Unendlichkeit

Late September 2005

Bill was slipping into a deeper depression each day it seemed. It saddened Tom so much to see his twin like that.

Even though they were back home things hadn’t gotten better.

They’d started school again, and now Bill was followed by squealing teenies between classes. Tom would have thought this was be good for Bill. But actually being adored by all the girls didn’t make him popular. In fact guys hated him more.

Tom remembered one night when him and Bill and mom and Gordon were all sitting down, eating a nice dinner. It was a surprisingly calm night. Usually people came to the door wanting to see Bill, people from all over Germany, but tonight that didn’t happen.

They’d just finished filming a video for Schrei in Hamburg, and this had made Bill even more exhausted.

Tom didn’t like to see those constant dark rings under Bill’s eyes. Bill had also started to cry at night too. He thought Tom was sleeping, but Tom was really too worried about his twin to sleep.

Bill didn’t eat much of the dinner, and it was his favorite too-mom’s homemade mac and cheese. He played with the food with his fork.

“I don’t want to be famous,” Bill said, putting down his fork and sighing.

“But it’s fun!” Tom tried to cheer him up.

Bill looked at him with a sad look. Tom could read his mind, the twin telepathy kicking in for once.

You think signed autographs and faking smiles and having bodyguards escort you around so you won’t get trampled it fun? I just want to be alone! And how would you like to sing and exert your voice so much you think you’ll never talk again?!

Tom sighed and put down his fork too.

Mom and Gordon weren’t sure what to tell him. I mean Bill had brought this upon himself, hadn’t he? He’d always wanted to make music his life. But he just never expected to be that big that soon.

“May I be excused?” Bill asked quietly, slowly raising his eyes from his lap.

“Of course, dear,” mom said, giving him a warm smile which he didn’t even see.

Bill headed up the stairs. Tom shuddered, afraid he was headed off to the bathroom.

“May I be excused too? I’ll be right back I promise.”

His mom sighed but Gordon let him go.

Tom ran up the stairs after Bill, going into the bathroom just as Bill flushed away the evidence of his problem. Dark tears rolled down his pale face because of the eyeliner and they started coming faster.

Bill looked up at Tom, his identical eyes solemn and big.

“Don’t tell mom,” Bill muttered, the tears still coming.

Tom crouched down beside his twin. “When’s the last time you’ve eaten Bill?”

He shrugged and wiped his tears away. “I dunno, maybe two days ago.”

Tom gasped and threw his arms around that stick of a body. “You have to stop this.”

“Tomi…I…I can’t. I want to stop it but I can’t,” Bill sobbed into Tom’s shoulder.

“At least try and eat something, please,” he encouraged his brother.

“I’m going to end up puking it up anyway,” Bill shook his head. “Tom I don’t wanna live anymore.”

“Bill! Don’t say that! You scare the shit out of me when you say stuff like that.”

His twin stopped his crying and looked up at him with a blank expression. “I have yet to see anything to live for. No one loves me…”

Tom cut him off. “Mom, Gordon, me, Gustav, Georg, all those thousands of fans that are screaming for you, those don’t count?”

Bill sighed and looked away. “The fans don’t. Fake affection, it’s not real love just for some odd reason they think I’m hot and want to stalk me. I don’t want them anyway.”

“It’s what comes with being a star though, Bill. Remember, when we were younger we always talked about how we were gonna be stars?”

“I miss Devilish,” Bill muttered.

“We still are Devilish, we always will be, I promise,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around his slightly-sobbing twin again.

“No, we’re not,” Bill shook his head sadly. “It’s over.”

“Bill there is something to live for in this life, I promise you. You just…you just…”

“Haven’t found it yet?” he completed Tom’s sentence.

“Yeah. You’re still young, you’ve got years to find what you’re looking for. Life is good to us, Bill.”

Bill let out a shaky sigh and nodded his head. “I guess…”

“Come downstairs and eat something, please. Mom made it special for you,” Tom pleaded.

“I’ll try,” his twin nodded.

------

That night, when Bill knew for sure Tom was asleep by the sound of his snoring, he snuck into the bathroom.

Believe me, he would have stopped it if he could but there was just something in his mind that made him do this. He’d eaten a good helping of mom’s mac and cheese at dinner and he felt guilty for eating it.

He didn’t turn on the light, but looked at himself in the mirror thinking, ‘Gott I’m so fat.’

Wasn’t that most people’s problems with eating disorders in the first place, that they were too skinny for their own good and thought they were fat?

He knew if he did this though he wouldn’t feel so guilty and stressed and then maybe he’d get some sleep.

He kneeled down in front of the toilet like so many times before and expertly stuck his index finger down his throat, hitting his uvula and instantly came out his dinner.

He shook and fell down hard against the floor. He wiped away the few tears that streamed down his face, those just came naturally with the puking and he was used to those.

His throat burned, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as when he wouldn’t eat something for a whole day and then throw up. That really hurt like hell.

He wrapped his arms around his body, not noticing how dangerously skinny he was. Bill’s mind told him differently, told him he was so fat and he’d only be skinny if he pretended to eat and then puke it out.

His shaky legs, almost as skinny as twigs, carried him to his room where he laid down on his bed.

He tried to sleep but the sleep was restless, he was in and out of it every minute, and ended up spending half the night looking at the ceiling.

He finally drifted off into a troublesome sleep when the sun was almost fully up.

-----

Tom woke up early. Bill’s crying had woken him up a few times the night before, and he was still pretty tired. He didn’t wanna go to school.

Once again he’d forgotten to do his math homework and didn’t wanna get another detention with his repulsive math teacher again.

He rolled out of bed, groggy and sleepy still.

Bill was actually sleeping on the bed beside his. He was taking in sharp, raspy breaths which made Tom twitch. That was never good. And he’d never looked skinnier either. Tom was curious and moved the thin sheet covering Bill’s body.

He let out a gasp as he saw his twins body-all Bill was was skin and bones. If you looked close enough you could even see the outlining of the organs in his torso.

Tom turned away for a second, afraid he was about to tear up, and then went to the bathroom to go get ready.

He was going to tell his parent’s soon about Bill’s problem. It was killing him not to.