Impeccable
01
When you say a word so many times and it doesn't seem like a real word anymore.
That's how Ryan feels with the word calories.
He's said, thought it, written it, so many times that it doesn't exist.
Except, it does exist.
Calories are everything to Ryan.
If you wanted to know how many calories are in two slices of bread, Ryan could tell you.
Its one hundred and eighty calories.
In the average slick of butter spread? That’s fifty five calories.
It used to be, Ryan wasn't too good at math. He couldn't even count to one hundred without getting confused. Now, he has percentages, division, multiplication, adding and subtraction down to an art.
He can work out his BMI within seconds.
Ryan laughs at his former, chubby self; counting on his fingers and thumbs, panicking when he can't get it right, panicking when he hasn't reached his aim.
Weight in pounds, divided by height in inches times by height in inches times by seven hundred and three.
It’s simple, right?
Ryan's BMI is sixteen.
Ryan weighs one hundred and twenty pounds.
That's twenty five percent under what is defined as healthy.
A life threatening BMI is fifteen.
Sometimes, Ryan tells himself he would have stopped this a while ago. He would have stopped this, if he could have. Sometimes, he screams and cries and calls up Brendon to say how sorry he is.
Other times, Ryan tells himself that he’s doing the right thing. The rest of the world is fat and disgusting and ugly. The rest of the world is something Ryan doesn’t want to be part of. Other times, he screams and cries and tells Brendon he hates him.
Ryan can’t see how he’s hurting other people. Ryan can’t understand why they have to persist in trying to intervene, to ‘help him’.
All he wants is to be left alone to look after himself.
All he wants is to be tiny, to be minuscule.
All he wants is to see his rib bones without holding his breath.
Ryan can’t see how his rib bones already show without him holding his breath.
Ryan can’t see how his face looks like he barely survived the holocaust.
Some fucking Anne Frank look alike contest. Ryan would win it.
It’s when Brendon finds Ryan heaving over a toilet in a bathroom stall after bean burritos at Taco Bell, that it really hits him. Hits Brendon, that is. Ryan couldn’t notice the problem if George Harrison rose from the grave and punched him in the face with Anorexic. Google it, idiot tattooed across his knuckles.
Ryan can’t notice the problem when he finds Brendon crying in bathroom, reading his Thinspire diary. Ryan’s just too far gone to notice.
The only emotional states Ryan can scatter to and from is hating himself and hating other people.
Body dysmorphic is an understatement with Ryan.
Brendon thinks completely fucking blind is a more fitting diagnosis.
Brendon’s too frightened of his own boyfriend to say something. He just stays silent, until one day on the bus when there’s a sudden break – another car veering in front or a dog running in front of the road – and Ryan falls over. At first, it’s just another accident prone moment from Ryan Ross. Spencer laughs and Jon rolls his eyes. Brendon’s grinning and helping Ryan up from the floor.
But the look on Ryan’s face and the clammy, pale pallor of his skin says this isn’t just another accident prone moment from Ryan Ross.
The bone sticking out half way down his arm says this definitely isn’t another accident prone moment from Ryan Ross.
The bus takes a detour to the hospital. Ryan is completely silent, he just stares at the bone sticking out of his arm because that’s the only place everyone else won’t look and he doesn’t want his eyes to cross paths with someone else’s.
Just as they park outside the hospital, Ryan has to scramble through the bus to heave over the toilet, nauseous from looking at his own arm for too long. Nothing comes out when he leans over the toilet because nothing went in.
Ryan is ushered into a small room that reeks of bleach and new plastic. He takes Brendon with him.
From the moment the doctor walks in and gives him one look, Ryan sees he must know.
Ryan prays that the doctor knows like Brendon knows. Like Brendon knows but just doesn’t say anything.
“You know why this happened, don’t you, Mr. Ross?”
This is the moment Ryan Ross completely freaks out. The doctor doesn’t know like Brendon knows and Ryan is completely terrified.
Ryan is silent for a heavy moment. Brendon feels like a sponge that’s soaking up all the tension in the room.
Ryan’s thinking that he wants to say ‘Please, Mr. Ross is my father. Call me Ryan,’ like they do in all the movies. But this isn’t the multiplex and there’s no popcorn in sight.
The doctor crosses the room the room and feels the bone in Ryan’s arm. He pushes it back into place.
Ryan screams.
Brendon can’t move; he’s so bloated from the tension.
“Osteoporosis,” the doctor says, as he wraps plaster cast around a dressing.
A plethora of sour tears ooze from Ryan’s eyes and drench his jeans.
He’s not crying because of the pain anymore, he’s crying because he’s been found out. He’s crying because the doctor might make him gain everything he’s lost.
It used to be Ryan was afraid he’d lose everything he’d gained – fame, a boyfriend, a happy life – but now, it’s the opposite.
Weeks pass by and Ryan is absent. He’s there – alive and breathing – but he’s not really checked in. Ryan is a drone, on autopilot. Ryan Ross is MIA.
The guitar tech fills in for the rest of the tour dates.
Brendon’s still bloated from the tension; he still soaking it up.
Ryan won’t let anyone write on his cast.
The doctor talked to Ryan for and hour and a half. Ryan barely said a word.
The doctor made him sign a form. By then, Ryan was shaking so bad his signature was all over the page or it could have been using his other hand to write. He was crying so much he couldn’t even read what the form said.
But he knew. Ryan knew the form was an agreement to put him into a ward, a hospital. To put himself through rehabilitation.
Brendon can’t get a word out of Ryan anymore. Brendon’s scared and he can’t stand how catatonic Ryan’s become.
Some days, he doesn’t even get out of his bunk. He doesn’t even open the small curtain or turn on the tiny TV installed in the bunk. Brendon peeks in on him and finds him staring at the wall.
Other days, Ryan comes back. But not quite. On these other days, Ryan’s smiles and grins with wild eyes. He laughs too long and loud. He talks too fast and says stupid things.
But still, Ryan never eats.
Spencer’s always nervous now. He’s got no fingernails left and he can’t look Ryan in the eye.
Jon drifts through anger and depression as quickly as Ryan goes from catatonic to crazy.
Brendon feels like he’s at bursting point from the tension. He’s desperate for someone to ring him out dry.
One day, in a fit of aggressive desperation, Jon drags Spencer and Brendon out of the tour bus. He takes them to a restaurant and they are silent for all of five minutes before they all begin to talk at once. It’s all the same words – Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. And the same fears – starve, starve, starve.
Halfway through the first course, Brendon stops – fork poised in the air and mouth halfway open.
Spencer stares at him.
“What?” Jon asks.
“Wha-… Who’s watching Ryan?”
The day after Ryan had to sign the forms, the three had agreed to keep watch on him. Spencer had called it Prohibiting-Ry-From-Doing-Something-Stupid Watch.
Spencer scrambles out from the booth and runs out the restaurant.
It’s a five minute walk from the restaurant to the bus. Jon drops cash on the table and grabs at Brendon, who’s sitting frozen in a state of shock. Brendon doesn’t think he can walk with the tension weighing him down but his feet stumble one in front of the other.
Jon and Brendon arrive a minute after Spencer.
Spencer’s sitting at the kitchen table; half of his fingernails just aren’t there anymore.
Jon looks over at the floor. There’s an empty prescription bottle and a dead bag of bones laying on it.
There’s Ryan, with the fullest stomach he’s had in years.
There are words on the cast he refused to let anyone mark.
A sound of complete heartbreak slips from Brendon’s mouth and he drops to the floor.
The tension is bursting from Brendon’s every ripped-open seam.
The words; some numbers and some letters.
101 pounds. I was almost perfect.
That's how Ryan feels with the word calories.
He's said, thought it, written it, so many times that it doesn't exist.
Except, it does exist.
Calories are everything to Ryan.
If you wanted to know how many calories are in two slices of bread, Ryan could tell you.
Its one hundred and eighty calories.
In the average slick of butter spread? That’s fifty five calories.
It used to be, Ryan wasn't too good at math. He couldn't even count to one hundred without getting confused. Now, he has percentages, division, multiplication, adding and subtraction down to an art.
He can work out his BMI within seconds.
Ryan laughs at his former, chubby self; counting on his fingers and thumbs, panicking when he can't get it right, panicking when he hasn't reached his aim.
Weight in pounds, divided by height in inches times by height in inches times by seven hundred and three.
It’s simple, right?
Ryan's BMI is sixteen.
Ryan weighs one hundred and twenty pounds.
That's twenty five percent under what is defined as healthy.
A life threatening BMI is fifteen.
Sometimes, Ryan tells himself he would have stopped this a while ago. He would have stopped this, if he could have. Sometimes, he screams and cries and calls up Brendon to say how sorry he is.
Other times, Ryan tells himself that he’s doing the right thing. The rest of the world is fat and disgusting and ugly. The rest of the world is something Ryan doesn’t want to be part of. Other times, he screams and cries and tells Brendon he hates him.
Ryan can’t see how he’s hurting other people. Ryan can’t understand why they have to persist in trying to intervene, to ‘help him’.
All he wants is to be left alone to look after himself.
All he wants is to be tiny, to be minuscule.
All he wants is to see his rib bones without holding his breath.
Ryan can’t see how his rib bones already show without him holding his breath.
Ryan can’t see how his face looks like he barely survived the holocaust.
Some fucking Anne Frank look alike contest. Ryan would win it.
It’s when Brendon finds Ryan heaving over a toilet in a bathroom stall after bean burritos at Taco Bell, that it really hits him. Hits Brendon, that is. Ryan couldn’t notice the problem if George Harrison rose from the grave and punched him in the face with Anorexic. Google it, idiot tattooed across his knuckles.
Ryan can’t notice the problem when he finds Brendon crying in bathroom, reading his Thinspire diary. Ryan’s just too far gone to notice.
The only emotional states Ryan can scatter to and from is hating himself and hating other people.
Body dysmorphic is an understatement with Ryan.
Brendon thinks completely fucking blind is a more fitting diagnosis.
Brendon’s too frightened of his own boyfriend to say something. He just stays silent, until one day on the bus when there’s a sudden break – another car veering in front or a dog running in front of the road – and Ryan falls over. At first, it’s just another accident prone moment from Ryan Ross. Spencer laughs and Jon rolls his eyes. Brendon’s grinning and helping Ryan up from the floor.
But the look on Ryan’s face and the clammy, pale pallor of his skin says this isn’t just another accident prone moment from Ryan Ross.
The bone sticking out half way down his arm says this definitely isn’t another accident prone moment from Ryan Ross.
The bus takes a detour to the hospital. Ryan is completely silent, he just stares at the bone sticking out of his arm because that’s the only place everyone else won’t look and he doesn’t want his eyes to cross paths with someone else’s.
Just as they park outside the hospital, Ryan has to scramble through the bus to heave over the toilet, nauseous from looking at his own arm for too long. Nothing comes out when he leans over the toilet because nothing went in.
Ryan is ushered into a small room that reeks of bleach and new plastic. He takes Brendon with him.
From the moment the doctor walks in and gives him one look, Ryan sees he must know.
Ryan prays that the doctor knows like Brendon knows. Like Brendon knows but just doesn’t say anything.
“You know why this happened, don’t you, Mr. Ross?”
This is the moment Ryan Ross completely freaks out. The doctor doesn’t know like Brendon knows and Ryan is completely terrified.
Ryan is silent for a heavy moment. Brendon feels like a sponge that’s soaking up all the tension in the room.
Ryan’s thinking that he wants to say ‘Please, Mr. Ross is my father. Call me Ryan,’ like they do in all the movies. But this isn’t the multiplex and there’s no popcorn in sight.
The doctor crosses the room the room and feels the bone in Ryan’s arm. He pushes it back into place.
Ryan screams.
Brendon can’t move; he’s so bloated from the tension.
“Osteoporosis,” the doctor says, as he wraps plaster cast around a dressing.
A plethora of sour tears ooze from Ryan’s eyes and drench his jeans.
He’s not crying because of the pain anymore, he’s crying because he’s been found out. He’s crying because the doctor might make him gain everything he’s lost.
It used to be Ryan was afraid he’d lose everything he’d gained – fame, a boyfriend, a happy life – but now, it’s the opposite.
Weeks pass by and Ryan is absent. He’s there – alive and breathing – but he’s not really checked in. Ryan is a drone, on autopilot. Ryan Ross is MIA.
The guitar tech fills in for the rest of the tour dates.
Brendon’s still bloated from the tension; he still soaking it up.
Ryan won’t let anyone write on his cast.
The doctor talked to Ryan for and hour and a half. Ryan barely said a word.
The doctor made him sign a form. By then, Ryan was shaking so bad his signature was all over the page or it could have been using his other hand to write. He was crying so much he couldn’t even read what the form said.
But he knew. Ryan knew the form was an agreement to put him into a ward, a hospital. To put himself through rehabilitation.
Brendon can’t get a word out of Ryan anymore. Brendon’s scared and he can’t stand how catatonic Ryan’s become.
Some days, he doesn’t even get out of his bunk. He doesn’t even open the small curtain or turn on the tiny TV installed in the bunk. Brendon peeks in on him and finds him staring at the wall.
Other days, Ryan comes back. But not quite. On these other days, Ryan’s smiles and grins with wild eyes. He laughs too long and loud. He talks too fast and says stupid things.
But still, Ryan never eats.
Spencer’s always nervous now. He’s got no fingernails left and he can’t look Ryan in the eye.
Jon drifts through anger and depression as quickly as Ryan goes from catatonic to crazy.
Brendon feels like he’s at bursting point from the tension. He’s desperate for someone to ring him out dry.
One day, in a fit of aggressive desperation, Jon drags Spencer and Brendon out of the tour bus. He takes them to a restaurant and they are silent for all of five minutes before they all begin to talk at once. It’s all the same words – Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. And the same fears – starve, starve, starve.
Halfway through the first course, Brendon stops – fork poised in the air and mouth halfway open.
Spencer stares at him.
“What?” Jon asks.
“Wha-… Who’s watching Ryan?”
The day after Ryan had to sign the forms, the three had agreed to keep watch on him. Spencer had called it Prohibiting-Ry-From-Doing-Something-Stupid Watch.
Spencer scrambles out from the booth and runs out the restaurant.
It’s a five minute walk from the restaurant to the bus. Jon drops cash on the table and grabs at Brendon, who’s sitting frozen in a state of shock. Brendon doesn’t think he can walk with the tension weighing him down but his feet stumble one in front of the other.
Jon and Brendon arrive a minute after Spencer.
Spencer’s sitting at the kitchen table; half of his fingernails just aren’t there anymore.
Jon looks over at the floor. There’s an empty prescription bottle and a dead bag of bones laying on it.
There’s Ryan, with the fullest stomach he’s had in years.
There are words on the cast he refused to let anyone mark.
A sound of complete heartbreak slips from Brendon’s mouth and he drops to the floor.
The tension is bursting from Brendon’s every ripped-open seam.
The words; some numbers and some letters.
101 pounds. I was almost perfect.