To Be or Not to Be | hamilton

twenty-one : john

{selfhate/anorexia/proana phrases. PLEASE take care of yourself. anorexia is a monster, and im begging you to not get stuck in it. please. take care of yourself}
{key for later this chapter:
pro-ana: pro-anorexia. anorexic peoples who take the face they are anorexic with a smile, as if its a gift of sorts. typically promote self-destruction with others as well.
thinspo: thinspiration. scarily, rail-thin people that the aforementioned pro-anas use as inspiration to keep starving themselves.}

God, John was an idiot.

For a moment, he had believed recovery was real. That it was for him. Peggy and Alexander had convinced him! He ate an egg at dinner, and then a piece of toast. With butter. And a lot of salad, and he was about to grab the steak when he realised how idiotic he was being. But he didn't stop eating! He instead grabbed an apple!

Alexander would never love him if he gained weight, like that binge was going to make him do.

John didn't believe in purging, because it hurt and had bad side effects. Plus, the smell of vomit was hard to hide.

But tonight was different, because he had broken his fast. He was doing so well, and then he ruined it.

So there he was, huddled over the toilet, his throat burning and his fingers feeling gross, his forehead shining with sweat, his food coming back up. It hurt like hell, but the idea of waking up in the morning and his hipbones being less prominent scared him into purging.

John knew he didn't have all of his food out. But when he shoved his fingers down his throat again and saw black dots, he knew he had to stop.

He allowed himself to lay on the cold white tile, feeling weak and drained, while he regained the strength to get up and shower.

After five minutes, he felt ready. He sucked on a peppermint to hide the vomit in his breath (and added five calories to what he had eaten today), and spayed the room throughly with Fabreeze. He made sure all the remains of his dinner went down the toilet, and turned on the shower.

He staggered a bit while he was grabbing his towel, and he caught himself on the sink. John looked at himself in the mirror. Those beautiful, hollow cheekbones would be gone tomorrow if ate anymore. His lips would look full- look fat. He would look fat. His hair wouldn't be as thin, which was a feature he had come to love. His shirt would hug his body, instead of hang loosely on his shoulders. Size zero jeans would be too tight on his frame instead of too loose. He wouldn't have a thigh gap.

Not worth it. Stave, starve, starve. Thin is beauty.

When John had first become anorexic, he was heavily pro-ana. However, as time passed and his blogs got deleted again and again and again, he began to realise anorexia wasn't just "cake or collarbones," and "resist or regret." It was sleepless nights, nights crying, sobbing, pinching the fat in the mirror. It was exercising past your limits. It was always in pain. It was all of your body losing its lustre. It was constantly being in pain, from hunger and breaking physical limits. It was ironically obsessed with food. It was counting calories, drinking water and eating spices, looking at thinspo instead of porn, grades slipping and home situation worsening. It was losing friends and family. You couldn't "just have" anorexia. Ana- anorexia- was a monster who would take over your life. It would ruin everything in one's life.

But the sad part was, no matter how much John hated having "anorexic" as one of his labels, he wasn't ready to give it up. And perhaps that was the worst part of anorexia.

John stepped in the shower with a sigh. Recovery wasn't for him, just like Alexander and Peggy and food and the house he was in wasn't for him.

How could he have been so stupid?!

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John didn't know why he stayed in the house. But he did, and he was woken up the next morning by a concerned Alexander (and, confusingly, Lafayette and Thomas).

"I know you purged last night, John,"