TW: Eating disorder/depression/weight/suicide/death

It was lucky, I suppose, that I wasn't on my own. Lucky that Ambrose could see I wasn't in a fit state to be on my own, lucky that he cared.

After dinner, he talked to me about his sister, who it seemed always managed to start some sort of argument between them. I didn't have a panic attack like I thought I would and was feeling surprisingly okay. Still, he insisted I stay the night, though I was convinced I'd be fine the next morning and would manage breakfast alone.

It was like he knew something was going to happen. I don't know how else to explain it.

At just before midnight, he showed me to a small but comfortable spare bedroom which he used as storage for his suitcases and old paintings. He left me sitting on the bed to find a shirt I could sleep in.

The panic crawled up into me as though it had come from inside the floorboards without much, if any, warning. Like it had waited until I was sure I would be okay for the night before making its move.

It spiralled through my chest and dug its thorns into my organs so that I physically lifted my hands to my chest. I wanted to pull it out - a string of dread - but I couldn't grasp it, and it grew and grew inside me until I became it.

I'm not entirely sure what happened, just that I couldn't breathe, but it wasn't a panic attack.

I slid off the bed and sat against it, legs splayed out, tipping my head back until it met the mattress. I tried to stare at the ceiling and find something to focus on so that I might be able to calm myself down, but all that did was worsen it all, so I closed my eyes tight and pressed the heels of my hands into them.

I had the urge to scoop them out of the sockets so I wouldn't have to see my body anymore.

The combination of intense hunger and intense guilt for the meal I had eaten was sickening; I needed to eat everything and to never eat again. I needed to crawl out of my body and into one that I hadn't spent the past ten years of my life ruining.

Thinking about all the food I had eaten in my life and all the comments and demands and complaints about my body, I began to realise that I wasn't ever going to be enough. For them or for me. I was striving for a perfect that didn't exist.

I envied every single person who could eat without care just as I envied every single person who ate less and weighed less than me. All the times I'd overheard conversations about weight and diets and intermittent fasting, I tried to tell myself it was wrong to want it, but I couldn't.

The negatives of ignoring it weighed out the positives. I decided it was my reason, that if I wasn't losing weight, wasn't starving, wasn't being told how thin I looked, then I wasn't supposed to be alive.

I had to do it.

Just like some people are made for science and for maths, I'm made for starving.

I knew I was sobbing because I could barely breathe through the sharpness of each inhale and because my face was hot and wet.

"Andy, hey, look at me," Ambrose tried, though I hadn't noticed him come back in the room and was glad that he had. "Andy. Honey. Look at me. Look at me. It's okay."

I couldn't look at him because I didn't know where he was or where I was or whether my eyes were open or closed or not attached to my head at all. I wanted to never see myself again.

Ambrose must have been knelt in front of me because I felt his hands pulling mine away from my face. "You have to breathe," he said.

I thought, if I give up starving, I give up everything.

"Andy. Listen to me. Breathe. Let's do it together, okay?"

But I shook my head as I opened my eyes to look at him, his face a blur. I made myself dizzy shaking my head. Or maybe I was already dizzy. By this point, it was difficult to know what was a side effect of starving and what was panic. 

He held my hands tight so I couldn't pull them away. I thought about all the photographers who had used my weakness as a way to touch me - a hand across my hips and over my waist - and I yanked my right arm from him with such vigour that my body jerked as my hand came free. My elbow made hard contact with the wood of the bed frame.

The pain was a shock. 

Ambrose released my other hand.

I wanted to reach inside my throat and pull out whatever it was that was making me feel this way.

My mother would have been stunned silent to see me like this. She'd probably have started shouting at me to calm down while insisting I was only making it harder. I tried not to think about what she'd do because it wasn't going to help. Her approach to my (forced) recovery had only left me more determined to be sicker.

To prove to her and everyone that they couldn't fix me or save me or whatever the fuck they kept saying when they thought I wasn't listening. I wanted to be ill enough to not care whether I was saved or not, but I was not there yet. 

Dragging my knuckles over my eyes and cheeks in an attempt to rid myself of tears, I watched Ambrose watch me. When he caught my eyes with his, he gave a gentle smile. 

I dropped my hand to my lap and thought, there is no way he's sticking around after this. 

Exhaustion had swallowed me; the crying had left me sleepy, but I was calming down. Physically, at least. Emotionally, I was anything but calm. The idea of sleeping for a very long time was incredibly appealing. 

I muttered, "Shit. I'm...I'm so sorry." 

Immediately, Ambrose shook his head, said, "No, no, no. Don't be sorry. Not at all. You're okay. Don't be sorry." He crossed his legs before him.  

I thought, fuck, I'm never going to want recovery. 

I thought, wouldn't it be easier if I was dead right now? 

I thought, if I keep starving, I might be dead soon. 

I thought, what a fucking sad way to end my life. 

Ambrose offered a hug and I nearly fell asleep against him. He stroked my hair and whispered, "Please don't be sorry." 

I started to cry again. 

"You're allowed to be struggling," he soothed. "Never need to be sorry for that. Shh, it's okay. Let it happen; let yourself cry. I got you, hon, I got you." Rocking, he continued to stroke my hair as I turned the side of my head against his shoulder.

Thinking, this is a fucking nervous breakdown. 

Thinking, I'm having a fucking nervous breakdown in this man's house, and he's not telling me to shut up and get over it. 

Thinking, fuck my life.