Thank you so much @vpztead for this request, I hope it's written the way you imagined:) Thank you all for over 9000 reads on this story, I'm so grateful for everyone's continued support! I also just want to apologise for not uploading any new chapters for a little while I've been extremely busy with college work and birthday celebrations and I've been struggling mentally so I haven't been in the headspace to write anything, if anyone else reading this is struggling please know you aren't alone, please don't suffer in silence and reach out for help if you can, if you don't feel like you have anyone to talk to don't hesitate to message me you can rant to me or just drop me a message, whatever you want to do🫶 TW for this chapter⚠️struggles with eating, mentions of disordered eating.
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Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, Food, Eating, Going out for meals. All of these things seemed to be a massive struggle for Hailey at the moment. The idea of eating anything was so overwhelming to her. She had began struggling a couple months ago, it had started right after the whole situation happened with her, Voight and Roy Walton, The whole situation left her feeling a mix of emotions from guilt to anger to confusion, she felt so bad to the point she couldn't eat, even the sheer thought of food made her feel sick.
It was now two months after the whole incident with Roy happened and everything was mostly back to normal for Hailey and the rest of the district, except for one thing which was Hailey's relationship with food. She was going about her life as normal, she was going to work, helping out her friends, prioritising her relationship with her husband and going above and beyond to solve cases, and all of those things were great but there was one thing she wasn't doing and that was fuelling her body, yes she would sometimes have a cereal bar or a piece of fruit but she wasn't currently eating full sized nutritional meals, every time her and Jay would sit down to eat a meal she would have a few mouthfuls and then not eat any more of the food that was on her plate. Jay had noticed little changes in Hailey's behaviour such as her not wanting to go out to restaurants for meals and her moving food around her plate with her fork instead of actually eating it. He had began to worry about her, he noticed at work she was weak like she struggled to tackle/restrain suspects, he also noticed that she looked really pale. He wanted nothing more than to talk to her because he currently felt like he was watching her struggle from a distance and it broke his heart, he wanted to wait for her to come talk to him but he couldn't he knew he had to ask her what was going on sooner rather than later.
It was now Thursday night after a long day of work for the whole district. Hailey and Jay were sat in their kitchen eating dinner, Jay had made macaroni cheese, he began eating and Hailey was doing what she seemed to do during most meals recently she was moving the pasta around the bowl with her fork, picking a couple pieces of pasta up with her fork and then scraping the fork on the top of the bowl to remove the pasta from it. "Is everything alright with the food?" Jay asked Hailey once he noticed what she was doing with the pasta. "Yeah, I'm just not that hungry." She said putting her fork down and looking up at him. "Hails you know you can talk to me about anything right? If anything's going on you can tell me." He said making eye contact with her. "I know Jay thank you but nothings going on." She tried saying this with a reassuring smile on her face but Jay could tell she was forcing it and he knew she wasn't being honest with him. "I know that's not true Hailey, please talk to me and tell me what's going on and please don't try lie to me I've seen the way you've been around food recently, I just want you to explain everything to me so I can understand." He pleaded desperately wanting to know so he could help her. "You won't understand so there's no point trying to explain it." She replied looking down at the uneaten bowl of pasta in front of her. "Hails I'll try my very best to understand, I want to understand so please tell me." He reached his hand over the table and took a hold of Hailey's hand rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, she took a deep breath before she began to talk. "I'm just having a hard time with eating at the moment and I don't even know why, it started after the whole Roy incident and it's just not gotten any better, the idea of eating overwhelms me and I'm just really struggling with it." She rambled to him as tears brimmed in her eyes. "Hey, it's okay Hails, I'm so sorry you're having such a hard time with this at the moment, do you think we could try work together to try help you with your eating?" Jay had gotten up out of his seat and went over to Hailey so he could hug her, Hailey never responded to him using words she just nodded her head at him then laid her head back to rest on his chest.
It was now the next morning and Hailey hadn't eaten anything for a while since she didn't end up having her dinner last night, Jay wasn't too happy about this but he didn't want to push her and she also promised him she'd try eat in the morning. Jay and Hailey were off work today so they didn't need to rush their breakfast. Jay had made Hailey one of her favourite things to have for breakfast which was plain greek yogurt, chocolate granola and strawberries. She sat down at the table and Jay sat opposite her with his breakfast. "Would you like to have the first bite of breakfast at the same time?" Jay asked her, he just thought if they both ate at the same time and Hailey knew he was also eating then the rest of the meal would be easier for her. They both had the first bites of their breakfasts at the same time and then they both just kept eating like normal, Hailey had eaten half her breakfast and just burst into tears. "I can't eat anymore of that Jay." She pushed the bowl away from herself. "That's okay, I'm proud of you for having half of it that's better than nothing." He took away her bowl then came back to where she was sitting "we can just take it day by day. Meal by meal even, small steps every day, this is going to get easier for you I promise." He said wiping away her tears with his thumbs.
It had been a few weeks since Hailey opened up to Jay about her eating struggles and things were starting to get easier. She was able to get through meals now with the help of Jay asking her questions to distract her, holding her hand and saying little words of encouragement to her. She was now not as fatigue and weak since she was fuelling her body with food. Some days were definitely harder than others for her, some meals were filled with tears and Hailey trying to distract Jay by asking him things or talking to him about different things so she didn't have to eat but the hard days were followed by good most of the time and it was getting easier, struggles aren't linear and some days are more difficult than others, Jay always reminds Hailey every day that one bad day doesn't mean all her progress is lost because that's not how these things work and as long as she's trying her best that's all she can do.
