Louis never really had a normal relationship with food. He used to be a really scrawny kid; a picky eater. His eating patterns were almost OCD and sometimes he stubbornly refused to eat anything at all, because according to him there was something wrong with the food he was served. His parents could not stop worrying and they took him to several doctors and therapists. Everyone gave them the same answer - he would probably grow out of it soon; they should not be worried, he was a healthy child.
The professionals were right. Around fifth grade Louis started to eat more. Though he never stopped at a healthy amount and soon you would always find him with some sort of snack in his hand - preferably a chocolate bar of some kind. At the beginning of year seven he was not only a couple, but several pounds overweight. Though this bothered neither him nor his parents, they were just happy that he finally ate.
He wasn't the popular guy with tons of friends, but it never mattered to him. He liked being alone and enjoyed doing whatever he wanted without having to think of somebody else. He preferred his safe bubble inside his room and spent hours reading books, singing and learning how to play the piano.
But kids are honest and cruel, and his classmates soon picked up on the fact that he was a complete friendless, overweight boy with a passion for reading dusty library books and playing the piano - something that definitely was not the norm in his school. People have been, and are still taught that different is bad, and the kids in Louis' school were not scared to tell him exactly what they thought was wrong with him.
Louis could easily shake all the mean words off, and the harsh shoves were meaningless to him. He didn't care that some people at his school did not like him. He had his father and his mother and his two baby sisters. He had everything he could possibly need, so why should he care about a few lame insults?
His parents got divorced just before his fourteenth birthday and left Louis completely devastated. There was never even the smallest sign that his parents didn't love each other anymore, and Louis could not be more shocked when he came home from school one day, excitingly skipping up the driveway, and ready to show his parents the A he got on his maths test, but instead finding his dad packing two big suitcases and his mum crying and begging him to stay.
Before his dad walked through the door to never come back again, he told them all that he couldn't do this anymore; that he wasn't ready to have this much responsibility and that he couldn't take the burden of three children anymore.
Lottie and Fizzy were too young to even understand what was going on, but Louis understood completely. He was a burden.
Louis tried his best to help out at home. He started to neglect his own health and needs to the point were his mum forbid him to even get close to the kitchen sink and washing machine. His grades suffered madly and he found it harder and harder to shield of the harsh words that rained over him at school.
The stability he had once felt inside his own house was not there anymore to protect him. The safe bubble was destroyed and replaced by a growing weight on his shoulders. For someone that never cared about what people thought about him, this new self-consciousness that had appeared once the word burden had planted itself in his brain, was something terrifying.
Eventually his mother met someone new and after just three months of dating, she was already pregnant with twins. The guy, Mark, wasn't even slightly angry, and promised to stay and take care of everyone. Louis did not trust him (to be honest, he didn't really trust anyone at this point).
Once Louis discovered that food made the hurt fade for a little while, it only made sense for him to keep eating. By the time he began ninth grade he was painfully overweight. His short and chubby form made the kids attack him with even more cruel words.
