It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane - Larry

It Will Slip on the Sand

Louis cracks a few days later. He was just going to the bathroom, for the usual reasons... But when he passed the mirror he caught a glimpse of himself from the corner of his eye. Only this time, the image of him seemed all wrong. He could see his sunken cheeks and eyes, crazily sharp cheekbones, his skin grayish and hair all limp and dry, bony shoulders hiding under the hospital gown and collarbones sticking out above. He was confused by the image and had to turn and look into the mirror to see if it really was true.

But when he turned to look in the mirror he was met by his own dull eyes, and yes his hair was limp and dry, lips chapped. But, he could not see the sunken cheeks or sharp cheekbones, or the collarbones. Instead he saw pudgy cheeks, undefined jawline and a body filling out the hospital gown so it stretched tightly around his abdomen and chest. And when he lifts his hand to fix his hair, he doesn't see skeletal fingers and a frail wrist, but chubby fingers and arms too thick to be proportionate.

He blinks away the tears that formed in his eyes and takes a shaky breath before locking the door to the bathroom. No one is in his room at the moment, because Harry had some song writing session with someone, and the others were busy as well, and the nurses aren't supposed to be there until lunch, which Louis thinks is in about an hour. This means that no one will notice him locking the door, which has been strictly forbidden since he entered the hospital (he isn't sure why they don't just remove the lock from the door if it is so important). But so he locks the door and then he strips to his underwear.

He takes a long time to examine himself in the mirror. His breathing becomes ragged as he stares at his arms and chest, and he can't help but let a few tears fall when he sees how bloated his stomach looks and how large his thighs have become. He looks just as bad as he looked when he began skipping meals. And he feels just as nauseous when he looks as his reflection. He lets his hands roam over his body and pull and scratch at the fat that is covering his bones. His nails leave red marks all over his thin skin, but he doesn't care. He doesn't stop until he has drawn blood on both his stomach and thighs.

After that he turns away from the mirror and kneels in front of the toilet. He opens the lid and stares down at the clear water for a long time, watching as his tears make it to the water. He then takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as he forcefully sticks his fingers to the back of his mouth. The reaction is immediate and his breakfast spills out from his mouth and into the toilet. He continues this and gags until nothing more comes out. But he can't stop. He doesn't want to stop.

He gets up and fills a glass with water by the sink before quickly gulping it down, wincing at how sore his throat has become. He kneels again and forces his fingers into his mouth again, and purges up the water. The water he throws up is slightly pink, probably from blood, but Louis isn't finished. He repeats the action, alternating between drinking and throwing up, until all that comes out is blood.

He is vaguely aware that he is sobbing loudly and coughing. His throat is aching and feels too swollen for him to be able to breathe normally. The fingers he has forced into his mouth are pulsating with pain from having been scraped against his teeth, and if he were to look down he could see that they were bleeding.

There is an urgent knocking on the bathroom door, which Louis can make out over his own sobs, and he can hear a nurse telling him to unlock the door. But he doesn't want to, he doesn't even think he has the energy to stand up and unlock it. He feels as if he is drained, that all that is left is only a shell of who he really is. His body is just a vessel that he is no longer comfortable in, and his personality and all there was to like about him went into the toilet along his his puke. He feels like shit and he feels guilty. So God damn guilty; for caving and acting like he just did. But he also feels guilty for having eaten as much as he has for the past week.