Chapter 18 #2
Silence. I watched his face as my words replayed behind his eyes, watched him search for a flaw he couldn’t find. That was the point. This time, when I turned away, he didn’t stop me. I walked out of his room and back into mine, Holden’s stunned, fractured expression burned into my mind.
When we were kids, Holden and I used to talk about becoming veterinarians together.
We had a deal. He’d fix the dogs. I’d fix the cats.
We’d find partners. Get married. Live in houses right next to each other.
Be best friends, the way we’d been since the moment we were born.
That was our dream. Before real life happened.
Before the drugs. Before the food. Before the lies.
Before the pain. I used to think Holden and I shared the same dreams. Maybe we just share the same nightmares.
Soon enough, my days stopped being measured by moments—by where I went, who I spoke to, or what those moments were meant to mean. They were measured by something else entirely. How much I ate. And how many of my lies were believed.
Holden was suspicious. He followed me through the house like a shadow, watched my plate while I ate, and redirected my parents’ attention toward me whenever we sat at the table together.
But he didn’t tell. Cherry was suspicious too, but she was easier to fool.
Of course she was. As well as she knew me, I knew her.
I knew how to trick her. I knew how to misdirect her the way a magician distracts an audience.
I was the magician. My lies were the smoke. And she was the audience.
I told her how hungry I was. How excited I was to eat a burger.
She didn’t see me throw it away. I ate a salad in front of her, and she didn’t realize that was all I ate that day.
And eventually, she stopped asking about Holden’s questions.
Or maybe she didn’t stop thinking about them.
Maybe they still drifted through her mind, occasionally surfacing before she pushed them back down.
Maybe she didn’t want to see them. That was fine with me.
And so the days floated by. Not easily. Not gently.
They floated the way something does when it’s been dropped into a rapid river—carried forward by force, with jagged rocks breaking the surface beneath.
I went to work. I came home. I went to work.
I stayed home. Each day was numbered. Each number a quiet confirmation of how much control I still had.
478 calories.
380 calories.
509 calories.
680 calories. That was a bad day. I needed more control.
“Blair, why doesn’t the boy from the porch come around anymore?” my mom asked one night at dinner. I didn’t answer. What could I say?
0 calories. That’s better.
0 calories. Great.
0 calories. Too much control.
“You look sick, Blair,” Greg said to me one night at work, his beady eyes lingering on my midriff. My usually skin-tight shirt was starting to part ways with my body.
145 calories.
231 calories.
111 calories.
“You know you can talk about him, right?” I said to Cherry one day, noticing the careful way she avoided saying Levi’s name. “You can talk about him. I’m not pathetic.”
327 calories.
405 calories.
908 calories. I lost control.
128 calories. I got it back.
And no one stopped me. No one did, because I had fooled them. There was a smugness that grew inside me with every day I got away with it. I had a secret, and I had kept it from all of them.
And so eventually, somehow, I became my old self again.
Not the yellow Blair. Of course not her.
But a fragment of her. I didn’t go out with Cherry.
I didn’t go out with anyone, because couldn’t they see?
I was busy. I was so busy. Permanently inside my own head.
It was crowded in there. Loud. Relentless.
Nobody understood how busy it was. Only I did.
Because when you are at war with your body, you need every ounce of determination you have.
I was fighting a war they couldn’t see, but I could.
I had to fight every cue, every instinct, every basic pull toward survival.
My body told me to eat. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. But I had to. I had to eat enough, but not too much. Enough to avoid questions. Enough to keep my clothes from falling off my body. But never too much. A perfect amount. It was hard work. It was damn hard work.
They never tell you how much work it is to starve yourself.
They never tell you that part in all the stories you see online.
They tell you how hard it is to get better, but we all ignore that anyway.
They never tell you how hard it is to keep going.
How hard it is to maintain control. It was all I could think about.
Almost every thought in my mind became math.
Complicated calculations of how much I needed to stay alive, and how little I needed to stay in control.
But… I did say almost, didn’t I? Because there was something else I was thinking about, too. And I wished I wasn’t. How pathetic was that?
I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. Weeks.
I hadn’t seen him. I hadn’t spoken to him.
And still, I thought of him. And just like everything else in my life, I was at war with my thoughts of him, too.
I was angry. But I wasn’t. I missed him.
But I knew I shouldn’t. I wanted to call him.
But what would I even say? I replayed that night in my mind over and over again.
He was a bad person. Or maybe he was a good person.
Maybe he was both. Maybe he was neither.
I thought I was a good person. Maybe I’m not.
Maybe, just like Austin, I was both. Or maybe I wasn’t anything at all.
He just had to tell Holden that he loved me, didn’t he?
I wonder if he knew Holden would tell me.
If he knew those words would lodge themselves in my brain and refuse to leave.
If he knew they would haunt me. Maybe if he had known, he wouldn’t have said them.
But I think the reason I couldn’t stop thinking about his words was because I felt them, too.
Everyone knew. Cherry knew. Holden knew.
I knew. You knew. I was in love with Austin, too. Did he know?
I took a breath, finally looking through my own eyes again.
I was lying on my bed, my arms straight at my sides, staring up at the white of my ceiling.
I wondered how long I’d been gone inside my head.
Hours. Maybe days. I glanced toward my window, unsurprised by the darkness cloaking the sky.
It had been my day off, and what had I done?
Nothing. Physically, anyway. I had spent the day fighting my war. Was I winning? Or was I losing?
Maybe… maybe I should have tried harder to be the Blair from two weeks ago.
The Blair who was trying to be someone else.
Henry. Cherry. Holden. Maybe if I had kept trying, I could have succeeded.
Oh well. Maybe, like Holden, this was the Blair I was destined to be.
Fighting with my own mind just to allow myself to take part in the one activity that would, one day, surely kill me. If I let it.
I listened to my surroundings as I pushed myself off the bed.
The house was quiet. I wasn’t sure if it was quieter than usual, but it felt hollow in a way I couldn’t ignore.
I glanced at my phone, sighing in relief when there were no notifications waiting for me.
I felt the emptiness in my stomach as I stood, and I smiled at the sensation.
Each day I felt it, it reminded me of what I had accomplished.
I had stayed in control. Despite everyone’s attempts.
Despite their eyes and questions and concern.
Because I had fooled them all.
I didn’t bother slipping my feet into my slippers as I crossed my room.
I was too busy already planning tomorrow.
Already arranging my lies like pieces on a chessboard.
I let myself rehearse them as I walked through the still house.
I barely wondered where my family was. They were living their lives, whatever that looked like now.
I didn’t need to be part of it to predict it.
My hand trailed along the wall as I descended the staircase, careful and quiet.
I could wake up early tomorrow and make pancakes.
When they asked why I wasn’t eating with them, I would say I already had.
I pictured it easily. Effortlessly. I smiled again.
They wouldn’t suspect a thing. I had underestimated myself.
I was a great liar. A magician. Smoke, mirrors, misdirection. I had mastered it.
“Blair.” Holden’s voice snapped through my thoughts like a wire pulled too tight.
It wasn’t just that he said my name. It was how he said it.
Soft. Careful. The kind of voice someone uses when they’re about to tell you something irreversible.
Like stage four cancer. Like you’re already dying.
My head turned toward the sound before my body could stop it.
He was standing in the living room. My parents were behind him.
Cherry sat frozen on the couch. And Austin was beside her.
They were all staring at me, motionless, alert.
Like birdwatchers tracking something rare and skittish.
One wrong move, one wrong breath, and I would take flight.
But I couldn’t. I didn’t move at all. I was paralyzed.
“Hey,” Cherry said gently, and my eyes snapped to her at once.
I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. My body went rigid, every nerve suddenly aware that it had a choice.
Fight.
Or flight.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Cherry, keeping my eyes locked on her. Of course, I was painfully aware of Austin sitting beside her, but I couldn’t let myself look at him. I couldn’t.
“Holden said it was important,” Cherry answered, her gaze shifting uneasily between Holden and me. “He said we all needed to talk about something.”
A flicker of relief sparked inside me. If she didn’t know, if they didn’t know, then I could still lie. I could still fight. I could still control this.
“About what?” I asked, still looking only at Cherry.
“Blair, it’s time to come clean,” Holden said, and I saw him take a step toward me. I moved away instantly. Holden flinched at my reaction, his mouth tightening, his eyes darkening with hurt.
“Why is he here?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. I didn’t gesture toward Austin, but no one needed me to.
“Holden asked me to come,” Austin said quietly. Gently. And even though I wanted to look at him, I didn’t.
“Why?” I narrowed my eyes at Holden.
“He cares about you,” Holden said, his face filled with something that looked dangerously close to desperation. “He loves you. We all do. Which is why—”
“No,” I cut him off. “There’s nothing to talk about. You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong,” Holden said, shaking his head. “I already told Mom and Dad.”
My eyes finally moved. They landed on my parents.
I saw it immediately, the look they were trying to hide.
The disappointment. The fear. My mom’s eyes were glassy, her tears caught in the light like something fragile and breakable.
I let out a sharp breath, the crack in my composure finally splitting wide open.
“What’s going on?” Austin asked the room. His confusion was unmistakable. He had no idea. He never had. We had spent so long dissecting his secrets. We had never once touched mine.
“Is it…” Cherry started, then stopped, unable to finish the thought.
“She relapsed,” Holden said. The word landed like a body hitting pavement. Silence followed. Except inside me. My anger snapped tight, white-hot, coursing through my veins. Holden’s words burned, not just with betrayal, but with truth.
“No,” I said immediately. But I could feel it. No one believed me.
“Blair,” Cherry sighed, but Austin spoke at the same time.
“What… what do you mean she relapsed?” His voice broke. “Is she— is she an addict?” I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t focus on him. I could only stare at Holden, my eyes daring him. Or begging him.
“You didn’t tell him?” Holden asked me, panic flooding his expression as he realized Austin didn’t know.
“Don’t,” I said, the word rough and fractured.
“Don’t.” My voice cracked. “Please.” My eyes betrayed me then, burning, spilling over.
I didn’t wipe the tears away. I couldn’t.
I was only pleading with my brother. Holden hesitated.
I could see the war playing out behind his eyes.
The debate. The fear. I shook my head slowly as the tears fell. “Holden, please.”
“Blair has an eating disorder,” he said. “Anorexia. She almost killed herself years ago, and she’s killing herself again.”
Something inside me shattered. It felt violent. Metal-on-metal. Like a car crash I was forced to watch but couldn’t stop. I felt it in my bones. I bit down hard on my lip, squeezing my eyes shut in equal parts shame and fury.
“Blair… it’s going to be okay,” Cherry said softly.
“What—” Austin started at the same time.
I opened my eyes. At last, I looked at them.
Both of them. Their faces were mirrors of the same thing, pity.
Pain. Disappointment. They moved toward me together.
My body reacted instantly, electrified, every instinct screaming.
I backed away, but they didn’t stop. I glanced around the room.
My parents were watching me the same way.
Holden too. The walls felt closer. The air thinner. I couldn’t breathe.
Fight or flight.
Fight or fight.
Fight.
Or flight.
So I ran.
Right out the front door.