Undercover (Larry Stylinson)

41. drag me down

Three weeks have gone by.

Three weeks since Louis started his outpatient program. And six weeks since Niall started his inpatient one.

Thanks to his amazing team, his support dog and a ton of hard work, Niall had made significant strides in his recovery and was able to identify and deal with any kind of flashback or breakdown that came his way.

That's not to say it was easy.

He spent so many nights in his room crying, knees pressed to his chest. So many mornings nursing his aching stomach after a meal that was way too much for him. So many afternoons walking through the garden and wishing be could just make a run for the highway, just get out of there, just end it all.

But he kept going. He kept fighting, pushing along little by little. And soon, the therapy sessions got easier. The food went down a little quicker. The flashbacks got more infrequent.

Slowly, he began to feel himself again. Not one hundred percent. But better. Much better.

And he was proud.

While Niall was nearly at the finish line, however, Louis still had a ton of work to do.

"Did you purge this week?" Dr. Ross asked during a recent session. "Hand me your journal."

Louis sighed and handed over the faded black notebook, which contained a daily log of his meals and behaviors, written in neat, capital letters. 

"You purged almost every day this week," she said frowning. "What's going on."

"I just... couldn't do it," Louis said, shrugging his shoulders back. He tapped his foot against the bottom of the red chair, causing it to shake a bit.

"Why?" Dr. Ross responded. "You've been working with me three weeks and you've only started purging more. Why aren't you making progress?"

Louis' sharp inhale filled the room and he looked out the window. "I guess I'm not trying hard enough."

"Why not?" she asked. 

"Because I don't want to. I don't care enough to try. I don't... I don't care about myself."

"Why don't you?"

"Because," Louis said, returning his gaze to meet the doctor's. "I don't think I'm good enough. I don't want to get better. I want to stay sick. It's easier for me to be sick -- because at least then I can feel sorry for myself. At least then I can have something to blame when all of this fucked up shit goes wrong in my life. I love pitying myself. I get high off that shit. I love that feeling of my stomach burning with hunger or the painful sting in the back of my throat after I throw up. Because I deserve that pain... I deserve to hurt. I'm not good enough... I was never good enough."

The words flew out of his mouth faster than a crashing plane. He sat back, hands shaking, and let them settle in the air, the broken debris fluttering down to the soft earth as the plane lay crumpled on the tar-pit. 

Dr. Ross stared at him, unblinking and closed the notebook on her desk where she was taking notes. 

"Never have I had a patient so introspective," she finally said, breaking the silence. "That was quite a breakthrough, Louis."

His mouth twisted into a filthy frown and he raised an eyebrow. "Are you kidding me? I just admitted horrible things."

"Yes," she replied. "But at least you understand why. That's what these sessions have been about this whole time. To find out why this is happening. Why it's really happening. Not just the surface level reasons like weight or appearance, but the deeper reasons. The fear. The self hatred."