Cold

4 - Cold Ring

The house sat cold.

Ezra and Alyssa sat in the living room each of them on the far end of the sofa. Despite the distance, that was the closest they had ever been. In a really fucked up way.

He thought about telling her everything. Every weigh, every empty plate, every dramatic weight drop, every terrible thought he'd ever had but he just couldn't. How could he look his thirteen-year-old sister in the eye and say all that? He doesn't want to scare her. He took in a shaky breath, silencing the quiet that sat between them and spoke.

"I'm sorry I freaked out," Ezra spoke softly. "I just didn't want mom to know." Alyssa stared forward, focused on nothing, her face emotionless.

"Know what exactly?" Alyssa turned to him. "Why don't you want mom to know you were fucking puking your brains out?" He tugged down his sweater sleeves over his hands. It was a fresh one. One that didn't have any vomit on it.

"Because... you know she'll just do her mom thing where she messes with your face and checks on you every five minutes." Ezra didn't know how to avoid talking directly about what happened, but he could avoid the conversation with his mom. Alyssa nodded in agreement, her eyes slowly trailing back to nowhere. The two sat for a while. No one said anything, nobody turned on the tv, nobody breathed too loudly, nobody sniffled.

It was dead silent.

Ezra was absolutely terrified. He wasn't sure how convincing he was. He doesn't even really remember what all had happened. What if he was already past the point of a cover-up and everything he just said proved that he needed help? He stood up slowly to go to his room. He needed one hell of a nap.

"Wait," Alyssa said as she snapped back to attention. "Um... why were you like crying? Like... a lot. I get the mom thing but... she's not that bad." Ezra's hand tapped the banister, his foot waited patiently on the stairs. Waited to run away.

"Puking is just, you know, gross and I guess I was, you know, shocked that you were home," Ezra spoke as if everything was a question. He involuntarily took in a sharp breath, his breathing still trying to settle after hours of crying. Alyssa nodded again and turned to flip on the TV, though she kept it mute. His eyes lingered in the room for a moment, his foot seemingly glued to the stair. Not going up or down. The sound of the doorbell sent a ring of shock through his body, he froze before running up the stairs. He ran right to his room and looked out his blinds to the front step to see who it was.

Julia.

She stared right up at his window and right into his eyes, remembering exactly which blind he would lift up. The one beneath it was too short, the one above too tall. He dropped the blind and went to his drawers to get out a freshly washed pair of jeans. Ones that are his size. His star print pajama pants fell to the floor and his spindly legs slid into the jeans. He pulled them up under the huge cable knit sweater and buttoned them only to watch them sag. His eyes trailed to the mirror and watched his boxers stick out at the top, but not as much as they had before. He waited for the voice to congratulate him but it didn't. His head was silent.

I'm not sick enough for that voice to talk anymore. I ate so much it left. I'm better? I don't want to be "better".

Ezra listened to the silence, tried to talk to the voice again but it wouldn't answer. It was just him looking at how much fatter he must have gotten to not have his voice anymore. The voice was the only one he knew that really got it. The voice was his friend. His friend left him because he didn't try hard enough. He didn't listen.

I should have listened.

He slid a belt through the loops and fastened it above his hip bones. The red journal he kept within his nightstand was spread out before him on his dresser. He wrote out the hours for the next week. Seven days. 168 hours. The pencil scratched out the hours that had already passed without any food. He looked at the number. 168 doesn't seem like a lot. 168 is like, nothing.

Footsteps came close to his door and Ezra heard the handle begin to turn. He slid the journal back into his drawer and sat down on his bed, the belt buckle digging into his stomach. The door creaked opened to reveal Julia standing there looking at him with pity.

She hates me remember? I didn't let her lean in. So she hates me.

I hate that stupid look of pity.

She looked down at her feet before resuming eye contact and pushing her hair behind both her ears. She wore it down. The silence stretched thin between the two friends, tearing only when each would breathe or move. Her feet dragged across the floor. They left dark lines on the carpet where they trailed along. She slowly sat down on the edge of his bed as she watched his face delicately. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her spinning her ring around on her index finger. It was a small band, half steel crowned with opal. Her birthstone. He got that for her years ago and he had never seen her without it since.

She got him a black band in return. He thought it looked awkward on him, it didn't really fit his style. She thought it made him more masculine and she liked him better when he looked more masculine. She got him a lot of stuff that were all slightly more masculine version of what he owned. A guitar that he doesn't know how to play to replace his ukulele. Still unopened all black converse to replace his dusty pink ones that were so dirty you could hardly tell they were pink anymore. Several hoodies and sweatshirts to replace his cable knit sweaters. The oddest one was Axe "dark temptation" 4 piece set to replace his Suave strawberry shampoo and his Olay strawberry and mint body wash.

It was weird.

"Sorry," Julia spoke into her hands. "Sorry for being so... petty?" She didn't sound as if she knew exactly what to be sorry about but she managed to try. She deserves to feel sorry for me. She made me break my 72 hours. She made me lose my friend.

"It's fine, don't worry about it." Ezra didn't want to look at her. Not straight on, she would see that something was wrong. She always did. The silence began to stretch again, Julia filled her cheeks with air before pressing it out.

"I know that this is bad timing but... I don't really have an option I sort of ran out of time..." Julia didn't try to make eye contact anymore. Her fidgeting hands were what she appeared to be talking to. Ezra looked to her curiously, waiting for her words to actually come out. "Do you want to go to the dance on Friday?" Ezra's shoulders saged as the tension was relieved.

"Um, sure I guess," He shrugged despite how quickly his mind spun. How am I supposed to go to the dance at my size? I better stick to it. 168 hours. By the dance, it will only be in the low hundreds but it should work. Julia looked up from her hands and deep into Ezra's eyes. He felt his heart stop dead in its tracks as they both met.

"Do you want to go to the dance with me?" Julia said. She only wants to go with me because she feels bad that no one else likes me. She knew I was upset today, she's just trying to make me feel special. She doesn't actually like me. Why would she? Why would all of a sudden? I'm just her charity case. This is so random and out of place anyways. She just pities me. "Ezra?" Julia spoke again, her words dripping like syrup. Slow and sweet.

"Yeah, we can go together," Ezra said, making her break out into a huge smile. She leaned forward and pulled him into a hug. Why did she ask if I wanted to go with her? Isn't that a given? We're friends, we always go together. Just then his stomach was thrown into his throat as she slid her hands underneath his sweater. She can feel my fat. My folds. All the stupid weight just clinging to my stupid bones. Stupid. Stupid Ezra. Julia pulled herself in a little tighter, her cold ring rested against his spine.