TW: Eating disorder/weight/suicide/depression

"How old are you?" I asked, lying beside Ambrose in my bed. It had just occurred to me that I had very little knowledge on a lot of his life other than that he argued constantly with his sister, he stopped going to the gym to prioritise his mental health, and he was a painter.  

He breathed a laugh and turned his body so he was facing me. "How old do you think I am?" He asked. 

"I don't know, late twenties?" 

"How old are you?" 

"I asked first." 

Again, he laughed. "I'm thirty, chicken." 

"Hey, we agreed not to use that nickname. Think of another." 

"How old are you?" 

"Thirty two." 

He hummed. In the darkness of the room, everything looked soft. Maybe it was because he was there. I was yet to discover any of his sharper edges. "Thank god you're not, like, twenty," he said, reaching out to take strands of my hair between his fingers.  

"Do I look twenty to you?" 

"Honestly, if you told me you were, I'd believe it." 

"You should have seen me at twenty." 

"Now I'm intrigued." 

I shook my head, smiled at the ceiling. "Emo," I told him. "Very, very emo." 

"And you're not still emo?"

"That's not the point." 

"I always wanted an emo man." 

"Who said I'm your man?" 

"Aren't you?" 

I looked at him. "Maybe I'm straight," I said, trying not to giggle at the words as I spoke them, and he snorted. We both knew I was in fact not straight. I'm almost certain he had known from our first interaction.  

Ambrose rested his hands on his chest and I took one in mine. "How're you feeling now?" He asked sincerely. "You seem more cheerful but I don't want to assume." 

"No, yeah, I feel a little better right now." 

"Good. That's good." Bringing our hands to his mouth, he kissed my knuckles. "If you want, I'll show you the paintings tomorrow. They're coming along nicely. Your idea for purple is working well." 

"Oh, yes please." 

He let out hands rest back on his chest and exhaled. "Do you wanna have all your meals with me for a while?" 

"Are you sure it's not-" 

"You have to stop asking shit like that. If I offer, I'm sure." 

"Okay, then. Yes. Please. Thank you." Turning my head to the side, I added, "If I collapse again, will you take me to hospital? It's just - I don't want to go now, but I've been blacking out a lot, so if it happens again..." 

"Of course." 

"Thanks." 

He hummed.

I yawned.

He said, "Go to sleep." 

I said, "I'm not tired." 

He said, "As if I'm gonna believe that. The important question is do you want to be big spoon or little spoon?" 

Lifting my head and looking at him until our eyes met in the dark, I exclaimed, "If you look at me and think, 'big spoon', you're blind." 

Ambrose laughed out loud and I kissed him, hummed as he wrapped his arms around me. He was so gentle and warm, held me like I was more than just a body that was made for touching, and when I pulled back, he was smiling sleepily at me.

"What?" I asked. 

"What, what?" 

"You're looking at me funny." 

"For someone who has cameras pointed at you all day, you don't take attention well." 

"That's different," I told him, and it was true. It is different. "The cameras and shit, it's my job. I do it well because I want them to pay me well. I don't actually enjoy their gawping eyes on me all the time. Do you know what it's like to have strangers with lined pockets undressing you with their filthy eyes?" I breathed out. "If you ever want to feel like an object, go into modelling is all I can say." 

"I hope I don't make you feel like an object." 

"No, Jesus, no. No, that's what I mean. Attention from you is completely different to attention from them." Again, I yawned. Still, my body ached with hunger - the sort of pain that gets worse the more you focus on it and makes it impossible to sleep - and I hesitated before saying, "I need to eat."

I'd decided that I'd never feel completely ready for recovery and if there ever was a sign to choose it, it was the fact that someone cared enough to help. I had to try.

If he was at all surprised, Ambrose didn't show it in the slightest, just sat up while I reached for the light by my side of the bed. 

"It's fine, you sleep," I told him, didn't mean it because I had no idea how to give myself permission to eat if someone else wasn't also eating. It seemed unfair to ask him to eat when he wasn't hungry. 

"Don't be stupid. I'll never pass on a midnight snack. Besides, you told me, like, three hours ago that you couldn't eat without someone else eating first so don't pretend you didn't." 

"I know, but-" 

"But nothing. I'm eating with you." 

"Yes, but-" 

"Andy." 

"What?" 

"Stop it." 

"But it's not-" 

"If you're gonna say it's not fair on me, I swear to god-" 

"Why do you care so much anyway? It's not like you've known me that long." 

"Are you trying to self-sabotage?" 

I blinked at him because he was right and I hadn't even realised. 

"Look, you're not going to talk yourself out of eating or talk me out of eating with you, because I'm not an idiot. So come on, up. You said you need to eat, so we're gonna eat. Otherwise you'll black out again and I don't think you want to spend any time in hospital." 

"Oh, you're bossy." 

"Oh, yes I am." Swinging his legs out of the bed and standing, Ambrose walked around to my side, held out his hands. 

I sighed; I hadn't expected him to take it so seriously. But I suppose it was silly of me to have been shocked by his determination to help me after everything he had already said and done for me.

I was still thinking about what my parents had said, that I was being unfair, that I should just eat healthier, blah blah blah. 

"Up," Ambrose said, not unkindly, and I took his hands so he could pull me to my feet. I wondered whether he thought at all about how light I was, almost wished he said something about it but knew that was the disorder's wish. It wouldn't help me at all, and of course, he didn't mention anything to do with my weight or body. 

We descended the stairs. It had been such a long time since I'd eaten outside of a conventional meal time that I didn't know where to start. I folded my arms over my chest and looked blankly at the kitchen in front of me.

I said, "Fuck this," and turned to leave. 

Ambrose took me by the shoulders and stopped me. "No." 

"I already ate so much, I-" 

"Andy, you've been starving for god knows how long, one Chinese takeaway isn't going to change that."

"Yes, I know. I know that. But you don't get it-" 

"No, I don't. But I do know that five minutes ago, you acknowledged that you needed to eat, and if you go against that now, it's gonna make it harder to eat the next time. So come on, sit down." 

I did, letting him pull out a dining chair for me. The aching of hunger made me want to cry. 

"Sweet or savoury?" Ambrose asked. "I'm gonna fuck up your kitchen trying to find shit in here." 

"I don't know," I mumbled. "You don't have to do this-" 

"Next time you say that, I'm going to scream." 

"Please don't." 

"Then don't say that again." Opening and closing cupboards and the fridge, Ambrose continued, "I'm doing it because I care and you need help. Okay, you really don't have much food in your house, do you?" 

"Why would I? Who would eat it?" 

"Ah, here we go. You okay with porridge?" 

I nodded, mumbled, "I'm supposed to be losing six more pounds." 

Pouring oats into a saucepan, Ambrose said, "baby, we both know it's never just six more pounds." He added a generous amount of milk into the pan and messed around with the dials on the hob until the middle ring lit up. 

"Yes, but-" 

"Yes, but nothing." 

I dropped my head onto the table. "You're fucking me up," I complained. "I don't know whether to hate you or hug you." 

"You can do both, no?" Leaving the oats to heat up, Ambrose came to stand behind my chair, his hands on my shoulders. "Just know it doesn't matter what you say, I'm gonna make sure you eat when you're hungry. Doesn't matter if you're hungry all the time. Then you eat all the time. Your body needs it. You need it. And you can argue against it all you want, it won't stop me from helping you. Because I know and you know that you don't want to be starving anymore." 

"You're wasting so much of your time-" 

"I will scream." 

"No. Fine. You're not wasting any of your time. Is that better?" 

"Yes, that's much better." 

"But you are, though," I whispered. 

I heard him sigh behind me. "I promise you, I'm not." 

I yawned. Part of me was relieved he was making me eat so that I could sleep properly. Another part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off, and when I did, he just kissed the top of my head and returned to the bubbling pan. I smiled sleepily at the gesture and told him, "You're quite possibly the only person ever to actually help. Don't you dare ever talk to another man ever again because I'll be very jealous and probably off myself." 

"You sound super stable." 

"The dictionary definition of stable is me." 

He hummed. 

"I might off myself after eating that." 

"Would you actually try?" He asked. 

I lifted my head. "Probably. You should see how many pills are in my bathroom cabinet. I could OD three times over from the shit in there." 

"Okay, well, we're not gonna go that. Do you want honey in this?" 

"Do I have honey?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh. Then yes. Thanks." 

"Are you actually serious about OD'ing?" 

"Yes." 

"Have you tried before?" 

"No, but I did write out all the ways I could kill myself when my parents were forcing me to recover before I was ready." 

"Are you ready now?" 

"Fuck knows. Is anyone ever ready for this shit? How can I be when my whole adult life so far has been about being as thin as I can be?" A pang of hunger shot through me. "Jesus fuck, I'm so hungry." 

"Well, listen, if you're considering it at any point, you can tell me, okay? And I'll make sure you're safe." 

"Are you-" 

"Yes. Stop asking that. Here you go. There's a little more in the pan." Placing a bowl of steaming, milky porridge on the table before me, Ambrose sat down with his own. "Then you sleep, okay? You've yawned so much in the past two hours I'm surprised you're still awake." 

I dipped the spoon into the oats. "Thanks," I muttered. "Seriously. Thanks. I owe you everything." 

It was true, I did. He had single-handedly saved my life that night.