With You┃Dylan O'Brien ⓵

Chapter Eighteen : Lifeguards

The mirror in my bathroom is a trickster. It loves to play tricks on me, and in turn makes me do things I know that I shouldn't be doing. One day it tells me that my skin has a healthy glow to it, the next it says I'm pale as a ghost. One day it promises I'm beautiful, the next it swears I should hide my hideous face from the world. One day it idolizes me for having such a great body, and the next it dismisses me for being so fat.

I made promises to everyone, myself included, that this would not happen again. But it's happening. Effective as of last month. This isn't to say that I've stopped eating all-together, but I have slowly been falling back into my old habits.

You don't need all three meals of a day, that's ridiculous. You don't need to eat both of these, it's one or the other. This has (blank amount of) calories, no. Don't be fat, Anita. Breakfast is not important. Don't eat so much, Anita. Lunch is not that important. Stay strong, Anita. Dinner is only important because if I don't eat at all, I will die.

I don't really view myself as being sick, in fact I think it's the wrong word entirely. I am merely modifying my eating habits so that I only eat that which is necessary for my survival. That's what sets me apart from everyone else; I am able to easily tell the difference between when I want to eat, and when I need to.

There is always more want than need.

With my parents being so busy, I've been hoping they wouldn't notice my eating habits. And they haven't, I guess. Based on the conversation I heard last night, my mother is basing her entire conjecture off her opinion that I look different. That is not a testimony that would hold up in court.

Not a single part of me wants to know what dad's alternative for me is, but I can't exactly sit in my room all day. When I go downstairs this cloudy Sunday morning, I find him at the kitchen table reading the local newspaper, and sipping on what smells like a Hawaiian coffee roast.

I pretend not to notice that he's stealthily watching me move around in the kitchen, like a hawk. Seven plump red strawberries in my pink striped bowl and a large glass of ice water sit in front of me at the table.

"Good morning," dad says nonchalantly, slowly setting down the paper.

"Morning," I muse back between bites of strawberry.

He watches me intently with his green hawk eyes, and it kind of scares me. He hasn't watched me like this since, well, I was initially diagnosed with something I didn't even believe in.

After a minute of his intense surveillance, he exhales, "Anita, I have to ask you something. And I don't want you to freak out on me or anything, it's just a question. Okay?"

I know what's coming and I already know perfectly how to respond, so I nod slowly acting, as if I'm curious to see what on Earth my father could be getting at.

"Your mother and I were speaking last night, about you. And it's come about that your mother is worried about you health, due to your, um, physical appearance."

"What about my physical appearance?"

"She says your face is losing its color again. And that it has thinned out."

I widen my eyes dramatically, "Does she think I'm getting sick again?"

My dad sighs and I feel bad for him, "She doesn't know, she's just worried. And, Anita, she has every right to be."

"Dad, I'm not getting sick again."

"I believe you, honey, I do. But your mother is not so convinced."

"What does she want, for me to get fat and waddle around eating everything I see?"

"No," he says slowly. He's obviously trying to be careful. "Have you been getting enough sleep lately?"