Cold

3 - Cold Floor

Ezra sat at the end of his bed, his phone between his hands. The nurse found him in the hallway, blacked out but conscious. She called home to his dismay and his mom was there within minutes to take him. The nurse, however, failed to mention the fact that he blacked out and instead referred to him as 'feeling faint and sick.'

The car ride was stiff as Ezra was thrown questions he refused to answer. His mom asked about what food he had been eating recently, what did he drink last, if he took ibuprofen this morning. He found a way around them but he probably drew all the unwanted attention he could get. In fact, as he sat on his bed and thought about what happened in the car, he couldn't remember any of his responses.

He just nodded on and off.

His phone buzzed in his hands, startling him as he had forgotten about it. He texted Julia that he went home early and she didn't have to wait for him after second period. All she replied was 'alright'. Nothing more, nothing less. Ezra's hands shook as he tossed his phone to the foot of his bed. He was in pajamas that his mother had just taken out of the dryer. The hot fabric clung loosely to his body and granted the foreign feeling of warmth to him. He pushed himself back into his bed and tucked himself under the comforter.

He pulled up Instagram and switched over to his ed account, 3eskinny. It was always lit up with notifications from a group chat he usually kept on mute but sometimes the other three groups he was in would text too. They had been made one or two months ago so it wasn't surprising that no one used them anymore. His page was filled with male models, fashion-trend-following boys, boys with too many bruises, too many cigarettes, too many knives. Why did good malespo always have to be so violent?

He tried his best to keep it to the boys who had floppy hair and called themselves grunge.

Ezra clicked on Cuties, the group chat, to see what they were talking about. One of the users, skellit_skin, binged and was freaking out.

skellit_skin: oh my god

skellit_skin: guys

skellit_skin: i just binged so fucking bad

skellit_skin: help

ontheroadtoskinny: Go for a run or a walk

thin.is.cumbersome: ^^^^^

skellit_skin: i can't

thin.is.cumbersome: if u can't rn bc of parents then do jumping jacks in your room and planks and stuff

skellit_skin: no i can't work out right now i feel so fucking sick.

3eskinny: It's okay, drink a glass of cold water. Take deep breaths and stay calm. If you have a yoga ball, lay back on it and stretch out your stomach and back.

skellit_skin: i don't have a yoga ball

skellit_skin: i'm so screwed

3eskinny: That's okay, you can do it on the arm of a sofa! Just take deep breaths everything will be fine. The binge already happened, there's nothing you can do to change that. If you want to try and burn off the calories later you can but just focus on not purging or being involuntarily sick.

3eskinny: Stay safe love <3

skellit_skin: <3<3<3

Just then his mother walked in with a hard-boiled egg sandwich, potato chips, and a Sprite. She had poured it into a glass from their two-liter. He hadn't had Sprite in at least a year. He couldn't think of how many calories were in it let alone how much was actually in the glass. Ezra's throat went sandy at the sight of it all.