Fragile Bones

Chapter Thirty-Four

Charlie waved goodbye to me and I copied her motion as we parted ways to go into each of our houses. She said she would text me later about going out, but I still wasn't confident about that plan. Parties weren't my thing, and neither was food. Thinking about food reminded me to take out my scale and check my weight once I got to the privacy of my room. When I stepped foot into my house, I walked past the kitchen to get to the stairs like I usually did, but was met with an unfamiliar sight: both of my parents sitting at the kitchen table together. The last time I had seen them like this was when they sat me down to talk about their divorce. I felt my stomach drop, knowing that something I didn't want to hear would be coming from their mouths. Quickly, I tried to walk past the area but my dad jumped up to stop me before I could.

"Welcome home, Mads, why don't you come have a seat with us? We made some after school snacks," he said, scraping a chair back for me to sit in.

I hesitantly walked to the kitchen, and dropped my bag beside the kitchen chair and slid into it. On the table were crackers with cheese and turkey on them, arranged in neat little rows on a platter. I eyed it suspiciously, since they hadn't made "snacks" for me since probably elementary school.

"Well this is new. What's going on?" I asked, wanting them to cut to the chase, partly because I didn't want to eat and partly because I knew they had something to talk to me about. Maybe my father would finally be moving out today.

"Nothing is going on, we just want to sit down together," my mom answered, looking at my dad too quickly. She was lying. "We haven't seen much of you lately, and it would be nice to eat together."

"Eat crackers together?" I said, laughing in disbelief. "Yeah, okay. I'm going up to my room." I half got up from my seat, until my moms voice made my face pale.

"Madeline, we're concerned about you. I feel like we never see you... eat anything anymore. You're skin and bones." I slowly slunk back into my chair, knowing that I wouldn't be able to escape my way out of this one. I had been so focused on keeping Asher out of the loop, and more recently, Charlie, I had just figured my parents were still preoccupied with their divorce and moving my dad out. Maybe playing the friend card would work, I know that I wasn't as pathetically lonely as I had once been, and they knew it too.

"I have friends now, I hang out with them and go out to eat. Plus, it's senior year, I'm busy trying to maintain my grades so I can, you know, get into college?" I attempted to explain.

"I think it's super you have Charlie and that boy now-"

"His name is Asher, mom, why can't either of you remember that?" I interrupted, staring at a spot on the wall. It bothered me to an endless degree that I had known him for a while now, and they still couldn't remember him, but could remember Charlie after barely even seeing her.

"Asher, yes, but you still do spend a majority of your time here. We've been trying to sort through our... complications right now, but we still love you and notice when things are wrong," my mom continued, receiving occasional glances from my father.

I crossed my arms over my chest, but didn't reply. My head was spinning with confusion, anger, hurt, nonchalance and more emotions I couldn't put a name to. I needed to stop and think for a moment. I was kind of panicking as well, since I really hadn't anticipated this today. Maybe I should've seen it coming, what with that phone call I got at Ashers house, but I didn't. They thought that they were on top of this, that they deserved some kind of reward for finally noticing that something wasn't right. They 'notice when things are wrong.' But, they hadn't. This wasn't a new thing I had just started doing. I had been doing this for months. It was just more extreme now. Three months ago I was eating half the amount the world recommended, and now I was eating none of it. If I reached a sufficient weight, I could actually stop. I just needed to see my scale first.