To the Bones

Brendon was in front of the oven, simultaneously preheating it and opening a frozen pizza box. Ryan was sitting at the table, sipping at his can of Diet Coke and finishing the bibliography for his Psychology paper. “Have you had supper yet?” the younger boy asked, opening the oven and pushing the pizza in.

Ryan shrugged, opening one of the books beside him, scanning for a copyright date.

Brendon tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for a real answer. When he didn’t get one, he stomped over to the table and held his hand out. Ryan gingerly passed him the green notebook without a word, fingers immediately returning to the keyboard.

Brendon flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. The date, underlined, with the foods Ryan had consumed since waking up.

October 16th, 2005
Apple; 67 calories—8:07 am
Three crackers; 59 calories—11:34 am

Brendon closed the notebook and set it on the table. “Supper. What are you going to have?”

“Apple.” Ryan replied without looking up.

“No. No repeats, no throwing up. You know the rules.” Brendon walked over to the fridge and pulled it open. “We have yogurt.” He tried to make it sound appealing.

Ryan didn’t bite. “Do you know how many calories are in that shit you bought?” he snapped. “If I ate that, I’d have to fast for the rest of the day.”

Brendon slammed the door and hit his head against the freezer in frustration. “You have to eat.” he said through gritted teeth. “Unless you want to do the scale.”

“Don’t try and threaten me.” Ryan barked.

“You agreed to this.” Brendon said in a low voice. “Three things and I won’t ask your weight. You back out now and all bets are off.”

“Oh, and what’s that supposed to mean?” the older boy snarled. His temper always got shorter toward the end of the day when his stomach was empty and he thought he’d gotten away with only the apple and crackers. He never did.

“Don’t fuck with me, Ryan.” Brendon sighed and leaned against the counter. “It’s been a long day. I don’t need your shit. Eat.”

“What happened?” Ryan’s tone immediately switched from that of bitch to concerned boyfriend. Anything to delay eating.

“Work was just . . . a bitch. I hate working with Lexie.”

“What happened?”

Brendon opened his mouth to speak, but closed it almost immediately, opening the pantry cupboard. “What are you eating?”

“I’ll have the salad.” Ryan said dryly.

“No dressing, I assume?” Brendon asked in the same voice.

“Don’t be an ass.” came the snappish reply. “I don’t tell you how many calories are in the shit you eat.”

Brendon didn’t say anything, just threw the lettuce and cherry tomatoes in the bowl, bringing it over to the table with a fork and setting it beside Ryan’s laptop. “You know I love you.” he said quietly.

Ryan looked up, not at all surprised to hear those words coming from his boyfriend’s mouth. “Yeah, I know.” He held his hand out and Brendon took it, his fingers running over Ryan’s too-apparent knuckles.

“I just want to know you’ll be able to wake up for classes tomorrow, baby. I worry so much.” Ryan felt a teardrop hit the back of his hand and he started slightly.

“Don’t cry, Brenny.” It was concerned boyfriend voice again. “I told you. I’ll stop when I’m thin enough.”

Brendon bit at his bottom lip. He wasn’t allowed to ask how much (or little) ‘thin enough’ was. No questions as long as Ryan ate three foods a day. He sighed and let go of his boyfriend’s hand. “Time to eat.”

Ryan was clearly unhappy about being told to eat, but he did it anyway. Picking apart each piece of lettuce before slowly putting it in his mouth, as if trying to stretch the amount of calories thinner. He ignored the fork, as per usual. Brendon didn’t understand that, but it wasn’t important so long as Ryan ate.

Brendon picked up the notebook and one of Ryan’s pens. “So, how many calories are in the salad?”

“Seventy-one.” Ryan said, picking up a cherry tomato and placing it in his mouth. A small trickle of reddish juice escaped the corner of his lips as he bit down. He immediately ducked his head, wiping at it with the palm of his hand, fighting his tears. This was Ana telling him he’d failed again, Ana telling him to throw it up when he was done. But Brendon wouldn’t let him.

Their bathroom didn’t lock and Brendon would stand outside every time Ryan disappeared into it, crossing his arms and listening to him piss, throwing open the door if he heard the boy cough or gag.

The last time Ryan had refused to eat and been subjected to ‘the scale’, as Brendon called it, he had weighed eighty-eight pounds. That was three months ago. Brendon had gone on the internet that night and looked up Ryan’s body mass index. He’d nearly gotten sick himself. There was no way a person could weigh so little and still be breathing, could there? Obviously, there could. Ryan was still breathing. Just a little light-headed and entirely too breakable.

Brendon weighed one-hundred and thirty-six pounds. He would have given Ryan the eighteen pounds just to put him in triple digits. It wasn’t like his boyfriend had ever been fat. He’d seen the pictures from yearbooks and Spencer’s mother’s photo albums.

It was like rose-colored glasses. Only whatever color anorexia was, those were Ryan’s glasses. He saw everything wrong. He saw himself as fat, saw Brendon as being skinnier than him. Spencer, who had always been slightly chubby, as lucky for having the bone structure to ‘pull it off’. The pictures of the girls he printed off the computer, hidden in notebooks, were his skeletal goddesses, his inspiration for living like this. If one could call it living.

“Am I done now?” Ryan asked, interrupting Brendon’s thoughts.

“Finish the last tomato.” the young boy said immediately without even looking at the bowl.

Ryan shook his head, tears shining in his eyes. “I’ll explode. Please, Bren? I ate most of it.”

“One more bite.” The younger boy gave a small smile he didn’t at all feel. “Just one more bite, baby.”

“No, Bren. Please. My stomach hurts.” The tears were real now, streaming down Ryan’s cheeks.

“Last bite.” Brendon whispered, picking up the tomato and pressing it against Ryan’s lips, biting his bottom lip as the older boy’s mouth slowly opened and he bit down, on both Brendon’s finger and the tomato. “Fuck!”

Ryan spit it out on the floor. “I told you my stomach hurts!”

He ran to the bathroom and Brendon could hear him vomiting it all back up. He hadn’t even bothered to shut the door. The younger boy put his injured finger in his mouth, sucking on it to soothe it as he made his way down to the hallway to the bathroom.

He let Ryan finish throwing up, flush the toilet, collapse against the wall. He was breathing so heavily . . . if only air had calories.

“Get on the scale.” Brendon said, dropping his hand to his side.

“Fuck you.” Ryan choked out, wiping at the back of his sweating forehead with his sleeve.

“Scale, now!” Brendon yelled, taking two steps into the bathroom and pulling Ryan up by his shoulders. It sickened him how light his boyfriend was, how insubstantial, floating almost. Just like he wanted to be. “Get on the fucking scale, Ryan.”

“No.” The older boy was crying as Brendon pushed him toward the mechanical device. It was expensive. Nearly a hundred dollars. Ryan had bought it with his birthday money. Digital readout. No guessing. To the nearest quarter of a pound.

“Now.”

Ryan’s shoulders continued to shake as he stepped onto it, head down, eyes squeezed shut even as tears continued to leak down his face. “Eighty-four and a half.” Brendon said out loud. “Okay, you’re done. Go finish your paper.”

But Ryan just fell to the floor, sobs wracking his too-thin body. Brendon was almost afraid he’d cry so hard he’d crack, but he knew he wouldn’t. Knew from experience.

Brendon hated living through the experience.

I’m not starving myself. I’m perfecting my emptiness.