The world is still from where he sits. No birds, no voices, no wind, just silence.
Here, Brad feels entirely detached from the rest of the world, like he's been separated and locked away from reality. But the thought unintentionally conciliates him, reminding Brad that this isn't his real life, and when he's discharged, he can go back to building himself again. The realisation is like a breath of fresh air.
He absentmindedly taps his foot on the concrete, wondering how he's supposed to spend his alone time before lying down on the wooden bench. Since he can't exercise due to the nurse watching him behind a transparent door, Brad doesn't see a purpose for having an entire hour for himself. There's not really anything to do except look and think. It's nothing different from what Brad has been doing since he's been here. Despite the fact, out here he's sort of alone.
Brad doesn't remember falling asleep. But what feels like only seconds later, a nurse grabs his shoulder and gently shakes him awake. "Time to go," she tells him when his eyes flutter open.
A small yawn slips past his lips as he slowly pulls himself up into a sitting position and stands. With one last glance at the outdoors, he sleepily stumbles back inside the medical center, watching his shoes as he trudges through the hallway alongside his nurse to group therapy. After exercise class, he caught a grip on his schedule, and a little description of everything considering exercise class was an understatement. The patients were only instructed to sit down on a comfortable, blue mat and do simple, primary school gym class exercises — bend down and touch your toes, tricep stretch, and other things that Brad could do in his sleep. Which made his inclination to needing to work out even worse.
The group therapy room isn't really big, but it isn't really small either. The floors are carpeted and there's a circle of plastic chairs in the center of the room. Brad's relieved he arrives a little earlier than most so he doesn't have to go through the awkwardness of deciding where he's the most welcomed to sit. He's never been very well with making decisions, or reading body language to see who wants at least anything to do with him.
A Korean man approaches Brad, smiling as chatty teens slowly spill into the room. "Hey, I'm Dr. Hans." He has an American accent. "And you're...?"
"Brad," he nervously replies, inattentively fidgeting with his fingers.
"Welcome, Brad," Dr. Hans greets. He nods his head toward the circle. "Take a seat."
Brad breaks off from his nurse and scans the circle of chairs. He didn't notice James walking in from before, but the boy's sitting beside an empty chair and enthusiastically motioning towards it for him. Brad trudges toward the seat and plops down.
"How bad did exercise class suck?" James asks, already jumping into a conversation.
Brad lets out a small laugh. "It sucked pretty bad."
"The sitting on the floor part is nice, though," James says, and then he laughs. Brad laughs along with him, even though he can't find the humour in being lazy and enjoying it. But he doesn't want him to laugh by himself.
Dr. Hans grabs everyone's attention by shouting a greeting. "Good afternoon, group!"
He pauses as the door flies open and Tristan unhurriedly enters the room, crossing in front of everyone to an empty chair and taking his precious time. It feels like hours before he finally decides to sit down beside the girl sitting next to Brad and sink into his chair. "Good afternoon, group," Dr. Hans starts again, picking up a stack of paper. "As you can see, we have a new face in the room."
Brad slowly lifts his hand and awkwardly waves at the group, realising Dr. Hans left him to continue the introduction by himself. "Um, hi. I'm Brad."
"Is there anything you'd like to say about yourself, Brad?" Dr. Hans asks. Brad's eyes travel across the room. Everyone already looks uninterested and aggravated.
"Um," he begins. He frowns at some kid glaring at him before directing his brown eyes back towards the doctor patiently waiting for him to continue. "I can't think of anything at the moment. Sorry."
"That's okay. We'll have you share something a little later in the week then," he decides.
"Sure," Brad automatically replies, even though he'll rather not talk in front of a group of teenagers who look like they have one more problem just by his presence.
"So," Dr. Hans loudly begins, giving everyone a sheet of notebook paper and a book to write on. "I have a challenge that everyone has to participate in." Brad takes the blank sheet and book and sets it on top. "But first thing's first, I'm going to have all of you write a little for me. I want you to write about the foods that negatively affected you the most, what they've done to you, and any word or sentences that come to mind when you think about this food. And yes, it can be more than one food. It can be one food, or thirty-five. Write whatever food comes to mind."
Brad looks down at his stupid paper, irritated, as the doctor works his way around the circle again, handing every patient a pencil or pen. I don't want to do this, he thinks, twirling the blue ink pen in between two fingers.
Three minutes in and his paper still remains blank. He curiously glances around the room to see everyone else's progress so far. All the other patients are writing, or at least thoughtfully staring at their paper like whatever they write will determine their whole future. In brief, Brad is the only one not completing it. Letting out a quiet sigh, he looks back down at the sheet.
The foods that most affected me, he thoughtfully repeats in his head. The boy can think about almost any type of food that has negatively affected him, making this assignment way more difficult than it has to be. He glances over to his left, seeing in so little time, James is already on food twenty-one, and drawing deliberate doodles on the edge of his page. He pulls his eyes away and blankly stares at his blank paper.
This shouldn't even be hard.
He tries to rewind back to a few months ago, before he started taking control of his body, and what his favourite foods were. He's never actually sat down and thought about how it used to be. Because it's better to forget about it. Brad doesn't want to end up as that guy ever again.
Favourite foods, Brad thinks. He mentally repeats the word over and over again until a repugnant memory of him finishing a whole bucket of ice-cream by himself in under an hour flashes into his mind. He almost cringes at the horrifying image, and how he felt so disgusted with himself for eating all of it so quickly. The guilt had felt so heavy, he unintentionally told his parents his sister, Natalie, took it with her on her way back to Uni.
It still surprises Brad that he was once like that. Thinking about how many times food ended up in his hands without him even thinking about it was scary and disgusting. He was so weak, and completely out of control then. But he's not in contact with that person anymore. He likes to believe he doesn't even know him. Lying has always been easy for him.
Brad writes down ice-cream and 'no control' as the words that come to mind. The next food is easier to think of. Pizza. He almost gags at all the toppings he used to eat. How did he even manage to consume all that without feeling like he was digesting the whole world?
Pizza — unhealthy and fattening
"Two more minutes until we move on," Dr. Hans announces. Brad absentmindedly drums the inside of his wrist on the side of his chair as he thoughtfully stares at his paper. What did I binge on the most? Brad asks himself. Without even having to think any further, he presses the blue ink to the paper and jots down 'chips — disgusting'.
"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.