These Demons

Chapter One

I stare at the toilet in front of me, disgusted by the mess I've made.
This shouldn't have happened in the first place, so it's my fault that I ended up here.
I just should have never eaten all that damn pasta at the restaurant. What has gotten into me that made me believe it was a good idea? Furthermore, that I could get away with it without facing consequences? I'm such an idiot. Skinny people can afford such slip-ups, but I certainly can't.

After quickly cleaning everything up, I scrub my hands with a lot of soap to get rid of the smell and put on the black fingerless leather gloves I've been wearing for a while now to hide my scarred knuckles.
No matter how careful I am, I just can't avoid those scratches.
Fixing my hair, I stare at my reflection in front of me and almost bash the mirror in because of the sight of it. My fans really need to be into my music considering how repulsive my appearance has become since my divorce.
I don't know how much I weighed before that happened because I never had to care back then, but what I do know is that is what far less than now. I'm not blind or stupid- I can see and feel the weight I've gained.
How much tighter my clothes are, how much more space my body needs, how my skin has expanded- I feel it with every breath I take and it needs to stop.
And when I fail, I need to pay for it by getting rid of the food again. It's painful and gross, but simply necessary.

Still angry with myself because of how weak I am, I return to my kitchen to get some more black coffee when I receive a text from my manager reminding me of the show tonight: an exclusive first performance of our upcoming album at the studio, not publicly accessible and only with a handful of guests we've chosen from longtime fans, friends, family and the production team.
My mind has been so distracted that I have honestly almost forgotten about it until now, and I'm not happy to be reminded again.
I've spent most of my time alone over the course of the last few months and only left my solitude to work on the album with the band and the team, and thinking about doing a show in front of people again makes me sick. I used to love doing that, but not anymore.
It makes me feel like an animal exposed in a zoo, and even though I always claim to not care about what others think about me, I've lately been worrying way too much about the way my body might look (especially my weight) in the eyes of other people.

While I continue to worry about tonight, I change into more comfortable clothes and go out for a long and exhausting run in the warm breeze coming along with fall in Los Angeles to burn some more calories.
All of my limbs hurt after an hour, but I continue nevertheless because I know how much I'll hate myself if I dare to give up before I've reached the two hours mark, so I grit my teeth and finish the run feeling so weak that I want to collapse at my front door, but instead, I take a shower and get ready avoiding the mirrors in my house as much as possible.
When the sun has set and it's time to leave the house, I have three tablespoons of fat free plain yogurt for dinner before getting into my car.

Arriving at the studio feels like entering the gates of hell.
Making music has been my dream all my life, but since I've been feeling so out of everything, nothing I do feels right anymore, and seeing people is the worst. With a fake smile plastered on my face, I greet everyone and mentally curse them all for making me the center of the attention in the room. There are only about twenty people here, but that's already too much and all this small talk is killing me.
Yes, I'm fine. Yes, we're very proud of the album. Yes, we've all been working very hard. Yes, we're looking forward to the band's future. Yes, we'll be touring. Yes, I'm doing great. I keep repeating the same responses over and over again, but it never seems to want to end. And then the topic I've been fearing the most comes up.

"Are you sure you're okay, man?" Jake asks, coming up to me from behind and rubbing my shoulder. "You look..." Disgusting? Gross? Horrible? "Exhausted." I almost scoff. "I'm fine," I lie, but he is obviously not convinced.
"Really? You've been so pale lately." "And you've been losing weight," Ashley adds frowning. My heart skips a beat when I hear that and adrenaline rushes through my veins, but I can't let them notice.
Nothing makes me prouder than losing weight, not even my best songs, but I can't tell them that because they wouldn't understand. Nobody understands what's going on inside my head and they'd only say there is something wrong with me even though all I'm doing is get back on track. "If something is wrong, you can tell us," Jinxx tells me with his compassionate voice that makes me want to vomit. "It's just... the whole thing with Juliet," I continue to lie.
That might be what started it, but Juliet is not what this is about. I don't want her back. "We recently signed the divorce papers and that was really hard after all these years together." It was, but she's not what's on my mind. Definitely not.