Milo
WHEN JASPER SAID he would make sure I started eating more, he meant it.
This was our third night in a row ordering in.
The coffee table in the dimly lit living room was covered in takeout boxes, and by the smell, it was definitely Indian food.
The hunger pangs hit me hard. If there wasn’t food in front of me, hunger often eluded me, like eating was as easy to forget as an errand you meant to run.
“Sit down already.” Jasper nodded toward the cushion beside him.
“You know, forcing people to eat is probably someone’s kink,” I said as I settled in next to him.
“I really hope it’s not yours.” Jasper raised his eyebrows. “I might have to kink-shame you.”
“Never. Just the usual stuff like choking for me.” I shrugged and reached over him for the butter chicken.
“Oh yeah?” He didn’t miss a beat. “Are you choking your girlfriends, or are they choking you?”
I shot him a glare from the corner of my eye and shoved a forkful of food into my mouth instead of dignifying him with a response.
He already knew the answer. It wasn’t a secret what kind of shit I was into, especially not after years of living under the same roof.
Noise always travelled crystal clear from the basement to the second floor at Mom’s place, so I never bothered being discreet.
It didn’t help that I enjoyed talking about my sexual adventures afterward. He didn’t seem bothered by it, always telling me things like nice or that’s pretty hot, which scratched that itch for his approval.
I swallowed a bite of food. “Clearly, it’s me choking them.” I aimed for nonchalance and missed by a mile.
“Funny, I could have sworn you texted me the first time you found a girl dominant enough to—”
“Yeah, yeah, shut your face,” I interrupted and bumped my shoulder against his.
I couldn’t stop oversharing no matter how hard I tried. Thankfully, Jasper talked about sex sometimes too—never in as many words or as frequently, but that made the times he did all the more… special. Was that weird?
Like when he told me about the first time he made a girl finish.
It was cute, honestly. He’d asked me how he would know if it ‘happened for real’ and it wasn’t just her faking it.
But as we got older, he shared less. I wasn’t sure he’d had any girlfriends or boyfriends at all over the last couple of years, let alone any flings.
I liked that, not having to share him.
To my relief, Jasper didn’t tease me any further. We continued to eat, my insides pricking with a needle-like pain, too used to neglect and unused to food. I tried my best to get through the meal so he would see I was making a real effort, but soon enough I was merely picking at it with my fork.
“Full already?” Jasper asked, perceptive as ever.
“No, I’m just taking a break,” I lied.
“I won’t force you to eat it all. Food is food. As long as you’re getting something in your body other than alcohol and cigarettes, I don’t really give a shit.”
“I know.”
Though he tried his best to make me feel at ease, none of it stuck. I was laser-focused on my task, determined to show him that I could do something right. I kept going until one bite made me gag, a shiver rolling through my body.
“You okay?” His brows drew together with worry.
A twisted sense of pleasure settled in my gut. His concern made me feel loved, and shamefully, I wanted more of it.
“Probably,” I said unconvincingly, pressing a hand to my stomach. “I think I’m gonna go lie down.”
I stood, fist pressed to my mouth. It was too much food too soon, and the ghost taste of acetaminophen crawled up my throat like psychological warfare.
“Okay.” He looked like he wanted to say more but was holding himself back.
He shouldn’t hold back. I wanted the pushing, the condescension, the judgment. I wanted it to reflect my own overwhelming intensity, so it wouldn’t feel like I was drowning alone. At least if he was pushy, I knew that he cared.
My room was silent and oppressive, and lying down only worsened the nausea. Every breath I took was cautious, the foul-tasting bile creeping up the back of my throat and teasing me with the promise of punishment for eating past my limit.
The only upside was the drowsiness, the sluggish promise of a food coma. Sleep had been impossible without my pills, but now it flirted with the edges of my vision.
I stared at the door, hoping Jasper would magically appear to pet my hair until I drifted off. Minutes passed, and he didn’t come. He had no way of knowing that I wanted him to, but his absence still made my blood run hot with irrational anger.
Why didn’t he know I needed him?
He should have followed me. He should have known I couldn’t be alone, should have known I’d spiral.
Maybe he didn’t love me at all, or need me like he said he did.
The thoughts were unbidden and unwanted.
They clung to me as though I’d fallen into a pool fully dressed, a pair of soaking-wet clothes trying to drag me under.
Shut up.
I dug my fingers into my hair, tugging hard for that grounding physical sensation. I couldn’t let Jasper see this part of me—or maybe he already knew about it, and that’s why he didn’t come. He was already tired. Tired of the hospital visits, the texts, the self-destruction.
Sick of me.
I dragged my hands down my face, pausing to look at the scar on my palm. I rubbed my thumb over the rough skin, the tangible proof that my intrusive thoughts held no truth.
If I didn’t move, I was going to drown. The world did a disgusting spin, and I was sure all of the food I’d eaten would make a return. But the wave passed, and I staggered into the hallway.
Jasper had turned off the lights, and I swallowed the rising panic. I lifted my phone and let its glow illuminate my surroundings, which only made everything more unsettling, like it might reveal something waiting for me in the dark.
The living room was empty, the leftovers already put away. So I went to his new room and pushed the door open without knocking, the way I always used to. I’d barge into his room ten times a day when we lived together, for no reason other than to annoy the shit out of him.
He was reading. He looked up, brown eyes assessing me from behind the rims of his glasses. I don’t know why I thought he wouldn’t be there, but seeing him and knowing he hadn’t disappeared sent relief crashing over me.
“Do you need something?” he asked.
I nodded, and he gestured to the space by his feet on the bed. My limbs gave out as I sank onto the mattress, the dip beneath my weight swallowing me whole.
“You turned the lights off,” I accused.
“I did. That’s what normal people do at night.” He shook his head.
“I’m not normal.”
He gasped dramatically. “Oh, shit. Really?”
“Fuck off.” I swatted his leg, and he hit me over the head with his book.
I didn’t have the energy in me to fight him about keeping the lights on for safety. That would mean explaining my paranoid logic: lights meant people were home, and people being home meant intruders wouldn’t choose us.
It was just basic math.
As he resumed reading, my thoughts drifted somewhere vulnerable. I shifted restlessly, earning an annoyed glance before I gave up and settled for staring at the ceiling.
“Am I going to be okay?” I asked suddenly.
“Probably not.” He didn’t look up. “You never are.”
“Some therapist you are.”
“It’s the truth,” he said. “But I’m here anyway.”
“You’re not sick of me yet?” I turned my head toward him.
“No.”
His answer was short and gave my spiralling mind little to latch onto. I had a thousand follow-up questions, hungry to crack open his skull and pick it apart with a fine-toothed comb for the validation I needed.
“Why?” I whispered.
He closed his book and sighed, running his fingers through his hair and pulling it away from his face. The space between his brows wrinkled.
“You’re all I have.” There was an intensity in his eyes that made my spine prickle.
Simple words—but better than before. Ones I could work with. I’d heard them a dozen times before, but they always managed to cut through the noise. The symphony of self-loathing and fear quieted to a simmer, and the room seemed to settle with it. However, some of the thoughts still lingered.
“That’s not true,” I said. “There’s Mom and Blane.”
There had to be people who ranked higher than me. Our other brother. Mom. Friends I didn’t know about. I hated the idea that our social circles might not overlap the way they used to, now that I had spent so long away from home.
“Are they you?” He tapped his fingers against the book cover.
“No,” I admitted.
“Exactly.”
He said it confidently, as though it were just that simple.
It was infuriating how he refused to feed my spirals. I wondered how long this could last. Whether he’d wake up one day and realize I would always be this way, and that I truly couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much he poured into me.
“Please don’t leave me,” I said quietly, crippling vulnerability on display.
He snorted. “You couldn’t get rid of me even if you tried.”
“I don’t know.” I scrunched my nose. “I feel like if I really committed, I could manage.”
“You think I’m weak like your shitty girlfriends? Offensive.” He clicked his tongue.
It was my turn to snort.
His fingers slipped into my hair, and he massaged gently, pulling a heavy sigh from deep in my tobacco-infested lungs.
No matter how many times he did it, I never got sick of it.
My eyelids grew heavy as he worked the remainder of my frenzy out with his touch.
Lying at the foot of his narrow mattress, I was more comfortable than I’d been in weeks.
The space was cramped, the situation absurd, but it was more than enough for me.
“What do you like about me?” I asked with my eyes closed.
His hand stilled, the weight of it a pleasant pressure on my head.
“You’re committed,” he said.
“You already said that when we went for coffee.”
His hand drifted down to the back of my neck, cupping it and smoothing his thumb over the side of my throat. “You do everything with your whole heart.”
My stomach turned into a butterfly enclosure.
“It’s kind of sickening, actually,” he added, softening the compliment into something more familiar. But it was too late, because I’d remember it forever.
I didn’t push my luck by asking for more.
All that time I’d spent begging Sofia not to leave felt distant. The longer I thought about it, the more embarrassed I was that I nearly let it be the end of me—the end of this. I already had someone who wanted me around without compromise.
They’d been right here all along.