eating disorder issues to address that yet, plus the hospital’s Alcoholics Anonymous group can only do so much if Patrick doesn’t want to even reach the first AA step of admitting he’s powerless over alcohol.
Because he is in control, he tells himself as the waiter pries the cap off his beer bottle. He is so controlled he can quietly purge his breakfast, and walk straight past the theatre snack counter, and now he will eat as much pizza and drink as much beer as he wants before purging it all in the men’s bathroom. And nobody can even stop him.
The hunger takes on a new meaning, even though it worsens as the beer splashes into Patrick’s stomach and emphasizes the emptiness. Even when Patrick’s biological instincts scream at him to eat and ghrelin is ruthlessly stimulating his appetite, he can hold back, and he can stay on track. Isn’t it an accomplishment to overcome human nature? Isn’t an accomplishment to reach a level thought only accessible to divinity?
Then again, Patrick wonders what he’d be doing if William wasn’t there to judge him, and if he was with Pete instead. But he’s pretty sure this is much better than the alternative. He gets to drink, he gets to purge, he gets to freely talk about his eating disorder without any weird looks– this was why the Decaydance Weightloss Competition was created, because nobody else could understand it as much as the others.
When the pizza comes, it’s still hot and the oil’s bubbling is only just starting to fizzle out. The greasy smell is accosting, especially tinged with the bbq sauce the chicken is coated in. When it’s finally cooled down a little, the first bite is almost sin. Patrick can almost get lost in it. It’s better than any of the bland, heavy hospital food or the nasty meal supplement shakes. And the most exciting part is that he gets to throw it all up.
Then he opens his eyes and catches a glimpse of Z spitting her chewed pizza into a napkin, and William has only taken a small, delicate bite of his first slice, seeming as controlled and unaffected as ever.
Patrick decides now isn’t the time to gorge himself. No, not until he’s skinny again.
William only eats one and a half slices before declaring, “Wow, I’m stuffed,” and ordering another beer. Z chews and spits three slices before whining about her jaw being tired and shoving all the napkins into her purse to dispose of in the bathroom, saying she’d feel bad for the busser that would have to pick them up and that she wants to reapply her lipstick anyway.
Patrick supposes another beer wouldn’t hurt, either. After all, when will he get the opportunity to drink again?
“So,” William asks, leaning closer and taking a sip of his beer, “do you really never plan to try to recover? Even with all of Pete’s money behind you?”
Patrick shakes his head. “Pete can dump as much as he likes on hospitalizing me. In the end, I’m the only one who can decide whether it works or not. And it’s not going to.”
William nods. “Right. That’s what he doesn’t get. I’m sure he holds up Gabe as this shining example of recovery–”
“Oh totally.”
“--and what he doesn’t get is that it only worked because Gabe chose to actually try to recover. He had his epiphany or whatever that it wasn’t worth it. But different people value different things. And I think… I value my eating disorder and being skinny above all. Recovery wasn’t really recovery. It was just that I knew I had to grow up at some point, but that’s not much of a reason, is it?”
Patrick shrugs. “I’ve thought the same things. It’s not really motivating at all.”
“Exactly.” William nods, downing another gulp of beer. “And it’s like… I’m only going to ever have a successful solo career if I’m attractive. That’s the way things work. So I have to be skinny now. Maybe recovery could have been realistic if the band had stayed together, and we’d become popular enough that we already had enough fans who were dedicated enough not to care about how I look. I mean, I still do have those fans. Just not enough, not yet.”
“Well, look at how Soul Punk turned out,” Patrick points out. “I was skinny, and it still wasn’t enough.”
“It’ll be different for me,” William dismisses. “I’ve got some good material, and I’ll be skinny.”
“Are you saying Soul Punk wasn’t good?”
“No, no, not that. Of course not. But my manager says he believes in me.”
“So did mine,” Patrick says. “And I was more famous than you in the first place.”
“You were only famous because of Pete,” William fires back. “Let’s not get into this right now. You know what I’m trying to say, don’t twist it. I’m just saying that even though I technically have a mental illness according to the stupid DSM or whatever, this is a free country, and nobody can make me recover. It’s in my best interest to starve myself, and I’m sure you feel the same way.”
Patrick, peeved, swallows the rest of his beer. “Well, Bill, that’s fucking great. I’m going to go make myself throw up now and hope I don’t see any blood in the toilet.”
“Are you mad?” William scowls. “Don’t tell me you’re mad. You don’t have any fucking reason to be. You know it’s all true.”
“No,” Patrick snaps. “You just want to be a smartass.”
He storms off to the bathroom.
When Pete and Gabe arrive back at the apartment, they only exchange a short “Hi” with Ryan before heading off to the guest room– the air is thick with tension, as the meaning of the stain on Gabe’s shirt is blatantly obvious.
“How long have you been purging for?” Pete asks quietly, once they’ve shut the door.
“This was the first time in a few years,” Gabe says, throwing off his soiled shirt and kneeling on the floor to unzip his suitcase, taking out a fresh one. “But I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Ever since… ever since Patrick said he watched us.” He shivers, pulling the clean shirt over his head and tugging at the hem, trying to pull it down as far as he can. “I can’t see myself the same.”
Pete nods. “Yeah… I still haven’t fully gotten over it, either.”
“I don’t feel like you get it.” Gabe flops onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “He violated us and you’re paying thousands for his treatment and still considering getting the band back together.”
“I get it, but he’s so sick that he’s not even thinking right. I don’t even think it was Patrick making that decision.”
Gabe sits up straight. “Pete, this isn’t just us pulling our pants down and showing our dicks to each other on the tour bus while drunk. This was Patrick making the conscious decision to watch us have sex without our consent and then telling us, like he’s fucking proud or something! I don’t care how sick you think he is– I never did that shit while I was starving myself. And by letting it go so easily, you’re telling him that this is okay. What about me, Pete? I’m your fucking fiance!”
“It’s not that easy–”
“I fucking relapsed because of this. Do you even get it?”
Pete remains silent, absorbing Gabe’s words, and then asks, “What do you want me to do?”
“I’m not going to ask you to stop paying for his treatment or visiting him. That wouldn’t make me any better than him. But I think you really need to reconsider whether to get Fall Out Boy back together.”
“It’s the only thing keeping him going–”
“I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying to reconsider it. He should have thought about it before he watched us fuck. There needs to be real consequences, Pete.”
“I will. Really, I will. I see what you mean. Anything else?”
“I want to talk to him,” Gabe says. “I want to make him understand. And then I never want to see him again.”
“Done and done. And… what about the relapse? Do you want to talk to me more about it? Or talk to Ryan? Or… tell your therapist?”
“I’ll give my therapist a ring about it and decide what to do from there, and… I’ll do my best to be completely honest with her. Maybe I’ll talk about it with you again eventually, but not right now. I’ve already said enough, I don’t want to say something I’ll regret.”
“Okay. Yeah. As long as you’re talking about it with someone.” Pete nods. “I promise, babe, I will consider it. I don’t want to hurt you. The money doesn’t matter as long as you’re happy.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘happy,’” Gabe says. “Just able to breathe.”
“Okay. Well, as long as it helps.” Pete sits down on the foot of the bed. “I didn’t mean to diminish what he did to us. I thought things could go on how they were before, since we hadn’t talked since we went our separate ways. I never thought he could change so much– to me, he was always this ginger-haired teenage prodigy who wore dorky hats and vests, but that person is gone. He’s been gone a long time. And it’s time I accept that, because… he would never do something like that. He would just sit in the corner and innocently cry over a fruit salad, right?”
The days before I crushed his dreams by fucking you, Gabe thinks. He silently sits up and crawls across the bed to wrap his arms around Pete’s shoulders, nuzzling his nose into his fiance’s neck. “Right,” he whispers.
Pete places a hand over one of Gabe’s, stroking his finger over the cool engagement ring. “I don’t even know the real reason why he did that.”
Gabe wonders how Pete still doesn’t get the hint. “Maybe we shouldn’t know. Maybe it’s for the best.”
Patrick knows something is wrong when there’s a moment of silence as the nurse glances between her clipboard and the number on the scale not visible to him. Then he hears her pen scrawling it down, and there’s a hardness in her voice as she instructs, “Step off.”
Patrick gets off the scale and feigns innocence, grabbing his blanket from the chair and wrapping it around him. “Can I go?”
“Not yet. Wait here.” She opens the door to the hallway to call in another nurse, and Patrick’s heart starts to pound. Something is really wrong.
I must be gaining too much weight, Patrick thinks. An unnatural amount. Probably ten pounds overnight. I’m going to be diagnosed with hypothyroidism, and I’ll never be able to lose weight again– no, they’ll claim I was ‘water loading’ and never think something is wrong with my metabolism, and they’ll never believe me again, and Pete will keep me here forever…
The second nurse comes in, and that’s when the questions start. “The scale shows you’ve lost weight. What’s going on? Have you been skipping any of your meals, and how have you been doing it? Do you have any contraband items in your personal belongings to give up now? Diuretics? Diet pills?”
Patrick blinks, stunned. “What?”
“How have you lost weight, Mr. Stump?” the second nurse demands. “There are rules to this program–”
“I know the rules,” Patrick snaps. “And I’m not breaking any of them. You can talk to my therapist, if you want. Or the doctors. I’m not doing anything, and you can search my stuff all you want, but I’m not doing anything to lose weight! How much have I even lost, huh? It’s just negligible water weight and it’ll be back tomorrow.”
However, his confidence does nothing to sway either of the two dubious nurses hardened by experience. “You can tell us now,” they tell him, “because either way, according to procedure, your room will be searched. You might have a chance of staying at Level 2 if you tell the truth now, but if not and you continue to lose weight, someone will find out what you’re doing. And trust me, it’s not fun. You won’t even be able to use the bathroom without a male nurse to watch you.”
Even though Patrick knows exactly what he’s been doing, he’s a little offended. He’s not a crazy, disobedient patient that doesn’t know what’s good for him. He’s normal, and he’s fat, and he’d fit in at a Weight Watcher’s meeting much better than an ED ward. Besides, what could they find? He’s not hiding anything (okay, maybe he had traded a sharp he’d found, an insignificant thumbtack a visitor must have dropped, for a few laxatives, but they’re all gone now.)
Plus, he’d already used his roommate’s schizophrenia to his advantage by dropping little hints here and there; AKA post-it notes on which he’d written phrases like ‘Patrick isn’t here’ and ‘Nobody will believe you if you say anything about Patrick, and if anyone asks about him, they’re testing you!’At first Patrick was skeptical it would work in the first place– after all, it was such a weak attempt. But somehow it seemed to do the trick, since his roommate was now having a bout of insomnia and in the middle of the night he’d hauntedly watch Patrick pace their tiny room in disbelief.
The guy had mentioned something about his antipsychotic dosage being adjusted, but hey, that wasn’t Patrick’s fault, just an unintended consequence. Not like he ever thought the schizo was getting out anytime soon anyway.
Despite the turning of Patrick’s stomach–or is that acid reflux?-- he knows his alibi is solid. Sort of. Kind of. But he’s been extremely careful not to leave behind a paper trail, and he’s not losing his place in the program, not after he worked so hard. Freedom isn’t exactly close enough to taste, but he can smell it.
“Okay,” he says. “Then search my belongings. You won’t find anything.”
Turns out, Patrick did leave behind an aforementioned paper trail, and quite literally. He’d thought he’d hidden his thinspo collages quite well– he’d stuffed them inside a thick sweater and folded it–but rather than place it aside, the nurse ended up unfolding the sweater. The skinny models and underfed twelve year-old fell to the floor, easily confessing Patrick’s guilt by the emptiness in their eyes.
Then, they showed him the post-it notes. “Did you write and plant these so Nash would find them?”
“Who’s Nash?” Patrick asks.
“Your roommate.”
Oh. Patrick hadn’t even bothered to learn his name. “No. Must have been someone else.”
They’re still laying lazily in bed, wrapped up in each other’s warmth, when Pete’s phone starts ringing. He groans, sitting up. “It’s so early.”
Gabe opens his eyes and squints in the sunlight coming through the cracks in the curtains, rolling over. “The clock says it’s ten already.”
“Feels early.” Pete picks up the vibrating smartphone. “Damn, it’s the hospital. Hang on.”
Gabe stretches and sits up, swinging his legs over the bed. Patrick usually calls much later, so it must be some other matter, like insurance billing or whatever. While Pete does that, Gabe figures he’ll pick out an outfit for his interview later and steal some of Ryan’s greek yogurt in the fridge. Maybe even top it with berries and granola. Yum.
“Patrick?” Pete’s voice is raw. “Why are you crying? What happened? Are you okay?”
Gabe freezes. His body fills with dread. Well, there goes everything I said last night.
“Okay,” Pete says sympathetically, as he tries to follow Patrick’s jumbled words. “Okay… uh-huh… okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah, I’m sorry, that’s horrible, holy shit… okay… uh-huh. Wait, what did they find in your room?”
In the moment of silence, Gabe can hear one word from the phone: Patrick’s sob of “Thinspo!”
Pete scrubs a hand through his cropped hair as he absorbs the blow. “Shit. But that’s like… what did they say was thinspo? Because if it’s just some random magazine they’re trying to claim is bad, I’ll defend you on that at least… oh. He sent you that?”
Gabe must have been staring, because Pete notices and silently mouths to him, William.
Gabe nods dazedly, eyes wide.
Now, as Pete listens to Patrick, his murmurs of comfort disappear. Instead, he’s entirely silent, his grip on the phone tight, his other fist squeezing the bedsheets. There’s a sharpness in his eyes, a tenseness in his shoulders. It’s very easy to tell when Pete Wentz is pissed.
“That bastard,” Pete grumbles. “That fucking bastard.”
Gabe has the good sense to quietly leave the guest room and get his greek yogurt.
“Morning,” Ryan says to Gabe from the kitchen table, where he sits across from Jon and a mostly-full glass of smoothie. “Pete still asleep?”
Gabe shakes his head as he opens the fridge and takes out the container of greek yogurt. “No. He’s… um… important phone call. Do you have granola?”
Ryan points to the cabinet next to the fridge. Gabe opens it and grabs the granola. “Any fun plans for today?” he asks.
“Just trying to finish a smoothie,” Jon complains begrudgingly. “I mean, not that I’m not grateful. It’s a good smoothie, it’s just…”
“You’re afraid there’s an unblended piece of ice you’ll choke on,” Ryan kindly finishes. “And there isn’t, because even if there was, it would have melted by now.”
Jon pokes the glass. “I don’t know, it’s still kinda cold…”
Ryan tries exchanging a quick look with Gabe, who, rather than getting involved, would rather turn back to sprinkling granola over his yogurt.
“You can do it,” Ryan tells Jon. “It’s a smoothie. You can’t possibly choke on a smoothie.”
“Well, I mean it’s possible I could–”
“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL WILLIAM BECKETT!”
Startled, the spoon Gabe holds clatters to the counter as Pete storms into the living room and starts shoving on his sneakers, the rental car keys jingling in his hand. While both Ryan and Jon stare perfectly slack-jawed, Gabe recovers from the shock enough to race into the living room and ask, “Babe, what’s going on? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to fucking kill him!” Pete repeats. “You know what he did? Guess. Guess.”
“Um… what?”
“He flew to California to take Patrick out and purge pizza!” Pete states. “He’s been encouraging him to get sicker and fucking sicker, even though he was just hospitalized– and he’s lucky he didn’t fucking rupture anything yet, but do you know how close he is?” He holds up two pinched fingers. “ This close! That motherfucker Bill is going to kill him!”
Gabe finds himself feeling… sorry for Patrick? “Holy shit.”
“I know. And all this behind my back!” Pete growls. “I need to do something about it now. I don’t want that fucking dick to even think of touching him again–”
“Okay, I get that, and I definitely don’t want William to either because… because that’s just despicable!” Gabe spits. “But you are not murdering anyone. Take a minute and then go chew him out. I’ll drive.”
“I know, but–”
“Babe,” Gabe states, “I don’t think you’re really in the right mood to confront him.”
“Of course I’m fucking not, but not even mood stabilizers are going to stop me from being pissed…”
“How about I confront William?” Gabe asks. “I think maybe… maybe I can talk to him calmly at first. See what he says. I mean, nothing can justify what he did to Patrick, but he’s definitely got to be going through something too to act like this… he trusts me, and if I go in calmly, maybe…”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like that can be reasoned with.”
“But I don’t want you getting arrested if you take a swing at him.”
“I would not.”
“You were just screaming about killing him.”
“Taking a swing is totally different from murder, man.”
Gabe stifles the urge to roll his eyes. “Is that a yes or no to my idea?”
“Well… I don’t have anything against it. Maybe you are better at this kind of thing… but are you sure? I know how you feel about Patrick. You don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to.”
“I got involved the moment I joined the Decaydance Weightloss Competition. This is my problem, too.” And an excuse to skip breakfast.
Woken by the knocking on the door, William bolts up and groans. “Who the fuck is that? Did you invite anyone over?”
Z shakes her head and buries her head into the pillow, tugging at William’s arm. “Ignore that. Probably a salesman or something.”
“Maybe you should check. In case it’s the landlord or something.”
“He always texts me before he comes over.”
“I don’t have that much faith in any landlord.”
“Fine, fine, I’ll check.” Z rolls out of bed and drags herself out of the bedroom to the door. A few moments later, she runs back. “Gabe’s here.”
“What? He shouldn’t even know I’m here yet.” William stretches his arms and yawns. “I guess I’ll see what he wants. Would you mind making the coffee this morning, sweetheart? I’ll take mine black again.”
While Z goes into the kitchen and measures out coffee, William finally answers the door. He grins at their surprise guest. “Gabe! What brings you here?”
Meanwhile, Gabe’s expression is grimly serious, as bitter as the black coffee brewing. “Hey Bill, we need to talk. Mind if I come in?”
“Sure. Z’s making coffee, you want any?”
“Thanks, that would be great.” Gabe steps into the apartment. “I don’t suppose you guys have creamer and sugar, do you?”
“Um…” William looks at Z, who shakes her head. “Probably not. But we have Stevia. And almond milk.”
“That’ll do, I guess.”
They sit across from each other at the kitchen table, and by the way Gabe folds his hands and his eyes land straight on him, William knows he means business. “Patrick called Pete this morning. And we’re… well, we’re extremely concerned for him. I’m not here to accuse you of anything, but I think you know what I’m talking about.”
William feigns a look of innocence as Z places their mugs on the table. He takes a sip of his bitter coffee and then says, “I’m not really sure what you’re referring to.”
“The nurses found a bunch of thinspo in his room that you sent him,” Gabe says, “and you took him out to purge pizza last night.”
He picks up his coffee and takes a sip as he waits, his eyes never leaving William’s. Rather than get involved, Z busies herself with wiping down the kitchen counters so it isn’t as blatantly obvious she’s eavesdropping.
William leans back in his chair and taps his fingers against the table, mulling over Gabe’s statement.
“Look,” William begins, sitting up straight again. “Patrick is twenty-eight years old. I didn’t force him to do anything. He’s capable of making his own decisions. He asked me to send the thinspo, and he’s the one who decided to purge last night– I didn’t tell him to do that.”
“You’re still enabling him.” Gabe curls his fingers tighter around the mug. “You’re the one who agreed to send him thinspo. And you didn’t even try to stop him from purging.”
William shrugs. “And?”
“The reason he’s in a hospital is because he isn’t in the right state of mind. He’s starved himself for so long he can’t think right. You’re fucking up the entire recovery process. Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
“He doesn’t want to recover,” William answers straightforwardly. “And you can’t make him if he doesn’t want to.”
“Because he’s sick.”
“He can have as much osteoporosis and arrhythmia as he wants. Even if his body has eaten up all the gray matter in his brain, I’m not going to stop him. Face it, Gabe, it’s too late for him. He’s been doing this for too long, and no matter how long you lock him up, he’ll never really get better. Even if you fatten him up and pacify him with Zoloft, all that resentment is going to build up underneath. As soon as you let him go, he’ll go back to his old ways. At this point, it’s a terminal illness. And if the cancer patient wants to be taken off chemo, we let him go peacefully.”
Gabe grits his teeth. “This is nothing like cancer. You’re just as sick as him.”
“And you’re just in denial,” William spits back. “I’m very happy for you, Gabe. But not all of us can recover.”
The remark stings. “You worked so hard to get better too. And you’re just going to give up to be a sad, starving bitch again?”
“It’s more than a sickness–”
“Oh boy, here we go. Gonna start talking about ‘Goddess Ana’ now, too?”
“It’s a lifestyle choice, as much as keto or intermittent fasting–”
“Those aren’t even lifestyle choices, those are diets! Anorexia is literally in the fucking DSM, it’s a goddamn mental illness!”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, it does! It’s ruined our lives, and I’m shocked none of us are dead yet after how much fucking fainting we did on stage!”
“You’re just jealous of Patrick,” William seethes, “because you’re fat.”
Gabe’s fingers twitch. “What did you just say?”
“I said that you’re f–”
Z throws down the wet rag she’s been using to scrub the kitchen counter with a wet slap! “Gabe.” The way her voice trembles would let onto anger, if not for the vague terror that dilutes her eyes. “I think it would be best if you left.”
Gabe glances between her and William. He can’t exactly read her expression– she’s wiped her face of all emotion, but she’s very still. William is unmoving as well, but his irritation is clear.
Gabe rises from his chair, walks to the door, and gently shuts it behind him.
Before the two can sigh a breath of relief, they hear Gabe kick a wall and scream from the hallway: “SEE YOU AT YOUR FUNERAL, YOU FUCKING ANOREXIC!”
Two days later, Pete receives a call from his mom. “When were you going to tell me you’re engaged?”
Pete stops in the middle of the cereal aisle. He and Gabe had offered to do the grocery shopping while Ryan and Jon worked on songwriting. “What? Where did you hear that?”
“The neighbor. You know Katherine next door, she gave us peanut butter cookies the last time you visited? Anyway, she showed me some tabloid she found in line at the pharmacy this morning, and lo and behold, you and Gabe were on the cover!”
“Mom, you know you can’t trust the tabloids.”
“Well, is it true or not?”
“Yeah, but we only just got engaged a few weeks ago– I was planning for us to fly to Chicago to tell you about it in person, but the whole thing with Patrick happened and… I’m so sorry, Mom, it’s been a lot lately. It was supposed to stay a secret from everyone for now, I don’t even know who could have told!”
“I understand, I know Patrick’s situation has been a lot of stress on you. You’ve always cared for that boy a lot; I hope it’s not taking a toll on you, too. Especially with just finding out that you’re in a tabloid.”
“Thanks, Mom. Don’t worry, we’re used to the headlines by now.” Pete taps the handle of the cart, glad the cereal aisle is currently empty. “I just wish we could have announced the news on our own terms, when we’re ready.”
“I could keep it a secret from your father so it’s still a surprise for him, although with it being all over the news…”
“Maybe it’s better he finds out from you first. We’ll celebrate it next time I visit… do you know which tabloid? I’m in the grocery store, I’ll pick it up right now.”
Then Gabe comes down the cereal aisle and flings two packs of tofu into the cart. Seeing the look on Pete’s face, Gabe furrows his eyebrows. Pete holds up a finger to tell him, one minute, and walks off with his phone still to his ear, leaving Gabe with the cart.
Pete returns a few minutes later, holding a magazine in his hands. Now off the call, he sheepishly hands over the magazine and tells Gabe, “Someone leaked the news about our engagement. My mom said congratulations, by the way.”
“No way.” Gabe clutches the magazine, staring at the cover. The headline reads, PETE WENTZ AND GABE SAPORTA’S SECRET ENGAGEMENT REVEALED! Underlaid is a sneakily-taken picture of Pete and Gabe standing on Ryan’s porch, with their engagement rings circled and zoomed in upon. “Oh my gosh, they seriously had to take the photo from this angle? It makes the fat under my chin look even worse!”
“You look fine to me, babe… are you more upset about that than our engagement being leaked?”
“No, of course I’m pissed about that too. But they should at least try to make look flattering if they’re gonna plaster this across every fucking grocery store checkout in America!” Gabe hastily flips through the magazine, probably tearing a few pages in the process, and lands on the article.
Pete Wentz and Gabe Saporta were recently spotted wearing engagement rings on a friend’s porch. According to a trusted source close to the couple, it isn’t just a rumor– the Fall Out Boy bassist and Cobra Starship vocalist, who have been dating since 2008, have shared the news of their engagement with a few close friends. “Pete proposed to Gabe during a romantic getaway to a cabin on the coast of Massachusetts,” said the trusted source. “It’s about time.”
Although the couple has yet to confirm the news, their engagement comes as a happy surprise to those who have been following their relationship over the years. In a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone, Saporta revealed that his struggles with anorexia caused the relationship to become quite tumultuous…
“I can’t fucking believe it!” Gabe throws the tabloid to the ground, tears in his eyes. “Fuck them! We get engaged and the first thing they write is basically: what a shock the anorexic is happy! Fuck them! Seriously, fuck them!”
Gabe throws his arms around Pete and cries– he’s a little too tall to cry into Pete’s shoulder, so he sobs into his hair. Pete hugs him tightly and rubs his back. “I know, baby. The fucking gall they have…”
“Now everyone’s going to be calling me and asking why I didn’t tell them first…” Gabe pulls back, sniffling. “Who told them? Who could have fucking done it? We’ve barely told anyone!”
“Let’s see… we told Ryan, Jon, Patrick, and William so far. And they’re the only ones who could know I proposed at the cabin.”
“William,” Gabe hisses under his breath. “I know it’s him. He’s getting back at us for trying to tell him to leave Patrick alone.”
Pete nods. “I think so, too.”
“I can’t fucking believe him,” Gabe spits. “Not that I was ever going to invite him to our wedding, but he’s definitely not coming now.”
“We need to call our managers, and tell all our family and draft a statement quick. ” Pete groans. “Do you mind finishing the grocery shopping? It’s only a few more things I think… just more frozen fruit for Jon’s smoothies. I’ll go in the car to make a couple of calls.”
Gabe sniffles again. “Yeah. Just give me a minute in the bathroom to freshen up. Wait here.”
“Of course, babe. Take as much time as you need.”
Rubbing his eyes to make sure the last of his tears are dried, Gabe speed-walks out of the cereal aisle and toward the front of the store to the bathrooms. Luckily, he doesn’t feel the weight of any stares at him– the few shoppers this afternoon are stay-at-home mothers more focused on keeping their children from putting candy in the cart than caring about a red-eyed celebrity hurrying past.
Although he tries to keep his eyes down, while walking past the cash registers, Gabe spots the magazine with his and Pete’s faces printed across it for the world to see. His throat tightens, and the tears start to swell in his eyes again. He picks up the pace and walks faster.
Then, he stops in his tracks, spotting another magazine with two more familiar faces on it.
Gabe snatches the tabloid. “William, you fucking didn’t.”
Guitar in his lap, Ryan stares down at the magazines Gabe had handed to him and Jon. The first reveals the secret of Gabe and Pete’s own engagement– the other announces their own. PANIC’S RYAN ROSS AND JON WALKER ARE ENGAGED! FIRST GAY EMO WEDDING???
“Of course the bastard decided one magazine payment wasn’t enough,” Ryan grumbles. “Of course. And ‘first gay emo wedding?’ We’re not even gay! And there’s no way we’re the first same-sex emo couple to get married, either.”
“Probably the first famous one though,” Jon adds. “Unless Pete and Gabe get married first.”
“Do you want me to give you guys some time to absorb the news?” Pete asks. “Or do you want to–”
“We’re working on that statement right fucking now,” Ryan says. “The sooner, the better. Only if you’re okay with that, babe.”
Jon hesitates, then nods. “I think… that would be for the best.”
Gabe and I were not planning to announce the news right now, but it seems it got out anyway, so we’ll confirm it now: we’re engaged.
We were hoping to tell you guys later, when we could share more info with you. Something came up in our personal lives however, and we temporarily put it off. We know who told the press, and I’ll leave it at: Fuck you.
But I don’t think anything could ruin our excitement– we’ve been dreaming of this for what feels like forever, and we can’t wait to share more about our engagement and wedding planning when we get the chance.
-Pete
Okay, the rumor is true. Jon and I are engaged! He proposed at my birthday party, and I wouldn’t change ANYTHING about it. It was absolutely perfect.
We were planning on telling our family and friends first, but someone beat us to the punch… really pathetic this so-called ‘trusted source’ went not only to one but TWO tabloids to get two separate payments for not only spilling the news of our own engagement, but also Pete and Gabe’s. Why didn’t you post it online instead of thinking you could hide it, you coward?
Fuck you, William Beckett.
Anyways, Jon and I can’t wait to be apparently the ‘first gay emo wedding’ or whatever you’d call it, unless Pete and Gabe beat us to it. We’re very happy for them too and sorry their announcement has to share the same fate as ours.
And don’t worry– while we’re still in the early stages of the next Young Veins album, we’re so passionate about these new songs that wedding planning won’t slow us down, although we don’t know yet how touring will shake out (but it’ll definitely happen eventually). Stay tuned!
-Ryan Ross
(AKA, the soon-to-be Ryan Ross-Walker)
P.S. Don’t you dare change my surname in my Wikipedia article just yet. Thanks.
lunchboxslut: my peterick dreams are CRUSHED!! What the fuck
RYDEN4LYFE: literally gonna kms rn
takethis2urgrave: ofc a bipolar person decides to marry an anorexic… pete plz take ur meds ilysm
bitchybilvy: unpopular opinion but bill has better things to do than spill some fake engagements to a tabloid. this is such a publicity stunt
whatacatchdean: which couple do you guys think will last longer? I can’t see wentzporta going anywhere tbh pete gives me cheater vibes (does nobody remember jeanae???)
miseryloved: i hate this he should have stayed with ashlee
The paparazzi show up bright and early the next morning, waiting with their cameras on the chance they may get a glimpse of the two couples.
“Gabe, you need to stop looking at Twitter,” Pete says, turning away from the living room window, where the curtains have been drawn.
“And you need to stop looking out the window,” Gabe responds, not taking his gaze from the laptop in his lap. “Why are there so many people that still care about you and Patrick? We’ve been together for like five years. They don’t even fucking know Patrick creeped on us– and if they did, they’d write a bunch of fanfiction about us having an orgy instead of taking it seriously.”
“I don’t know.” Pete ever-so-slightly peels back the curtain for another glance, then swiftly pulls the curtain back. “You get used to it after a while. Like how you got used to ‘Gabilliam.’”
Gabe pretends to gag. “Don’t remind me. I never want to hear that word again.”
Ryan walks in, brushing his teeth, and says with toothpaste dripping out of his mouth, “They still there?”
“What do you think?” Pete asks.
“Me and Jon were planning on a lunch date,” Ryan says. “He said he’d be open to trying ice cream. No way we’re stepping outside now, though.” He ducks back into the bathroom to spit out the toothpaste and rinse, then calls out, “Are you guys going out to visit Patrick?”
Pete and Gabe look at eachother, and then separately answer: “No!” “Yeah!”
Ryan pokes his head out of the bathroom. “What?”
“We’re going,” Pete insists.
Gabe points at the window. “They’re going to fucking follow us to the hospital and make it out like we’re pulling a Britney on them.”
“Nobody’s pulling a Britney, jeez. I can go alone–”
“But I’m not letting you go alone,” Gabe says. “Just call Patrick.”
“With everything that’s happened, I’m not doing it over the phone. It’s important he knows I’m still with him–”
“Do you even remember what we talked about the other day?”
“And then you did a complete 180 and offered to confront William instead of me.”
“Because I didn’t want you to punch anyone! I don’t automatically forgive Patrick, but Bill’s the greater evil here–”
“You’re just pissy because you haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”
“Oh, really? You think I’m still not mad at the fact Patrick violated us, or that the paparazzi are literally outside the door, but that eating will fix it? Fuck off.” Gabe slams his laptop shut and tucks it under his arm, storming to the guest bedroom. He slams the door behind him. Pete groans.
“He does have a point,” Ryan says gently, after watching the whole thing. “Give him some time to cool off.”
Pete nods, fists still clenched, and asks, “Will you come to visit Patrick with me?”
“Um…” Ryan’s eyes flick between the window and Pete. “I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”
“Guess I’ll be going alone.” Pete grabs his sneakers. “Make sure Gabe eats while I’m gone.”
“No, he’s not my fucking responsibility. Do you know how hard it is just trying to get to Jon to drink a fucking smoothie–”
“Fine, fine.” Pete finishes tying his sneaker and reaches for the door. “See ‘ya.”
Patrick stares down at the magazine in disbelief. “Pete… I’m so sorry.”
But hidden behind his somber expression, Patrick can’t help the warmth that bubbles up from his gut. He doesn’t want the engagement of his best friends to end in ruin, of course, but would it really be so bad? Pete would be so lonely, and Patrick would be there for him like he always is after a breakup, and then…
“William did it,” Pete states. “We released statements last night, and I’d say Ryan was less… tactful in his. I don’t think he even consulted his manager first.”
“Really, Ryan being less tactful than you? I’m shocked.”
Pete shoots Patrick an exhausted look. “Don’t. The fans who ship Peterick are telling me I need to take my meds. Like, what the fuck?”
“Ah.” If only it was that easy.
“Whatever, I’m just lucky I managed to lose the paparazzi on the way here. The last thing we need is another tabloid story about why Pete Wentz is walking into a mental hospital.”
“Right.”
“You… uh, have you spoken to William since what happened?”
Patrick huffs a sigh. He hates being reminded of what happened. Back at square one, not only can he no longer go out with friends, but he can’t take a shit alone and has to drink a supplement with both breakfast and dinner until further notice. He also had to switch roommates; he’s no longer allowed to talk to the schizophrenic (not that he cares) and now sleeps in the same room as a severely depressed hedge fund manager who attempted suicide two times. He’s a little more manageable, since he likes to talk about his three kids, golfing, and cocaine rather than how the government is out to get him. Also, he has no fucking idea who Patrick Stump is.
“Bill’s called me a few times,” Patrick admits. “He asked me for evidence that we’re getting the band back together, I guess so he could leak it too. I said no, obviously. Luckily he hasn’t tried to visit– I still need to see if I can take him off my guest list.”
Pete nods for a little too long. “You’ll have no problem with me backing you up on that. And I’m really glad you didn’t tell him anything about the band… but uh… we should talk about that.”
“Yeah. I’m guessing what I did lately set it back, huh?”
“Well… it’s not really because of that.” Pete wrings his hands, looking down at the table. “Gabe and I both agreed before this that it’s not really a good idea right now. He still hasn’t gotten over the fact that you… um, you watched us.”
“What?” Stung, Patrick leans back in his chair. “It took him this long to bring it up, huh? Look, dude, I was drunk–”
“I know, but even so… he doesn’t really think there’s any excuse. I mean, I tried to tell him it would be okay, but with the recent setback… I guess it doesn’t help my case. And he’s my fiance, so I have to listen to him. I’m not saying never to a Fall Out Boy reunion, but we can’t do it right now."
“But you’ve known me longer than Gabe,” Patrick chokes out.
“He’s my fiance.” Pete shrugs. “I can’t just ignore him.”
“He can’t just control you and tell you what you can and can’t do.”
“He’s not controlling. He asked me to listen and so I did– I didn’t have any other choice. He relapsed.”
“Awfully convenient time for a relapse,” Patrick remarks.
“You should know even better than I do that he’s not relapsing for fun,” Pete snaps. “He’s relapsing because ever since then, he’s felt violated.”
“That I saw you guys fucking, or that I saw how his fat ripples when you–”
“That’s it.” Pete shoots up from his chair. “I was hoping that at least with all the shit with William, you would have a breakthrough by now, but clearly I was wrong. If you want even a sliver of a chance of the band getting back together, you’re going to have to work for it. You’re going to have to fucking eat and realize how fucked up you are, because I don’t know any other reason for why you’d watch us. I don’t feel like I’m looking at Patrick anymore. I’m looking at a guy who’s almost thirty years old and still thinks making himself throw up and being soaked in sweat and mucus and spit makes him better than anyone else. You’re staying here no matter what until you can be released and you can do whatever the fuck you want to waste my own money, because I’m not letting you kill yourself, but it’s your choice whether you want me to actually support you or not. I’ll give you a few days to think about it. Bye, Patrick.”
Pete strides out of the visitor room. Patrick wipes away a tear.
He’ll come back, Patrick thinks to comfort himself. He’ll always come back. He’s too attached to me.
But Pete doesn’t need Fall Out Boy again as much as Patrick does, and he has a fiance to warm his bed and countless other friends to play tennis with, or maybe even create a new band. In fact, Patrick should be counting his lucky stars that Pete’s still covering the medical bills for a man he claims not to recognize anymore.
I don’t know if I can ever get better. However, the band depends on it, and so do Patrick’s chances with Pete if they even still exist at all.
He imagines touring with Pete again, singing new songs for crowds of screaming fans– maybe there wouldn’t be as many these days, although if Patrick was open about his bulimia recovery like Gabe was, it could certainly drum up some publicity. And touring would mean taking Pete away for a few months, having him all to himself… he knows Pete has cheated in the past, although not on Gabe, but being on tour with all that pent-up sexual frustration… something would have to give, right? It would be hard for Patrick to balance the line between ‘sick’ and ‘fat’ if he really did manage to recover, but with the music royalties that would flood in, he could certainly afford a personal trainer and a nutritionist to help him stay fit while keeping Pete’s worries at bay…
Even if it’s all just a fantasy now, if Patrick behaves himself, he knows he could get there eventually, as long as he wins back Pete and Gabe’s trust just long enough to set things in motion and make himself an irremovable part of their lives again… and then he’d get back what he’d always wanted. It would just take a few months of discomfort first.
But mark Patrick’s words, Pete would come back for him. He would.
Because of their understandable hesitance to step outside with paparazzi lurking outside, Ryan and Jon settle for working on music a little more, and as a little consolation for not being able to go out for ice cream, they take a break to watch a movie and share a pint of chocolate ice cream they found in the back of the freezer. Ryan isn’t sure what they’re watching, and he’s barely trying to pay attention, more occupied with memorizing the nutrition facts on the back of the ice cream container. It comes out to too much sugar, too much fat, too many calories, and Ryan secretly promises himself not to eat ice cream for a month after this.
When what’s left of the pint has started to melt and the credits begin to roll, Ryan doesn’t even bother to make a vague comment about the movie. Instead, the coiling anxiety in his stomach makes him blurt out, “We need to talk.”
Jon doesn’t look too surprised, considering the events of late. “What’s up?”
It comes out in a nervous rush. “I don’t think we should set a date for the wedding until… I think you should really start going to therapy, babe. I’m not a professional, and I can’t help you as much as someone who actually knows stuff about ARFID. I know you’ve already done exposure therapy as a kid and it didn’t work so well, but maybe it’s different now, and even though I want you to push yourself, if you just were able to eat your safe foods again that’d be enough for me–”
“I agree with you.”
Ryan blinks. “Wait, you do?”
Jon nods. “I was tired of just getting by, and now that the fear of choking is controlling me– I don’t want to live like this forever. It’s really not fair of me to put all this on you. I know it’s been difficult for you, especially since you’ve struggled with food, too, and the last thing I want to do is make you backtrack. And if you could get better… I think I can, too. I want to eat cake at our wedding.”
Ryan lightly smiles. “So you really don’t mind putting off the wedding? You’re not worried about all the people who’ll ask why we’re taking so long, or how long it’ll take?”
“The fans and press will be invasive no matter what we do. And maybe eating cake at our wedding is good motivation.” Jon lifts up Ryan’s hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “You underestimate how badly I want you to be Mr. Walker-Ross.”
“Stop being so sappy,” Ryan scolds, but he’s grinning, a tear dripping from his eye. “I don’t know why I was so worried about this. You’re just being the best boyfriend ever like usual.”
Jon wipes away the tear with his thumb. “You’re just used to dealing with anorexics.”
“Yeah, true. God, I used to be such a dick.” Ryan chuckles, and another tear drips down his cheek. “I’m so glad we’re going to have cake at our wedding. Why am I so emotional over this? Oh my gosh, I need to stop.”
“You’ve come a long way too.” Jon wipes away the second tear. “I’m not going to keep you waiting any longer. We’re going to eat cake at our wedding from the best bakery we can find in L.A, and we’re going to eat whatever we want on our honeymoon, and then we’re going to dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and milkshakes with our kids.”
“That sounds good.”
He should feel relieved, really. It’s a perfect ending– Jon will go to therapy and get better, they’ll get married and release another album and have kids.
But lurking underneath the surface, Ryan senses that’s not all there is to it; rising from the back of his subconscious is the thought of, “You need to be skinny for the wedding.” And it’s not a thought he can tell his therapist, not when he’s supposed to be doing so well, not when everything should be fixed and final, not when it’s a thought he should be able to easily rationalize away by now.
While kissing and tasting the sugar that lingers on Jon’s tongue, Ryan should be thinking of the cake they’ll have at their wedding; instead, he’s formulating new diet plans, opportunities to easily hide a fast from Jon, and how twiggy he’ll look when they take promo photos for their new music– everyone will be so jealous of how loose his clothes will fit on his shrinking frame, the exact picture of ‘60s boyish androgyny. When he records his vocals, there’ll be a slight wistfulness behind the lyrics, a purposefully mournful crack in the words. It’ll be such a beautiful, tragic aesthetic, one that nobody will forget.
But could their relationship handle another relapse? It really couldn’t be that horrible to grow up and accept the nonconstant nature of aging, right?
Just one more time, and then I’m done, he tells himself. Just one more time.
When told he has a visitor several days later, Patrick is surprised to see just Gabe waiting, rubbing his knuckles.
“Pete’s in the car,” Gabe says. “If you want to see him, I’ll tell him. But I wanted to talk to you myself first.”
Patrick nods and slides into the chair across from him. “I’m a little surprised, to be honest.”
“I wanted you to hear it out of my own mouth and not Pete’s. Maybe you’ll actually realize what you’ve done, or you’ll get some sick pleasure out of hearing it. I don’t care either way, because I might as well try.”
Patrick nods. He already feels sick just from the grim tone of Gabe’s voice. “I’m listening.”
“I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing,” Gabe states. “I know you have a crush on Pete. And everyone knows it but him. You should understand that he’d eventually move on since you never took your shot.”
“It’s not that easy–”
“Don’t interrupt me,” Gabe says coldly. “You had your chance. You had plenty of chances. You can come up with as many excuses as you want, but the fact is you never tried, and you never had any excuse to be pissed about it. You never had any reason to go this far.
“If you were waiting until you felt skinny to ask him out, or for him to notice you and take pity on you, I can get that– I’m disordered too, after all. But he doesn’t owe you anything, and I don’t either. You’re punishing the both of us for something he doesn’t even realize. And Pete deserves to know the truth. He deserves to know the real reason why I started purging again and why we haven’t sex since you watched us, because no matter how curtains we close or how tightly we lock the door, it’s not enough for me to feel secure, and it’s going to take a long time to get back to the level of trust we used to have, because I keep having nightmares that I don’t think I need to describe for you.
“I do want you to get better. I want it more than anything. And if you were better, I would love for Fall Out Boy to get back together again. But like I said, Pete deserves to know the full truth. You need to tell him you have a crush on him, and exactly why you watched us. I don’t want him to keep paying for your treatment and get the band back together without being able to make an informed choice. If you want to keep hiding it from him, fine– but if you love him so much, you should want the best for him too. I know the choice the real Patrick would make.”
Gabe inhales a breath, his stare lingering as Patrick’s reddening eyes water.
“That’s all I want to say,” Gabe says. “I stuck up for you against William. Don’t make me regret that decision. I still want to believe that you’re still buried deep in there. So here’s one last chance.”
Patrick nods, overwhelmed by the pressure in his nose and the tightness of his throat as he struggles to postpone his eventual sobbing. So many emotions swirl in the pit of his stomach that he can’t tell which will rise to the top: Denial? Rage? Inferiority? Depression? Guilt?
“Do you still want to talk to Pete? I can tell him to wait thirty minutes, or he can come back in a few days.”
Patrick swallows back the lump in his throat. “No, I’m ready to talk to him.”
He’s been thinking over the words he wants to say to him for days now, but they’ve all disappeared. Even if he doesn’t know what he’ll decide yet, there’s no way to put it off anymore. Patrick owes Pete an answer.
It’s only a question of whether it’ll be the honest answer, or the easy one.
“I’m sorry,” Patrick croaks as Gabe stands up.
“Then prove it.”
“Hi, I’d like to speak to a patient in the ED Unit… um, Patrick Stump… uh, tell him it’s William Beckett calling and it’s important… oh. Are you sure he doesn’t want to talk to me? It’s important… oh. Okay.”
“Still no luck?” Z asks between breaths, jogging on the treadmill in the apartment complex gym. William sits idly on a rowing machine behind her, shaking his head as he puts his phone away. “You can’t… say you’re not… surprised.”
“No, no, I guess I can’t. As long as Pete’s paying for Patrick to be stuffed up with oil and fat, he practically controls him.”
“You don’t need them,” Z exhales, her ponytail swishing back and forth with the cadence of her run. “You… you have me. And once your new music takes off…”
“But I do need them!” William grabs the handlebar of the rowing machine, roughly throwing himself back with a loud clank as he starts exercising again. “It’s the Decaydance Weightloss Competition! And if they don’t forgive me, my reputation is basically fucked, because everyone trusts Pete over me because he’s Pete, and everyone trusts Gabe because he’s a fucking ‘recovery warrior’ who gets praised for doing nothing, and everyone trusts Ryan because he’s Ryan, and everyone trusts Jon because… well, actually, I can understand that one. But you catch my drift, right?”
“Then just apologize,” Z suggests between breaths. “Tell them… you weren’t thinking right. They’ve known you too long… if you tried, they’d take you back.”
“But that probably involves recovery.”
“You can lie.”
William stops on the rowing machine, and considers the idea. “True… it’s not like they have to know every little detail. I’ve been in therapy before, and now that I’m done with it, I know all the things to say and do to fake progress.”
“Yeah…”
“I don’t know how I’d explain the weight loss, though. Do you think I could pretend I have a thyroid condition? What other medical conditions cause magical weight loss?”
“Um…” Face shining with sweat and eyes glazed over, Z is understandably occupied with jogging, so William keeps going.
“I mean, recovery doesn’t necessarily have to mean gaining weight if I’m pretending I’m just outpatient. Maybe we can pretend to start hiking or something. That burns a lot of calories. Oh, wait! We’ll just say I’m on some new depression or anxiety medication that suppresses my appetite, but I’m trying oh so hard to eat enough.” William snickers. “It’s perfect. They’ll totally believe that. What do you think?”
When William glances upward, it’s just in time to watch Z miss a step and collapse. The safety pin jerked out, the machine stops abruptly and beeps loudly as Z’s knees scrape the treadmill belt, head knocking into the handlebar before she slams backward onto the floor.
Pale. Still. Unconscious.
William races to her, screaming, “ Z!” and fumbles for her wrist, feeling for her pulse. Her forehead is cut a little, there’s blood on the floor, but her heart is still beating, and he can still feel her shallow breaths in the air.
“Z!” William yells, shaking her shoulder. “Wake up! Elizabeth! Fucking wake up– oh my fucking God, you’re scaring me, wake up, wake up!”
But her eyes remain closed. She’s unresponsive– oh fuck, she’s unresponsive, it’s all his fault, it’s all his fault…
911, you need to call 911, he manages to realize through his panic. He grabs his phone from his pocket, fingers shaking as he dials the three numbers.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My girlfriend won’t wake up, she fainted on the treadmill, she hit her head and she won’t wake up–”
And it’s all your fault. And it’s all your fault. And it’s all your fault.