Calories

Chapter Two

Finally it's Friday morning. Everyone around school is talking about the party. Thankfully, when Frank told people about the party, he told them to bring stuff like food and/or alcohol.

I would be totally screwed if no one brought anything. My parents don't have enough alcohol in the house for it to go unnoticed if it disappears. That hasn't stopped me from taking small amounts and storing it in my room, but that's not enough for a party, and I think of it as my own stash.

I don't usually go to it very often. Usually only after a binge since alcohol has a ton of calories and I already feel like shit after a binge.

I have my coffee in the cup holder as I drive Mikey to school.

"How many people did you invite?"

"Not very many," he replies.

"There's probably going to be alcohol and drugs and shit. Don't do anything stupid. I'm not responsible for you and your friends," I say.

"Yeah, whatever." If he does something stupid it's his fault. I can't get blamed. I don't want to babysit him the whole party.

~~~
All day throughout the hallway people would talk to me and ask about the party. For once people actually liked me and would talk to me. Usually people would call me the emo art fag, and for once people were being nice. I liked this.

The end of the day finally rolled around and I offered to bring Frank to my house before the party so he could help me set the place up and shit. He also decided he should sleep over because his parents wouldn't like it if he came home in the middle of the night.

I got to the car before Mikey did like usual and Frank got in the passenger seat. Mikey was a bit pissed that he had to sit in the back. Oh well.

We get home and Frank and I go to my room. We decide to do a bit of our homework since the party will probably go all night and we won't have the motivation to do it over the weekend.

Frank had most of the same classes as me, but most of them were at different times throughout the day. We had basically the same homework though.

We finished our English and Algebra homework quickly since it was just a vocab worksheet and a math worksheet with equations and shit on it. The math worksheet wasn't very hard, just time consuming.

"Okay, I'm done," I say, throwing my pencil down and putting the worksheets in my backpack so I don't leave them at home on Monday.

"Okay. I'm tired of this too. Let's start setting shit up," Frank says, as he does the same with his homework.

We go downstairs and into the kitchen to try to find some food we can put out for the party. The best we can find is two bags of potato chips. Hopefully people don't just bring alcohol.

We pour the chips into bowls and set them on the coffee table in the living room.

"What else do we really need to set up?" Frank asks me.

"Um. I don't know. I guess we mostly just have to move breakable items somewhere where they aren't out in the open and make sure the house is a little bit clean. It will probably get trashed anyways but..." I say. I don't want a bunch of strangers to think I'm a slob.

We grab all the framed pictures and put them in an empty drawer in the bathroom. No one will get to those if they're there.

We move any other breakables like vases and stuff before going back to my room and flopping on my bed.

"Fuck. I'm already exhausted. Do you want some coffee? I'm making coffee," I say.

"I'll have a little bit," he says. I leave him in my room and go downstairs to the kitchen to make some coffee.

I finish making the coffee and bring up a cup for Frank and a cup for myself. And when I enter my room I wish I had taken him with me to make my coffee. He has my notebook. The one I keep track of my calories in. I am so screwed right now. Now he knows my secret and now he'll make me eat.

"Gerard, what the actual fuck? Why would you even?" he yells. I can't even handle it right now. I just break down and start crying.

"Please d-don't yell a-at me," I stutter through my tears.

He stands up and hugs me close. I hope he doesn't hate me. That would ruin my entire life.

"Gerard... Why? You look perfect. You aren't fat. If anything you're underweight. Shit, why didn't I notice something sooner?" he mutters.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. Does he actually think I'm not fat? Did he call me perfect? Did he actually mean anything he was saying.

"I don't know what to do about this. People are going to be showing up soon and I'm trying to fix an eating disorder with a gay hug that's probably going on for way too long." I giggle a little at his statement.

"It's not an eating disorder. I just don't want to be fat. Can we just forget you found that notebook and just continue on like this didn't happen?" I ask.

"No. Gerard... We need to talk about this. Later though. After the party. You can't like like this. Starving yourself isn't going to get you anywhere. I'm not going to let you do this to yourself," he says. I wipe the tears away from my face. I go to the bathroom to wash my face and try to hide the fact that I was crying. I don't need everyone at the party think I'm a pussy on top of them already calling me the emo art fag. I really don't want to be called the pussy emo art fag.

I manage to make myself look presentable before the first people arrived. I hear a knock on the door and open it to reveal six people who must have gotten a ride together. Thankfully one of them had a bag of chips and another one of them had a six pack of beer.

"You can put that stuff in the living room somewhere," I say a little quieter than necessary. Luckily they hear me. I end up just leaving the door open so people can easily get in and out without it being awkward.

Within half an hour the party is in full swing. Someone plugged their phone into a speaker system which belongs to my dad and blasted music.

The party was going great. I talked to random people and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. They also seemed completely shit-faced, but that's besides the point.

I hung out with Frank a bit, but only when he was with other people. I didn't want to get on the subject of my eating habits and I knew that he wouldn't bring it up in front of people.

I noticed Frank avoiding alcohol and I knew it was because he wanted to stay sober for his conversation with me. I considered getting completely drunk so we wouldn't be able to talk, but there's a lot of calories in alcohol, and I wasn't willing to consume that much.

Eventually people started leaving, and I'm pretty sure it was 4:00am before everyone was gone. It was easily the best party any of them had been to in a while.

"I am fucking exhausted," I exclaim.

"You just want to avoid the conversation we're inevitably going to have," Frank says.

"I'm also tired," I admit. I may want to avoid the conversation, but I want to sleep anyways.

"Okay. Then we'll lay down and talk." Since Frank and I have been friends for so long, we've slept over at each other's houses countless times and it's never been awkward to share a bed.

We both climb in my bed and lay down. I really wish he hadn't found my notebook. This is going to be an interesting conversation, that's all I can say.