Calories

Chapter Nine

Eventually Frank has to leave so he grabs his clothes from before his shower and he goes home. I told him he can just bring me back my clothes that he's wearing another day.

I remember that I was making a giant fucking cookie and I run downstairs, hoping it hasn't burnt yet.

It's not burnt; it's actually cooked practically perfectly. The only problem is I have no clue how to get it off of the cookie tray. It breaks into a few pieces, but I get it off the tray and put it on the cooling rack with the other cookies. They're cool by now, but I don't want to eat them. I've had so many calories that I don't want to even think about how many calories are in a normal cookie. I'm just going to ignore the giant cookie.

I go back upstairs and lie down on my bed. I hear my parents' car pull into the driveway. They get their stuff from the car and come inside.

"Mikey! Gerard! We're home!" my mom yells.

"Hi," I yell back from my room, just to let her know I'm here. Mikey does the same as me but from his room. I would go downstairs to see my parents but I'm too lazy and I'm sure that there are stains on my face from my tears. I don't need them thinking that anything is wrong.

It's probably really fucking suspicious that I'm not going downstairs to greet them. I guess I'll wash my face and make sure I look okay. I walk into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. By looking at me you'd be able to tell I was crying, but you wouldn't know how much.

My gaze travels away from my face and I focus more on my body. I can't help but grab at my stomach, feeling the fat beneath my skin. Fat stomach. Fat arms. Fat legs. All I see is fat. All I am is fat. I don't want to be fat.

I try to push that thought out of my mind as I grab a washcloth so I can wash my face. I get it so that if you didn't know that I had previously been crying you wouldn't notice.

"Welcome back!" I say as I go down the stairs. I don't want to seem like a kiss ass, but Mikey hasn't come downstairs yet, so I might as well make myself seem better than him.

"Oh, hi Gerard! What's with the cookies?" my mom asks.

"I made those earlier, you guys can have some if you want," I say. If my parents eat the cookies then there's less temptation for me.

"I was actually going to make dinner. I'll probably eat some later. They look really good," my mom says.

"What were you going to make for dinner?" I ask.

"Your dad and I went to the grocery store on the way home and we got stuff to make lasagna," my mom says. Lasagna: A great way to get fat. There's layers of meat and cheese with sauce in between layers of carbs. It's probably the worst thing for losing weight.

"Oh... Okay," I say before going back upstairs and into my room. I know they won't let me skip a meal on their first day back, and of course they choose to make something as fatty as lasagna.

Thank God I have school tomorrow and I'll be able to easily skip breakfast and lunch. But today I had to eat breakfast and lunch and I'll have to eat dinner too. I'll probably gain more weight than I can lose tomorrow.

I need to start keeping track of calories to the best of my ability in my notebook again. I walk over to my bedside table but it isn't there. I look under the bed, but it's not there either. After searching my entire room I come to the conclusion that Frank took it.

I know he wants what's best for me but he's so wrong. Getting fatter isn't better than getting thinner. And now I need to get a new notebook. Maybe I can text him and he'll give it back tomorrow at school. I take out my phone and send him a message.

Gerard: Yo, did you take my notebook?

He responds almost immediately.

Frank: Yeah. You don't need it.
Gerard: Please bring it to me tomorrow
Frank: No

There isn't any point in arguing. He clearly isn't going to give it back and now I have to find a new one. Luckily I have extra notebooks that haven't been used for school yet.

I go through my closet until I find a new notebook. This one is just plain blue and is bigger than the one Frank took.

I try to remember everything I ate today and write it down in the notebook. Holy shit that's a lot of food. I definitely need to burn calories. I decide to do jumping jacks since if I went for a run my parents would see that it's out of the ordinary.

I do a hundred before I get a cramp in my side. It hurts to breath. I think I read somewhere that doing 1 jumping jack can burn 1 calorie, so maybe i burned 100 calories. It's a start, but it's not enough. I'm not sure how many calories I've taken in today, but it was too much.

I catch my breath a bit and then do another 100 jumping jacks. I feel like I'm going to die from all these jumping jacks, but by now I've probably burned 200 calories and that's better than none.

My mom calls me and Mikey downstairs for dinner. I hear Mikey walk down the stairs and I hesitantly follow. I'm going to gain weight from this meal. But I have to eat. I can't let my family notice that I'm not eating. Mikey is already a bit confused after the weekend with Frank.

When I sit down at the table, Mikey and my dad are already sitting down and my mom is getting plates and forks. She sets them down on the table and asks my dad, "How much do you want?"

Yes! She's letting us pick how much we want today. I have to eat some, but maybe I can get away with just the smallest amount.

"Mikey, how much do you want?" my mom asks my brother.

"Um.. I don't know. I normal amount?" my brother says. My mom scoops the food onto my brother's plate.

"How much do you want, Gerard?" my mom asks me.

"Just a little," I say. She gives me what she calls a small scoop. It's not much less than what she gave Mikey. It's more than I wanted, but it's still less than everyone else had gotten so I can't get too upset.

I break off a small piece with my fork and put it in my mouth. I chew it up as small as I can make it, yet when I swallow it I almost feel like I'm choking. I can't do this, but I have to try. I can't just stand up and throw away my entire plate of food.

I look down at my plate. Do I really want to be putting this into my body? Of course I don't. Just looking at the plate of food makes me want to throw up. But I can't. I have to eat the entire thing.

And I manage to do just that. It felt like such a struggle. I get up and wash my plate and go upstairs to my room. I'm sure the rest of my family was having some sort of conversation and it was probably rude of me to just get up and leave, but I'm so tired right now and I've eaten so much and I don't care at this point. I have to get up tomorrow morning to go to school anyways.

It takes me a while to fall asleep. Even though he was only here for two nights, I've gotten used to Frank being right next to me as I go to sleep. Still, I manage to get to sleep.