Outside the Lines (lashton)

(23)

It's been four days of laying in a hospital bed doing nothing. Four days of "recovery". Four days of getting fatter by the minute. Four days of no control.

No, that's not true. Remember Kevin's words. I wasn't in control before. Sure, I may not be in control of what is going into me right now, but once the week is up, which is halfway done, I'm back in control.

Just not the same control that I thought I had before.

It's been hard to fight myself. Kevin tells me something the complete opposite of what I've grown to believe. The hardest being that one day, I will be recovered from all of this and won't care about my weight. Whereas, I've told myself constantly that the only thing that matters is losing weight.

It's just, it's hard. That's all I can say. It's hard. Hard to re-wire my mind to think differently. Kevin says it's similar to teaching someone how to walk after an accident. It's difficult and takes a lot of time and patience, but it's not impossible.

But it's so terribly difficult when I still believe that everything I was doing was okay. I know it wasn't deep inside of me, but the rest of me screams to go back to how it was before. That's not possible now though, with me being in hospital.

My parents visit once a day, along with Ashton. Michael and Calum missed visiting one time, but only because the three were scheduled to do interviews all day and were exhausted by the end of the day. Ashton made sure he came to visit though. We had a heart to heart that day, us two being alone.

~

"Hey," Ashton says, walking into the room.

"Hey, where are Mike and Cal?" I ask him, noticing the lack of the two. They've come in everyday since I've been here.

"We had a lot of interviews today, so they decided to go home."

"Why didn't you?" I ask, the curiosity clawing at me.

He shrugs. "Didn't want to leave you here alone," he says simply.

"Well, I really appreciate that," I tell him, the sincerity dripping on my words.

It's silent for a few moments, until Ashton speaks up. "So... how are things going?"

It's unusual for them to ask how I'm doing, because they know it's not good. They come here to hangout and distract me from my issues mostly. We don't really talk about what's been going on. But I guess Ashton wants to talk about it.

And for some reason, I'm fine talking to him about everything. There's something about Ashton that makes me feel comfortable around him.

"Awful. Better, but still awful," I answer truthfully, "I can feel myself getting fatter by the second, I swear."

"You're not getting fatter, you're getting to where you need to be," he tells me with sincerity in his eyes.

"I'm getting fatter," I say flatly, "it's the truth. No purpose in sugar coating it."

"It's for the best, Luke. You need this to happen. None of us want you dying on us," Ashton says sweetly.

I take a long pause before saying, "What if I want to?" His jaw drops and he seems speechless once my confession is out. I begin to explain, trying to comfort him, and failing. "I don't know Ash, it's just really hard. I'm not happy at all. I want to go back to how things were before but they can't. Not when everyone knows my secret," I tell him, tearing up.

"But... but it will get easier. It's hard right now but with time it will get easier, I promise."

"How can you promise that if you don't know?" I ask him.