Toms p.o.v.
"Tom, you look really thin. Are you eating, like really eating?" Sparklez questioned me as he handed me my dinner meal, and I mentally gulped. He was suspicious.
"Well I haven't been eating all of it, I've been giving a few pieces of chicken to Terrence since he's been chillin with me. But I've been eating most of it. Stop worrying, I'm just not eating as much as I used to, that's all." I put a fake smile on my face, but he still didn't look convinced.
I needed to eat something in order for him to believe me. I picked up a piece of chicken on my plate, and bit a large bite out of it. I wanted to gag and spit it out, but I swallowed it. Sparklez smiled and seemed to lighten up a bit.
"Okay, but don't give him a lot, alright? I want you to eat as much as you can. Well, I'd better get going. Goodnight, I love you." He kissed my lips, and I his.
He left the room, and I listened at his footsteps faded from outside.
Once I was sure he was gone, I scrapped off my plate into Terrence's awaiting mouth and he chomped all of it down.
After a few minutes, I wasn't feeling good. My stomach was churning, and my throat was tightening. I began to sweat slightly, and my chest felt like it was piling up.
I threw my covers off, the plate flying on to the floor as I rushed to get off the bed. It broke, scaring the crap out of Terrence. I'm pretty sure I could walk to the bathroom. It was just down the hall, not a big deal.
I gripped at the walls as I forced my legs to move down the hall, my side throbbing pain fully when I tried to move.
When I got to the bathroom, I immediately went to the toilet and threw up everything. Which wasn't much, just the remains of the bite of chicken. But I kept throwing up, and it wasn't food. It was blood. I coughed and sputtered as the red liquid poured from my throat. I was crying, I was scared. The pills hadn't worked. Not at all.
My whole body was shaking now as I vomited more sticky blood. The toilet looked like someone had been killed in it. I was sobbing the moments that I had in between pukes, I couldn't breathe. I was pitiful. I felt guilt and fear all at once. I wanted it to stop. But it wouldn't.
I felt a small wind came from the door opening, and I knew someone had seen me. I forgot to lock the bathroom door, crap.
"Syndy, what in the world is wrong with ye?!"
"H-h-help..." A sob escaped from my throat, but then more red vomit began to pour from my mouth.
I heard retreating footsteps. No, I wanted someone to help me. Someone to get rid of this horrible feeling. Why was Steve leaving?
My stomach was cramped up, my side was hurting so badly. I felt so dizzy and tired. More blood, more vomit.
"Tom? Tom! Oh my god!" I felt hands touch my shoulders, and I flinched away from them. They were gonna make me eat. I didn't want to eat. Sparklez knew I was lying to him. I didn't want to face him.
"What's wrong with em?!" Steve's voice came from behind me.
"Help me..." I managed to cry out before letting go of more fluids. Tears spilled down my cheeks. I must look terrible to them.
My vision blurred together, and I felt the same hands wrap around me and pulled me from the bowl.
They were gonna help, right?
They were gonna take the gross feelings away. They will.
~
Jordan's p.o.v.
"He's okay now. I gave him fluids, that should keep him stable enough until he eats something." Champ hung up a bag of clear liquid on a metal pole, the liquid was being inserted into my love.
I saw the signs. I saw he was getting thinner. Why didn't I listen to my gut feeling?
I was walking home, when Steve came running from the direction of Toms tree, his face full of panick. He had found Tom in a pool of his own vomit and blood, bending over the toilet bowl and puking himself to death. He told me Tom was sick, and I ran back to the tree and found that same sight awaiting me. He begged for help while he was vomiting, his face full of terror. He passed out in my arms, his tears mixing with his blood.
Why didn't he tell me?
Champ said from what he saw, Tom hadn't eaten nearly anything in three weeks. Three weeks.
For three weeks, he hadn't eaten a thing. Champ said when he did, his body failed on him.
He called it anorexia, a disorder that people got when they no longer wanted to eat. My boyfriend had anorexia.
I didn't want to believe it. I thought he was getting better, but he was only growing worse.
"Jordan, it's not that bad. It could've been worse, his type of anorexia is a minor one." He was trying to reassure me.
"What do you mean? What's a really bad type of anorexia?" I couldn't imagine anything worse than what he was going through.
"Well...when he eats, the food just doesn't taste good to him. But in some cases, people don't eat food because they think it makes them overweight and it's unnecessary. They could be so skinny that bone would show through their skin, and they would still think they're fat and overweight." He walked over to me and pulled a chair up beside me.
I guess it could've been worse...
I continued to stare at Toms sleeping face, his dark circles showing underneath his eyes.
"Explain what's happening to him. Why does food not taste good to him?"
"Okay, so think of it like this: his brain is telling him that food is longer safe to eat. And the reason for that is every time that he's eaten so far he's puked. Puking was a side affect of the surgery, but it wasn't supposed to last that long. But now that his brain is used to him puking when he eats, it tells the body to automatically puke everytime he eats, and that food is dangerous. His brain is telling him food is gross, and so he believes it. When he wakes up he'll most likely refuse to eat, but we have to find a way to make him eat or his body is going to fail again. What we must do is give him small servings of food, and increase the amount every day. But you have to convince him that he's got to eat it. He won't believe me, I'm sure of it. I already lied to him once about this..."
"Yeah, why did you lie about the pills? They didn't seem to work at all."
"I thought maybe if I told him they would help, he would believe it and trick his brain into believing it. But that didn't work. I didn't want to tell you because I knew you'd mess it up somehow, no offense. I gave him empty pills that had no medicine inside them so it wouldn't hurt him. I'm sorry it didn't work, but when you told me he was doing better I just took my mind off of it and thought I had solved the problem. I knew he had the disorder but...I just thought he'd be okay."
He looked sadly at Tom, who was now squirming slightly in his sleep. He was probably having dreams. I hope they were good.
The others weren't here, they had went on a mission a week ago. They were going to a place call Urulu, a town in the desert that was the home town of Steve and Mot. I decided not to go, so I could help Tom get better. Champ said he'd stay in case Tom needed help, which turns out was a good decision. Steve stayed, because Martha and Wag were both going. He was still grieving I thought. Guard Tom had stayed, and was living at my place again. I decided to take him in, mostly because he was living in a tent agin and he was starving to death. I had felt bad for him, but I shouldn't have. But I did. We were the only ones who stayed. Every one else left for Urulu. I hadn't called them or texted them anything about Toms condition, and I wasn't going to. They shouldn't worry about home when they were on this important mission.
"What can I do for him? To make him better? I don't know what to do anymore..."
"Convince him that food is okay to eat. Hey, where did Steve go? He was just in here a minute ago."
He looked around the room, but Steve was no where to be found.
"Probably back home. He was getting tired." Tom was squirming even more, and mumbling my name in his sleep. I'm guessing he was having a bad dream. My poor Tom. He's been through too much.
"I should wake him up, he needs to eat something soon." Champ stood from his chair and walked over to the squirming Tom. He shook his arm gently and called his name, but Tom didn't respond. He just kept moving and saying things I couldn't really make out clearly. Champ tried again but said his name louder, and it worked. Toms eyes shot open, and he look frantically around the room.
"Calm down dude, it's just Champ. You alright?" Champ handed him a bottle of water. Tom stared at him and then the bottle for a moment, like he was unsure if this was real or not.
"Wh...what?" His voice was hoarse. He squinted at Champ like he didn't believe he was actually here.
"I said are you okay? Are you feeling good?" Champ was confused too.
"Where's Rosie? Where's...where's Sparklez?" He asked Champ, that same look in his eyes.
He had been dreaming about Rosie.
"Uh I don't really know who Rosie is, but Jordan is over there." He pointed to me, and Tom looked at where his finger was pointed.
"Sparklez, where's Rosie? Where is she?" He looked frantic as he asked me the question.
"Tom...Rosie isn't real. Not yet anyway. It was just a dream, you were just dreaming about her." I walked over to his bed alongside Champ.
"I was...oh. What...where did....what am I doing here?" He still looked confused as ever as to why his dream wasn't real.
"You lied. You told me you were eating, and you weren't. Now you're sick because you didn't listen to me." I couldn't help but be angry at him for lying to me.
He seems to finally realize that this was real, and that what I was saying was true.
"Sparklez...I'm sorry. I just couldn't..." He looked down at his hands, staring at the IV that was in his arm.
"Did you even realize you had a freaking disorder? That what you were doing wasn't normal? I spent day after day, making you meals and making sure you were alright. I thought you were getting better! I thought you were healing and that we could get married soon, but then you just go and do this? Do you even think about my feelings before you do this crap? And to think I actually-"
"Shut up! You don't know what's happening to me! You don't even understand! I can't eat because...because I don't want to eat! It makes me sick and it makes me feel gross...you don't understand. Don't yell at me if you don't even know what I'm going through...I'm sorry I lied to you, but I knew you'd take me to Champ and you'd force me to eat...I just don't want to...why won't anyone understand?" He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, still not facing me.
"Tom buddy...I know you think it's bad, but if you don't eat you can't heal your wound. If it doesn't get better then it's guarantee to get infected, and you'll die. You have to eat something or your body's gonna fail on you again," Champ told him in a quiet voice.
"So what? Why don't I just die already...I'm tired of worrying about all of these things..." His sentence was barely audible, but I heard it.
Maybe I should take a more gentle approach to this.
"Tom...what about Rosie? If you die then she won't exist. You still want her, don't you? You still want a family?"
"How do you even know about Rosie? I haven't told you anything about her," he snapped at me.
"Because Ianite showed me who she was too. Don't you even want her anymore?"
"Of course I do. I just...I don't know what to do." He ran a hand through his faded blue hair, his eyes clenching together as he groaned stressfully.
"Then try. Try to live, and try to eat. I know it sucks...but please, for Rosie's sake, eat something." I gripped his hand tighter, and he sighed in defeat.
"I'll eat something, but I'm probably gonna puke it back up. That's how it usually goes..."
He agreed to eat something.
Thank the gods.
"Thank you..." I hugged him, and he hugged me as well.
~
"What kind of dreams did you have about Rosie?" I asked, my head buried in the crook of his neck. I decided to stay the night and let Champ get some sleep. But neither Tom or me could get any sleep, so we resorted to playing twenty questions to pass the time. So far, I was on number fifteen.
"Just random fragments of things. Nothing really lasted for more than a minute or two before it changed into a new scene."
"You seemed really scared when you woke up though...like something bad happened to her. What was that about?"
"I'm not really sure...I can't remember. This freaking IV is stabbing me..." He shifted uncomfortably and moved his hand around my waist.
I laughed, and thought about my next question.
"So...you did know you had a disorder? Before I told you?"
"Yeah, I talked to Tucker last week about this. He said it sounded like a disorder but he didn't know what I should do about it. He also told me to wait it out...which turns out was a terrible idea."
"Oh...how many do I have left?"
"Two. Then I have some to ask you." He pulled more covers over us, making me scoot closer to him.
"Okay then. Are you gonna dye your hair again?" I looked up at his faded blue hair, barely holding what was left of the blue tint.
"Probably, you seemed to like it a lot." He smiled at me and ran a thumb over my cheek.
"I did. Let's see, I've got one more...uh..." As I tried to think of a good question, I glanced around the dark room. The machine lights were the only things making any sort of brightness in the room. Tom was facing away from them, and I was facing him. Even in the dark, he looked so pale and unhealthy. He ate an apple earlier, but a couple of minutes later he emptied it back up. At least he tried. That's all I cared about.
"Tick tock tick tock," he whispered while he smiled at me.
"I'm trying, shut up...do you think Mianite is giving us all of this bad luck?" It was sort of a dark question, but I'd been thinking about it a lot lately. Why else would all of these things be happening to us specifically?
"Given that he tried to kill Andor, I wouldn't be surprised if he was giving us bad luck. My turn now." He smiled deviously.
"Oh god...I'm seriously dreading this."
"Hey, you asked me twenty pointless questions, now it's my turn! I don't even know where to start...hmm...oh! Where the hell is everybody? I haven't seen anyone besides you, Champ, and Steve all week. What's up with that?"
"Er...I've sorta been lying to you too. The others went on a mission to Urulu, and they won't be back until tomorrow evening. They went a week ago. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd wanna go, and I wasn't about to let you go on a mission when you were still in a wheelchair. Champ, Steve, guard Tom, and I are the only ones here. Oh and Dianite I guess. But you know, he's always here."
"Yes, that is true." Dianites voice filled the room, and we both jumped at his voice.
"Can't you give us some privacy man?!" Tom yelled angrily to the air, his hand tightening around my waist.
"My apologies, it is hard not to linger and watch mortal lives. I forget the feeling of love, and it's odd to watch others experience when I no longer can." His tone sounded solemn, like he longed for something.
Tom made a confused face at the air. "Wait a second, I didn't know you had a girlfriend before you got killed. What was her name?"
"It was not a woman I loved...it was...never mind it. You would not understand."
"I'm sure we would. Try us." Did he love a guy or something?
"One of my close merchants had some...emotions for me. He never told me but...I could sense what he felt. I could read his thoughts and they were quite fixed on me...but I never got a chance to discuss with him what he was feeling. He did not know that I could read his thoughts, I suppose that's why he kept to himself about it." The topic sounded like it was painful for him to discuss. One of his merchants had a crush on him?
"That's deep dude. So why can't you talk to him now? While you're in spirit form?" Tom asked the room.
"He is no longer here...I must go now. I will check on your friends as they make their way back to here." His voice faded, and Tom and I were alone again.
"Huh, poor dude. I guess that guy he loved died or something. Sad love story."
"Yeah, that is pretty sad." I heard a beeping noise, and I felt my wrist vibrating. Tom groaned and let go of me, knowing it was probably our friends returning.
I held up my wrist and checked the communicator, it was a call from Wag.
I was not expecting what I heard.
~~~~~
SORRY FOR LATE CHAPPIE BUT I GOTS TO DO STUFF SO BYE!
- Lee