Cover Girl | Kendall Knight

it will be life or death for you

James was walking me from the parking lot into the doctors office with his arm around me and trying to comfort me as best as he could. "You're gonna be fine, I promise. If you don't do this, then you probably won't be. This is to help you, okay? You'll make it through this."

I nodded, but didn't say anything. I was too focused on what was about to happen. Really it wasn't a big deal, but the worst case scenarios were just piling up inside my head one by one, and I was not physically or mentally prepared for any of them.

James held the door open for me and I hesitantly walked inside, pulling at the sleeves of the sweater I was wearing even though we were in L.A. and it was 90 degrees outside. James lead me around the corner and into the doctors office. Then I sat in a chair in the waiting room while he checked me in. I felt like a child, but I was also so incredibly thankful for him.

He came back and sat down next to me, letting me know there was no paperwork because they would prefer to ask these questions in person. I nodded again, gulping a bit as we waited in anticipation for the nurse. She finally came and called out my name after what seemed like an eternity, and I stood up, my hands shaking. I didn't know if they were shaking from my eating disorder or my anxiety, though.

"Who's this?" the nurse asked, gesturing back at James.

"Oh, he's just-"

"I'm her older brother," he quickly lied, cutting me off.

I snapped my head back, giving him a shocked and confused look, then mouthed the words, "what the fuck" to him. He just gave me a stern glance that told me I should just go along with it.

"Alright, well you can come back with us if you would like," the nurse said to James.

James nodded and got up, walking beside me as we followed the nurse into into a room down the hall. Once we got inside, James and I sat down next to each other on a bench in the corner of the room, and the nurse sat down on her spinny stool. She looked over some paper work, and then turned back to us. "So you're sixteen?" she asked, looking at me. I just nodded in response. "And how old are you?"

"Eighteen," James lied again, making me suck in a breath. But I didn't do anything else, even though I wanted to. He'd be turning eighteen soon anyways, so it wasn't that big of a deal, right?

"Okay, so will one of you explain to me why you're here? I'd just like to here it straight from you, if you don't mind," the nurse said, her voice soft and smile sweet.

"I believe she has a very serious eating disorder," James answered before I had a chance to. "I don't think she wants treatment, but I know she needs it.

Instead of saying something in response, the nurse just turned and looked at me, raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, that's why," I quietly confirmed, shrugging.

"Okay, let's start from the beginning then. When do you think your first developed your eating disorder?"

I sat in that doctors office for a very long time. I basically gave this strange woman my life story and she asked me a whole bunch of questions about my diet and exercise and mental health and just how I feel in general. James and I bickered here and there, but in the long run he won, because it wasn't that I didn't agree with him, I just didn't want to accept that I agreed with him.

After what I assumed was about an hour, we finally began wrapping up. "Okay, so here's the deal. After what you've told me, I can definitely confirm that you have anorexia nervosa. I'm going to have you go outpatient for a little while. This means you'll come back here once a week and I'm going to check in with you and weigh you; this also means I'll have to weigh you today, as well, but I won't tell you your weight if you don't want me to," she began. "Now, I'm going to give you a diet plan. It's going to start out simple, but it will ease you back into food. You need to follow it, because if I don't see progress soon, I'm probably going to have to admit you into inpatient."

I just nodded, letting out a breath I'd been holding for a while. It was a whole lot of stuff to take in all at once, and to say I was overwhelmed would be an understatement. After the nurse gave me a packet of paper which was my diet plan, she led me over to the scale out in the hallway.

"Do you want to know?" she asked as I stood on the scale with my back to it.

"Yeah, you can tell me," I whispered.

"88 pounds," she said and then set it back to zero as I stepped down. "Julie, listen to me. I know this is scary and very difficult, but it's a serious matter. Eating disorders are deathly diseases. If you go in with this any longer, it will be life or death for you. You have to take this seriously, okay? And please listen to your brother. I can tell you aren't the happiest with him at the moment, but he's doing this to help you and he knows what he's doing with that. I also highly suggest that you both contact your parents at home and tell them what's going on." I just nodded once again. "Okay, you can go to the front desk and schedule an appointment for next week."

After doing that, James put his arm around me again as we walked out of the building and back over to my truck. I leaned my head against him, still very overwhelmed. Once we made it to the car, he stopped and turned to me, putting his hands on my shoulders.

"Did you hear what she said? She said this could become life or death. Juliette, I need you to really put your all into this. I don't want you to die. Kendall doesn't want you to die. No one wants you to die," he stated, but then his face fell a bit. "Do you want to die?"

I shook my head no, which was the truth. I didn't want to die, I really didn't. But honestly, I had a gut feeling that...well, that I might just.

*author's note: just a quick apology because I know this isn't super accurate. I was 10 or 11 when I wrote this, so I wasn't as educated as I am now, and I didn't know fully understand how eating disorders are handled. anyways, stay safe lovies <3