Speak Up // Lams

Chapter 22

- Alex -

"So..." John began. I felt the anxiety rise in me, praying that this wouldn't end in another fight. I fidgeted with my hands and looked up at him shyly.

"I'm just gonna say everything I need to say and ask and then you can answer and tell me if I'm wrong or not, neither of us interrupting each other. Is that alright?" He said. Not knowing what else to do, I nodded and sucked in a breath as he began.

"I care about you so much. I love you with all of my heart and I'm really worried about you. I've been noticing how you push around your food and poke at it. I've seen your little tricks to spread it out and make it look like you ate it, or spilling it little by little into a napkin when you think I'm not looking. I've seen the fake chewing and you eating and spitting it out right after. You constantly skip lunch and make excuses to not eat here. But I've also heard things." My faces begins to pale as soon as he mentions poking at the food and I feel myself getting more lightheaded as he lists everything before saying the last sentence.

"For a few days I would wonder why you would go to the bathroom right after we ate, every single time. And then one night, I heard weird noises and I was really concerned, so I went outside the door and I could hear you throwing up. And suddenly it all made sense to me why you'd disappear after eating. And don't try to tell me you were sick, because after I made you eat some of that salad tonight you went to the bathroom. I feel so terrible and like a distrustful boyfriend for doing this, but I followed you to the bathroom to see if it was true. And sure enough, I heard it." He said, staring straight at me. I felt my hands shaking and forced my gaze away from him. He knew everything. Every single thing. He took a short breath and began to speak again.

"So yeah. Can you tell me what's going on?" He didn't say it in a rude tone, I could tell that he cared. I didn't want to tell him though, but I have to. We made a promise. Signing seemed like too much work, so as per usual in our more serious conversations, I pulled out my phone and opened my Notes, typing quickly.

I don't know. A while ago I looked in the mirror and I guess I just didn't like what I saw. And then I started weighing myself obsessively and looking up all this stuff to lose weight but it didn't feel like it was working. The numbers kept going down but I didn't look any different.

So I thought that maybe if I didn't eat, it would help. And it did, for a while. But then I would get so hungry that I thought I would pass out and I didn't want you to find out, so then I'd eat just enough to take the edge off the hunger.

But then I'd sit and think about how eating was making me fat and how being fat made me even more ugly than already. I would try to "get rid" of the calories I ate by making myself throw up.

And none of it is you in the least. I can tell in your eyes you feel guilty for not acknowledging this sooner but it's nobody's fault except mine. I just absolutely hate how I look and I'm disgusted with all the fat on me. The bad thing is, even after talking about this all I still feel fat and ugly and like I should keep doing what I'm doing.

I set the phone down so he could read it, thinking of everything I did and didn't say. I told him pretty much the whole thing. He still doesn't know that Thomas bullies me or is a big contributor to making me feel this way. He doesn't know I was doing it because I thought I'd be more attractive him, and he doesn't know that I'm still going to keep doing it. But what John doesn't know can't hurt him, right?

He looks up at me when he's finished, sliding the phone back and throwing his arms around me in a hug.

"We're gonna get through this. But your first step to recovery for now is eating something.. You hardly ate at dinner and I know for a fact you haven't eaten anything else today or yesterday. We can just start with something small, alright?" He said. I didn't like the sound of his recovery plan. Eating meant gaining weight and gaining weight meant making myself more ugly and being bullied worse by Thomas. But there was nothing I could do because I knew John would worry until I gave in.

He went to the fridge and took out a small box of leftovers from our dinner. He had some fries and about a quarter of a burger left. He pushed the box towards me and I started at it for a moment before he sat in front of me with a well meaning look on his face.

"Cmon Alex, it's ok. I know you're hungry, I can hear your stomach growling from here. I promise, it won't hurt you." He said softly, reaching for my hand as I continued to stare at the food in the box. I knew he could hear my stomach, I could too. But he was wrong about the second part. It would hurt me.

I began to think of myself as I was before all this: everyone claimed I was too skinny, but I was fat. Compared to me now, I was fat back then. Back when I would've eaten this burger and fries without hesitation if I was this hungry. I can't do that to myself again. I shook my head and looked away, forcing the tears of shame to stop welling in my eyes. I pushed the box towards John and he looked at me in slight shock.

"Alexander, you need to eat! You are literally going to keep losing weight until you die if you don't! You don't want that to happen, do you?" He asked, concern growing in his voice. I shook my head, lying. Even if I really didn't want that to happen, I wouldn't eat the burger. I would be fine.

He pushed the box back towards me and we continued the cycle of pushing it back and forth. It was so stupid and irrelevant that to anyone who would've been in the apartment could've found it comedic.

I can't do it, John. I signed at last, after five minutes of him trying to convince me that eating the burger would be alright. He sighed in worry and suddenly pulled out his phone.

"Alexander, how tall are you and how much do you weigh right now?" He asked. Confused, I signed back that I'm 5'7" and weigh 93 pounds. He typed something in on his phone and turned it around to show me.

"Alexander, this is a Body Mass Index/BMI Calculator. You're extremely, extremely underweight for your age and height. You're literally starving to death. I'm really scared for you." He said. I looked at the screen and sure enough it said I was in the 1st percentile weight for my age and that I was incredibly underweight. I sighed, still unable to convince myself.

"Here's what I'm going to do. It's late, so I'm going to go to bed. You can stay here and sit at this table with this burger until you get hungry enough, to your standards apparently, to eat it. I don't know what we're going to do about this. It's a really, really serious problem Alex. But you can figure this part out yourself, because I'm clearly not helping with it." He said in exasperation, standing up and putting the box next to me. I felt sick at the smell of the fries and my stomach growled painfully.

I knew he was upset with me and I felt terrible, but I also know John. He has such a huge heart that everytime he can't help someone, he blames it on himself.

I don't know how long I sat at the table for, but I do know three things. The first being that I did not even touch any of the burger or the fries, as hungry as I was. The second is that I woke up late in the night in John's arms as he carried me from the table to our bed.

The final thing was that even though he thought I was asleep, I could heard his choked sobs when he went back to the kitchen to find the food completely untouched.