Til Death Do Us Part

chapter nineteen ~ i am lost

Over the next three or four weeks Faye fell out of touch with a lot of things. 

I can remember asking her when she last ate and she sat and counted on her fingers, and after three or four fingers she seemed to drift off into a daydream. I sure hoped she'd counted four hours and not days. But by the way she seemed to be withering away, it could've been weeks.

She didn't eat nearly as much as some of the girls I'd encountered, which made sense, but those girls could have only been a size 6 or 8. Faye had to be a size 4, maybe even smaller. But her cheekbones weren't hollowed out. Yet.

Her dad seemed to keep a watchful eye on her when he was around, which, sadly enough, wasn't quite as much as she needed him to be. I physically couldn't pin her down and force a burger or two down her gullet - but if need be, he could. Not that he would.

Faye's father was perhaps more timid than she was. Except he just seemed like a nervous wreck, constantly pulling at that little patch of hair he had left on his head. Her father was much older than mine. Easily wiser.

His thin framed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose lightly, but with how often he pinched it in frustration you'd think they incited the constant headaches he seemed to have.

I knew something was tense between the two of them. And it only seemed to be building over time.

The only person I really saw her spend time with was that Jake. Every time I saw him, I felt jealousy bubble up, anger making my teeth grit. He wasn't even funny. He infuriated me. I hated that he could make Faye laugh though. I'd barely heard it from her lately.

Christmas was coming up. It was nice that I wasn't missing it, although I kind of was. I might not have physically even there for it, but I was, literally, in spirit. But it was also kind of sad.

It was always Mil's favourite time of year. I took her sledding two years ago, with my brother Zach.

A twinge of sadness struck my heart when I thought of Zach. I hadn't seen him since a couple months after that Christmas, but it felt like a lifetime. Everything did right now, and had done for the last couple of months, since I was hospitalised.

Faye had drifted into a weird little bubble. My therapy books probably would've stated it was self-sheltering. She was probably feeling low about something and had retreated in on herself to work on it. But if I knew Faye, she didn't work on things. She let them consume her.

By the end of October, she'd become so detached that I felt genuinely terrified. What could I do? She was the only person I could tell, and what use was that? She'd either deny it, or get angry with me.

She was like a grenade, waiting to explode. I wasn't prepared to be the one to pull the pin.

In fact, it wasn't until Al said something that she seemed to realise how far she'd drifted. She hadn't returned any homework to her teachers, hadn't shown up to a tonne of lessons, and she barely left the house, only to see Jake.

I think it was about four days before Halloween that he showed up on the doorstep, with a tub of Neapolitan ice cream, a droopy little of bunch of daisies, wearing a typical Al-concerned expression. He'd never really dealt with what he'd consider a "female breakdown" before, but he was trying his best.

I knew better than to think it was just a woman thing. It was a hard-hitting, psychological thing. And I was desperate to know what was going on in her head.

"You didn't need to come round." Faye grumbled to him, still in the same pyjamas she'd been living in for five? Maybe six days?

Al had pushed past her into the house, and took off his coat, making it clear he wasn't going anywhere soon.