CalPal

-26-

Chapter Twenty Six

[CW: talks about food and calories in the first paragraph]

    "Caelum!" Clay called from downstairs. I was currently upstairs working on a new painting to get my mind off food. I had only been eating around three hundred calories each day since we came back from Texas. I definitely would have boycotted food completely most days if Clay wasn't around. It seems that having him around and knowing about my eating disorder, but not pushing me, has helped. However, I've really been struggling mentally and recovery seemed harder this time around even though I'm more determined. I didn't have a reason to recover last time. At least not the copious amount of reasons I have currently. I'm not only recovering for myself, but for the fans, my boyfriend, my friends, etc..

    "Yeah?" I called back.

    "Dinner's ready!" He yelled.

    I sighed, "Be right down!"

[CW: food in the next paragraph]

    This morning, I was having a good body image day; I still feel that way. I voiced this to Clay because I was really proud of myself. He suggested that he could cook a meal for us, anything I decided. It was really cute how he presented the idea. He shyly asked me, hesitated the entire way through his words, then immediately clapped a hand over his mouth afterwards and started taking it back instantly as if he did something terribly wrong. In the end, it was too hard to say no to him when he was so excited about it. I decided on teriyaki chicken and a salad with actual dressing this time. I usually eat salads without dressing.

    I spent the next ten minutes slowly cleaning up my art supplies. I put my oil paints back in their respective drawers, then washed off my brushes and placed them back in the dry mason jar. I grabbed a lime green Dream hoodie from my closet and threw it on over my yoga pants. Clay's sizes ran a bit bigger so the medium fit more oversized on me and I loved it.

[CW: talks about food slightly in the next two paragraphs]

    When I got downstairs, Clay was hunched over the food, plating it and drizzling more sauce over it. I started laughing at him; he turned around right away and started smiling at me. He raised both his and my plate in each hand. It didn't look terrible. The chicken looked a bit burnt, but I'm sure it'll taste great. The salad looked amazing, but it is a salad. There's not much room to mess that up.

    I grabbed my plate from him and sat down on the stool at the island. He joined me with a proud smile and handed me a fork. It was silent at first as he wolfed down his food, but he soon realized that I was just staring at my food and pushing it around with my utensil. A few seconds after, he began talking up a storm which I assumed was to distract me from my food. Not going to lie, that was a smart play because it actually worked.

    "The among us group wanted to play a few rounds if you're up for it."

    "Are you sure they want the both of us back? We screamed at each other like the whole time. I didn't think they'd ever invite us back at the same time," my giggle muffled through my chewed food.

    "Oh trust me, I was shocked too. Shubble's not playing today. I think it's Tubbo, Sap, Punz—"

    "Punz? Who's that?"

    "You don't know who Punz is?" He exclaimed, "I thought you would've heard about him by now. He's in the SMP and streams a lot. He's on the timeline quite a bit too. I assume you don't follow him though?"

    I shook my head, "Yeah I've never heard of him before. Is he nice?"

    "Yeah," he said in a higher pitched voice, causing me to laugh, "He just sometimes goes hard in among us and it seems like he's being rude or pushy, but he's not. Don't take anything he says too seriously."