Desperate Lies

Chapter 16(Explicit Content)(Trigger Warning)

A/N: Trigger warning because eating disorder stuff is still mentioned, but it's not as intense as it has been in previous chapters. I also think this is the first time I've written a chapter where I have Explicit Content and Trigger Warning in the same chapter title. Hmm. Interesting.

I'm not romanticizing eating disorders, by the way. This is more so to show that love is still possible even when things aren't perfect.

Eve wakes up in the hotel in room in London at 11:30 in the morning. She and Chris had arrived at their hotel room at four in the morning, which was around eleven at night in Pennsylvania. This along with the fact that they'd spent the entire day traveling, Chris and Eve were both exhausted and ready to go to bed the minute they walked into the room. Eve was certain she'd fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

Eve turns to the side to see Chris already awake. He was sitting up in bed next to her with his laptop open, reading an article on how to help your partner cope with anorexia. When Chris sees that Eve is awake, he nonchalantly closes his laptop screen half way so to hide what he was reading; Eve pretends she doesn't notice.

"Morning, cutie," Chris says, running his fingers through Eve's newly short hair, "How'd you sleep?"

Eve shrugs and sits up as well, "Not too bad, actually. How about you? How long have you been awake?"

"Not long, maybe twenty minutes. I slept okay, but the jet lag is always a little weird."

"Yeah, I'm definitely feeling that now," Eve laughs. She grabs her glasses off of the nightstand and puts them on; she sees a coffee maker across the room, "Can we make some coffee?"

"Hotel room coffee is terrible. The actual coffee downstairs shouldn't be too bad though. Wanna throw on some clothes really quick and go grab some breakfast?"

"What do you think the vegan options will be?"

"Ah. I had not thought of that. This is why we need coffee," Chris says, "Well, you know what? I've been in this area enough times, I know some cool little cafe's in the area; can I take you on a quick breakfast date before we have to start getting ready for the award show? Or, I guess brunch since it's almost noon here."

Eve gives a small smile and nods, "Yeah, I'd love that."

The two of them quickly get ready and head downstairs as Chris searches for places to eat on his phone. He ended up finding somewhere close enough that they could walk to. The two of them took hands and made some light conversation on the way. A part of Chris was worried about what taking Eve out to eat would be like, but it was also a hurdle that the two of them would have to get over eventually.

Chris found the cafe fairly easily and the two of them decided to eat outside. They sipped on some coffee while they waited for their food and spent some time catching up on things that they hadn't gotten the chance to discuss during Chris's six hour panic attack on the plane. However, they didn't really talk about anything...important. But maybe that was okay. Having some light, casual, fun conversation was probably good for them both.

"What a beautiful city," Eve comments, "I'm excited to see more of it tomorrow and Sunday."

"It'll definitely depend on the weather, but there's lots of fun things to do. I'm just glad that it isn't supposed to rain today."

"Does it rain here as often as people say?"

"Every time I've come to the UK it rains at some point, so..."

Eve gives a small laugh and sips her coffee again. She looked so different with short hair, but it was a good different. The past few times that Chris had thought Eve looked different, it was not a good different, so he loved the fact that Eve had finally had a good change in appearance. She also looked like she'd been eating more; she ate just fine on the plane yesterday, and Chris had kept an eye on her to make sure she didn't try to purge at any point. Eve was still very much thinner than she was when she and Chris had first gotten together, and she still didn't quite look "normal", but...she didn't look sick anymore either, which was a huge positive.