Everything Has Changed

To The Bone

TW: Mentions of eating disorders

June 14th 2025

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The gut awful sounds of gagging echoed through the guest bathroom of Jason and Kylie's house. Taylor played sprawled out on the floor, one hand resting on her clay forehead, the other on the rim of the toilet seat. She wasn't going to be sick again, she was sure of that. After a while of silence on the bathroom floor, Taylor dragged herself up to look at herself in the mirror. It wasn't her finest hour for looks. Her face was pale, and shallow. The purple eye bags were still there, if a little less prominent now that Luna was sleeping a little better than before. But nothing about her appliance screamed happy, reguvinated mother. It screamed fatigue, and sickness. 

She splashed her face with cold water, attempting to remove any remenance of vomit from around her mouth or stray chunks from the hair draped around her face that has escaped her messy bun she had pulled it up into. They had come to Philadelphia to visit Jason, Kylie and the girls again before they jetted back to Kansas City in three weeks time. Travis would be missing Tight End University that year, something he had always planned to do since Taylor found out she was pregnant. Something she admired in Travis was that he was always three steps ahead of her. She didn't have to ask him to do things for her, he just did them. And that hadst changed since she had given birth. What Taylor hadn't banked on was how she would feel after giving birth. She had for sure expected it to be hard. Everyone warns you about the sleepless nights, the aches and pains because your body will never be the same after having a baby. But something she had not planned to happen was for the past to be brought swimming back up again. 

The hateful comments about her body began to slither in since her interview with Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show just over two weeks ago. Looking back in hindsight, they had probably been there for a long time before. Before, she hadn't let it bother her. Everyone was going to make comments about her body, and when she was pregnant with Luna, if anyone commented on her being big or looking pregnant, she could at least say it was true this time and blame it on the baby. But now she had no one to blame but herself. Standing in front of the mirror, she pulled back the t-shirt she had been wearing to bed, observing the faint stretch mark on either side of her hips. nothing noticeable to the naked eye, but she knew they were there. But what was also there, were her ribs, beginning to sneak back through again, making their first appreance since 2015. Taylor stepped onto the scales in the bathroom, weighing up to see how much she would have to shame herself that day. The number was surprising, in a good way to her. But never in a good way in the long run. She made a note in her notes app, a locked one. One that Travis couldn't see without her Face ID. She certainly wasn't proud of keeping secrets from Travis, but this wasn't out of guilt. It was out of pure and utter shame. Shame for letting herself slip into these habits once again. But once you slip, you cannot stop. It is a slippery slope into darkness, unless someone is brave enough to see and help you out. Had Travis noticed yet?

"Tay?" She heard a voice groan from the bedroom. She froze, quickly locking the note in her phone, placing it back into the pocket of her pyjamas pants before emerging from the bathroom. She plastered on a fake smile, something that she was good at as she made her way back towards the space she had left in the bed. He wrapped his arms back around her, snaking them up around her ribs. "I missed you." He whispered, making her smile for real that time. He always knew how to do that, in the cutest way possible. 

"I was only gone a few minutes." She laughed quietly.

"Are you feeling ok. You feel a little warm and for some reason I thought I could hear someone being sick." Travis remarked, feeling against her forehead which still had droplets of sweat clinging to it. She didn't know if it was the nausea or the fear of being found out. Not that she didn't want the help. She did, but she was too stuck and guilty to ask for any help. She didn't want to seem like a burden, the way Joe had made her feel in the end.