"Morning!" someone greets from behind the boy. He can't see who it is. Brad's standing on a scale again with his back facing the door, but according to the only American accent in the center, it's quite evident. Although, Brad can't figure out why the doctor from group therapy decided to visit him in his room. At 07:00.
The same overly happy, inaccurate nurse from last week jots down Brad's weight, and he quickly steps off the scale. Dr. Hans is happily standing in the doorway with a topless box strapped around his neck, like he's selling hotdogs at a football game. Brad groans at the sight of him. There's way too much smiling for it to be this early in the morning.
"I have something for you," the doctor says, glancing around the box after the cheerful nurse finally leaves. There are little clear zipper locking bags inside with names written on them. He pulls out a clear, plastic bag with Brad's name on it... and a chip inside.
Brad doesn't reach to get it.
"Remember how I mentioned a challenge from last week?" he asks. Before Brad replies, which he wasn't planning on doing any time soon, Dr. Hans continues, "Today, I'm challenging the patients to eat the food that most affected them." He waves the bag, indicating Brad to take it, but he doesn't move. "I'd like you to have finished it by group therapy. And don't worry, it's still hot."
Which is about four hours from now, he thinks to himself. Impossible.
"Um." Brad blinks. He still hasn't taken his assigned chip, and the doctor is still patiently holding it out for him. "What?"
"I know that it's scary," Dr. Hans says sympathetically. "But there's nothing to be afraid of."
Afraid? Ha. What a dumbass.
"Time for breakfast," his nurse announces as she enters the room. Brad believes this is the only time he'll ever be relieved to hear those words. He automatically joins her.
"Brad?" Brad turns around again. Dr. Hans is still holding out that stupid bag for him. "You forgot your bag."
He sheepishly smiles, reluctantly grabbing the bag and pulling it into his hand. The chip's heat feels like it's on the verge of burning a hole through the plastic. "Right. Thanks."
"'Welcome." He steps pass the nurse and Brad. "Don't let me down!" he hears the doctor say before he's disappearing down the hallway.
Brad feels like laughing at him. He's already decided he's not eating it.
As he heads to the cafeteria, his nurse informs him he's officially finished the liquid diet and moving to a different table. At the new table he'll be eating partials. It just has to be his lucky day. Under two minutes he's been instructed to eat his number one binging food in four hours, and then he's informed he's starting on eating actual food.
"Morning," James greets, like every other morning Brad comes for breakfast. The table looks the same as the other one the boys sat at. Some girl is seated with them this time, though, and the table is missing Tristan.
Maybe he's just late, Brad thinks, but he's instantly proved wrong when he eyes the old table. Tristan's still seated there, staring at his bottle like last week. There's some new girl seated at the table with him, quickly talking to him with a lot of hand gestures and facial expressions, but Tristan doesn't seem like he's listening. He's in his little world, running his hand through his hair and frowning. He looks so sad.
"Damn, Brad, staring won't give you the power to see through his clothes." Brad slowly pulls his eyes away from the blond, realising everyone at the new table, even including the girl, is laughing at him.
Brad drops his plastic bag on the circular table, awkwardly coughing and shaking up his hair. "Shut up, James."
"Is that your assigned food?" he asks, dropping his own plastic bag on the table. It's half a chocolate bar.
"Yup."
"Chips are my binging food also," Connor chimes in, eyeing the bag.
"Oh," Brad replies, uninterested. He's just happy to jump on a different topic that doesn't involve him absentmindedly eye raping Tristan. "Where is it?"
His face reddened. "I ate it."
The sixteen-year-old doesn't have a chance to react before they're served breakfast partials. Brad eyes the plates, his heartbeat quickening. Every plate consists of the same thing: toast and a small bowl of chopped strawberries. Ensure was hard enough. Scarfing down real food feels impossible.
Brad starts on the strawberries, poking around in the small bowl with his plastic spoon, counting each piece, as the girl starts up a conversation with James. When he glances up, he notices Connor nibbling on his toast with his eyes still glued on Brad's chip.
"Have it," he says, pushing it over to him.
Connor pushes it back towards him. "No."
Brad passes it back. "Eat it before it gets cold."
Back to Brad. "I don't want it."
Back to Connor. "You seem like you do."
Back to Brad. "I don't. I can't. It's not any more easier for me than it is for you."
"Please," Brad begs, scooping up more chopped strawberries. "I know I can't finish this assignment in three hours." Connor lets out a small sigh before slowly taking it, pulling the chip out, and giving Brad the empty bag back. A smile widens on the curly-haired boy's face as he pockets the bag. "Thanks."
. . .
Dr. Hans pairs Brad and Tristan together in group therapy.
They're forced to do a stupid activity where they have to interview each other based on the interview template the doctor handed out. Apparently it's supposed to help the patients connect with the side of themselves their disorder hasn't taken away, or how life was before their disorder. Brad unsurprisingly already thinks the activity is a load of bullshit.
"So..." Tristan awkwardly says, his blue eyes scanning the questions printed on the paper. His hair is down today and styled to Brad's left in the usual messy hairstyle he somehow manages to look good in.
Brad pulls his legs up into the chair and crosses them Indian style, resting his chin on his hand. "So..."
"I guess I'll just start then?" Brad shrugs. "Okay, tell me your full name."
"Bradley Will Simpson," he replies.
Tristan writes down his name way too slowly. "Mine is Tristan Oliver Vance Evans," he tells him, sticking his tongue out a bit as he concentrates on his handwriting.
At this rate, it's going to be December by the time he's finished my first name, Brad thinks.
Brad jots down Tristan's full name before they move onto the next questions. As they continue with the interview, Brad learns Tristan's seventeen, he has a little sister, his favourite colour is orange, and he has no pets. Brad still doesn't understand what's so therapeutic about the activity since they're basically exchanging basic facts: favourite actor/actress, favourite movie, favourite artists, songs, blah, blah. But he's happy Dr. Hans didn't decide throwing another impossible challenge at them. He isn't so sure that Connor would agree to do it for him this time if they were assigned another one, hence Connor has been ignoring him all day.
He's glad Connor doesn't have group therapy with him. It's been infuriating enough with the boy pretending Brad doesn't exist. He doesn't understand what his problem is, but he's decided to leave Connor and his mood swings alone since Brad already received what he wanted.
"Tell me about your parents," Brad says, still jotting one of Tristan's responses down from an earlier question.
The blond hesitates before replying. "I live with my dad."
"Oh. Are your parents divorced?"
"Um, no." He licks his lips and looks down at his paper. "My mum died."
Brad awkwardly scratches the back of his head. "Oh."
"What about your parents?" he asks, quickly changing the subject.
He lets out a sigh at the thought of them. "I live with my mum and my dad."
"That's all you have to say about them?"
"We're not exactly on good terms right now," he explains.
Tristan nods, writing down Brad's response. "Ah."
"It's just," Brad starts, "I'm still mad that they put me in here. Of course I'm going to have to get over it because they're my parents, but whatever."
"How did it start?"
He looks down to see if this question is actually on the template.
It isn't.
"Um, how did what start?"
"Your anorexia," he tells him in a nonchalant voice, like this is something you can just ask someone. "What pushed you over the edge?"
Brad decides he likes Tristan better silent.
"I don't remember," Brad lies.
"You don't remember?"
He swallows. "No. Do you?"
"Yeah." That's all he says before he's back to finishing Brad's response from earlier.
"So...?"
"So...?"
"Are you going to tell me?"
"Oh, okay, you want to hear it," Tristan says. "I'm not going to go into detail, but there was a family incident so I stopped eating."
Brad just looks at him. "I don't understand."
"I've always had this control issue," he explains. "And apparently when my life spiraled out of control, it took me with it. So I guess not eating was my way of grasping onto some type of control. I don't know. I hate psychology."
"Me, too."
"But I guess it's like how people clean things to calm themselves down," he tells him, setting his pen on the table after writing the boy's earlier response. "Fasting is my therapy."
Brad absentmindedly chews on the cap of his pen, letting Tristan's words sink in. "That's probably the most words I've ever heard come from your mouth."
He laughs. "Yeah, I'm working on it."
Tristan doesn't ask him anymore questions that aren't on the template, and they fortunately don't have anymore personal conversations that make Brad extremely awkward. It feels like they talk for only a few more seconds before Dr. Hans calls time and the patients have to present each other to the class.
"Who wants to present first?" the doctor asks after the patients pull their folding chairs into rows.
Brad is the only one who volunteers. He just wants to finish this stupid activity. "Tristan and I'll go first."
"Great," Dr. Hans says, sitting down in Brad's seat. Brad walks off to the front of the room, and awkwardly waits for Tristan to join him. He slowly makes his way to Brad in his usual I-have-all-the-time-in-the-world steps before eventually making his way in front of all the patients and separating himself ten inches away from the younger boy.
"You should go first," Brad suggests, rocking back and forth on his heels.
Tristan glares at him (at least Brad thinks it's a glare. Tristan's basically hiding behind his paper) before looking down at the handwriting on the interview template. The whole room is silent until Tristan starts reading. Well, mumbling. Brad doesn't understand anything he's saying, and according to how confused all the patients look, he's not the only one.
"Can you speak up a little?" he asks him. Tristan stops reading and looks down, his face flushing bright red.
"It's fine," Dr. Hans quickly reassures him, smiling. "You're doing great, Tristan."
Tristan lets out a small, shaky breath as he blinks rapidly, like he's about to cry, and then continues mumbling. Brad awkwardly rocks back and forth on his heels again, a little remorseful for interrupting him. But it's not like he could've expected Tristan to be awkward in front of crowds. He was more than fine talking with Brad in a completely clear voice. Quiet, yeah, but clear. And the rare times Brad heard him say something to James and Connor, he sounded comfortable, definitely not mumbling. Though, Brad still feels inexplicably sorry.
He stops talking.
"Are you finished?" the doctor asks Tristan after a period of silence. The blond nods and turns to Brad. "Great. Good job, Tristan."
"Thank you," he quietly says.
"Um, okay," Brad awkwardly begins, "this is my partner, Tristan Evans..."
. . .
"Brad," Dr. Hans says after dismissing group therapy, "can you stay after a bit?"
Oh, shit, he thinks. He just knows this is going to be about him scowling Tristan for mumbling. There's no way he possibly could've known he had some mumbling issue. He doesn't think there's a reason to hold him back in group to lecture him on it.
"What's up?" he asks, nervously shaking up his curls.
"I want to talk to you about your assignment," he tells him. The colour drains from Brad's face. He can already tell where this conversation is heading. Brad's going to kill Connor. "Come take a seat."
The sixteen-year-old somehow manages to move his legs and walks over to a chair across from the doctor.
"I'm going to make this quick since I know you have to go to lunch." Brad nods, hitting the inside of his wrist on the side of the chair. "Someone told me about how you decided to back out of your assignment and give it to someone else to handle for you. Is this true?"
"I — um," Brad sighs, realising there's no use in lying, "yes, it's true."
Dr. Hans shakes his head. "I admit the challenge was very difficult, but as I said before, those were my intentions. I was trying to push the patients, even if it was a large leap forward."
"I understand," he replies. "I was wrong to hand it over to someone else, and I know better now."
"I'm not going to punish you," the doctor tells him, "but there is something I want you to do."
"Okay."
"You're going to finish a chip for me by the end of the day." Brad's stomach churns. "And you have to do it by yourself."
"Okay." Brad nods. Because it's better than anything else, like being held in this medical center any longer. "Okay, I'll do it."
After receiving another clear zipper locking bag with another steaming chip in it, Brad's nurse rushes him over to the cafeteria so he can have some time to eat. There really wasn't a reason to rush since he didn't talk to Dr. Hans over five minutes, but the nurses basically make a big deal out of mostly everything that has anything to do with eating.
"Thanks a lot, Connor," Brad spats as soon as he sits down. He drops his plastic bag on the table and frowns at him, but Connor doesn't look up. He's just staring down at his partials like Tristan stares at his Ensure. "Um, hello?"
"He hasn't talked all day," James snaps, angrily looking at the curly-haired boy with furrowed brows, "because you can't deal with your problems by your-fucking-self."
Brad just looks at him, taken aback by James's anger. "I'm sorry?"
"You heard what I said," he tells him. "Have you even noticed that he can't even eat because of this morning? But it probably doesn't matter. As long as you're okay, everything's all good. Because you're the only one who has problems, yeah? Isn't that what you believe?"
Brad laughs at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how you're not the only one who has an eating disorder. And maybe you should at least consider being a little more selfless and not pressure a bulimic into eating their number one binging food."
"He chose to help me out," Brad defends. "It's not like I forced it down his throat."
"If someone was pressuring you to eat your binging food, you would've felt obligated to eat it."
Brad laughs again, because James really has the worst perception of him. "No, I wouldn't have."
"Right. Because your shit is so together," he says sarcastically.
"Look, I don't know what your problem is, but it's not my fault he can't control what he eats."
James meanly squints his eyes. "Like you're any better."
"What?"
"I said, like you're any better."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That you're not in any more control than he is."
Brad laughs so hard it hurts his stomach. "You don't know me."
"Thank goodness."
"Please stop fighting, guys," Connor pleads. It's the first thing he's said to Brad all day, and probably the first words he's said to anyone all day, but Brad doesn't have time to be surprised. He's way too angry.
"God, you're an asshole," Brad says to James.
"Really? You think you're better than everyone else, and I'm the asshole?"
"I don't think I'm better than everyone else," he says. "I'm sorry if I carry myself that way, or whatever, but I know I'm not supposed to be here."
"Because you think you're better than everyone else!"
Brad rolls his eyes.
"I don't think you've grasped the concept of this yet, but you're sick, Brad. Unhealthy, unwell, out of control, debilitated, disordered, ailing, sick. Just like the rest of us in here. So stop thinking you're superior to everyone when you're just as out of control as everyone else!"
Brad angrily narrows his eyes. "Like someone who hid high-fiber bars in their hair dryer knows anything about control."
"Fuck you," James whispers. A tear slips down his cheek, but he quickly wipes it away and looks to his nurse. "Can I finish this in my room?"
He picks up his plate of partials, and then walks away with his nurse. Brad didn't even know they were allowed to eat in their rooms. If he knew that, he would've asked if he could stay in his room to eat all the time.
Brad doesn't know if he really feels bad, but he has a small feeling like he's done something really terrible. But it fades away quickly, as fast as Brad's guilt faded away when he ripped the photo Drew gave him. It's not like he told James something he didn't already know, anyway There's no reason to be upset.
. . .
Dinner time has already passed and Brad still hasn't finished his chip. The heat has worn off, but Brad knows no matter how repulsive the thought of digesting it can get, he still has to. He doesn't know how disappointed the doctor would be if he doesn't eat it. He doesn't know if it'd affect how long he's supposed to stay here either.
As he settles down in the rec room, dragging his folding chair over to his beloved corner, he takes the cold chip out of his bag and looks at it.
You can do this, Brad, he tells himself. This doesn't affect how strong you are.
He brings it to his mouth to chew, but ends up rubbing the chip on his bottom lip instead, the grease and seasoning disgustingly rubbing off on it. Brad wipes his lips on the sleeve of his jumper before going back to rubbing it on his lip again like he's putting on chapstick. It doesn't occur to him how weird this may look until Tristan joins him. The blond doesn't look at him like he's a freak, like anyone else would've, but he pulls Brad out of his little world.
"Stop staring," Brad says to the chip. He wants to peel his eyes away to glare at the blond — anything to distract him from the thought of eating this — but he can't seem to.
"'m sorry," Tristan apologizes. Brad can practically hear the smile in his voice.
"Whatever," Brad mumbles. He brings the chip to his lips again, and then he stops. His mouth remains glued shut and his hand feels frozen. Somehow he was able to force down his breakfast, and his three snack times, and his lunch, and his dinner, but he knows he can't force down a binging food. It's unhealthly and out of control. Two things Brad promised himself not to be anymore.
"Stop thinking," Tristan quietly tells him. "You can't do it because you're thinking too much. Just get it over with, like you're ripping off a band-aid."
"Like it's that easy," he speaks under his breath.
Somehow Tristan still hears it. "Just trying to offer some help."
"I can't eat it," Brad whispers to him, like he's letting him in on a secret. He doesn't know why tears are stinging his eyes and his hands are shaking, but he can't make them stop. "I just can't."
"C'mere," Tristan says. Brad doesn't move, but Tristan pulls the chip out of Brad's trembling hand, anyway.
"What are you doing?" Brad asks.
"Open your mouth."
"No, I can't."
"You just did."
Brad sighs, frustrated. "You know what I mean, Tristan."
"When you first stopped eating, it was difficult... right?"
"Right."
"But you pushed yourself to do it because you just had to... right?"
"Right."
"And you have to eat this," Tristan tells him. "You can't be stubborn in this place. Nothing is your choice right now."
The younger boy sucks in a breath. "Right. You're right."
Tristan pushes the chip into Brad's mouth without a warning, and then he's chewing it, trying his best not to cringe at the grease, and the seasoning on the fried potato.
"You're okay," Tristan says, pulling his fingers away from Brad's lips after he swallows it.
"Yeah," Brad sighs, surprised it's actually true. He's okay. He ate his binging food, and somehow he's okay.