teach me gently on how to breathe || tradley/brad

علاج

"One more minute."

Brad quickly starts writing down how. He doesn't have to think about why it affected him the most either. He just already knows.

Ice-cream made me the slowest runner in gym class.

Pizza made me too self-conscious to take my shirt off.

Chips made me hate myself.

Somehow the last sentence stops him from breathing.

But of course I don't hate myself anymore, Brad reminds himself. I'm getting stronger. Way stronger than before.

"Are you thinking of handing me your paper any time soon?" Brad looks up to Dr. Hans playfully smiling down at him.

"Oh," Brad mutters, quickly writing his name down on the top and handing it over to him, "sorry."

"It's okay," he replies, flashing Brad a friendly smile, before quickly moving along and taking up James' paper.

As soon as Dr. Hans is out of earshot, James nudges him. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he automatically answers. James just looks at him, like he's anticipating to hear the truth. It's a little weird how he seemingly expects Brad to spill his heart out, even though they've only known each other for under a day.

"Are you sure?" James pushes.

Brad unintentionally lets out an annoyed huff. "Yes, I'm fine."

James gives him a look like he's mentally making a note to never ask how Brad's doing ever again.

"Just making sure," he awkwardly tells him before turning away from the curly-haired boy and deciding to talk with the girl beside him instead. Brad forces himself to look at his hands while he waits for Dr. Hans to give them more instructions, and not worry about how he might have ruined a chance at having a friend. Because it's not like preventing and ruining friendships are foreign to him. So it doesn't even bother him as much as it should.

. . .

Uplifting posters don't decorate the mint green walls like Brad expected. Instead, only one wall holds a terrible painting of an oak tree. There's barely any furniture in the room besides the two cushioned chairs facing each other with only a small, brown coffee table separating them. So, unfortunately, Brad's temporary therapist, Miss Lillian, is the only thing somewhat interesting he can actually pay attention to.

It's after the third snack time of the day therefore Brad's in a shitty mood. He feels stuffed like a teddy bear with all this disgusting Ensure in his stomach. It's almost as worse as eating a full meal. He's sure by dinner time, he's going to be incapacitated.

How am I going to do this for six more days? Brad wonders. How am I even going to be able to eat actual food?

The sixteen-year-old squeezed his eyes shut, all this worrying creating a crushing pain on the side of his head.

"Brad, can you tell me how your weight went from one hundred fifty-seven to one hundred five in under six months?" He opens his eyes, seeing his therapist looking at him intently. Ten minutes into their session and it seems like she's already trying to look into the depths of his soul with her creepy green eyes. Isn't she lovely? he sarcastically thinks.

He obliviously plays with the drawstring on his bottoms and attempts to adopt the expression of someone astonished. "I didn't know that. That's awful."

"It is, isn't it?" She looks at him with the same incomprehensible stare, entirely unsatisfied by his response. "You weren't eating."

"I shouldn't have done that," Brad replies, looking down at his lap like he's ashamed with himself, "and I know better than that now."

"Do you remember the blood test from yesterday?" He nods, absentmindedly tapping the inside of his wrist on the chair. "I took a look at your results and I think you should know about them."

"Okay."

"Your serum potassium levels are too low along with your blood pressure. When you don't eat, your body loses muscle mass and heart muscle at a special pace — " Brad starts blocking her annoying voice out — she sounds like she should be on television, wearing a white lab coat and holding various tubes of weirdly coloured liquids — as she continues on about his slow heart rate, unusual electrolyte levels, something about how Brad's always cold because he has way too little body fat, blah, blah. She doesn't understand it doesn't matter. When you're strong, the cold doesn't bother you.

"Your statistics are worse than people who have died," the therapist informs him. "What do you think about that?"

"That's — that's really scary."

Time ticks on slower than usual as Miss Lillian apprises Brad of more information about his body. The teen easily tunes her out, her informal voice only like faint noise in the background. By the end of their session, Brad doesn't think he's convinced Miss Lillian that he's fine. But it's okay. He likes challenges.

. . .

After dinner, Brad chooses a red folding chair from the table and drags it across the rec room away from everyone else before placing it in the same corner from yesterday. As he sits, isolated, he realises this is sort of like alone time, except there are people around him, but they do a pretty good job at acting like he doesn't exist.

He feels just as full as he expected after downing another bottle of Ensure for dinner, except worse. It's so uncomfortable, his stomach feels engorged.

To keep his mind off his unbearable full stomach, he plays with the only two, red bracelets left on his wrist. Which he had to tie to stay on. He used to wear a lot more on his wrist, but a month, or three months ago, most of them became too big and slipped off.

Brad curiously pushes his bracelets down at the sight of purple, and quizzically studies the random, bruise forming on the inside of his wrist.

"Brad?" The sound is so quiet he questions if he's beginning to hear voices. But when he slowly looks up, he takes notice in the tall blond towering over him with a folding chair identical to Brad's and a book in his hands. "Brad... right?"

The curly-haired boy nods. "You're right."

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" he asks.

So much for alone time, he thinks, even though he knows Tristan will most likely not be a problem. He doesn't talk much, anyway, but Brad's irritated. He thinks he has a right to be unreasonable and hate everything. "No, go ahead."

He sets the chair down beside Brad's and rolls up the sleeves of his black jumper to his elbows. "Thanks," he says quietly, sitting down and opening the book to the first page. Brad notices it's a comic.

He only nods at the blond in response and looks away.