Love You Through It
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of the characters!
AN: Believe or not but this actually took me like two whole weeks to write! Anyway R and R please... Enjoy!
Trigger warning, heavily involving Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa so read at your own rate!
Rated T for Eating disorders...
Marley Rose sat alone in her bedroom on Tuesday evening. She had just gotten home from school and things still weren't getting better.
Everyone seemed to have gotten over the loss at Sectional, while everyone except Tina. She was contently reminding Marley that she was the reason they lost.
"It's all Marley's fault that we have to practice outside in the snow!"
She gets that Tina's mad and it's her senior year but Marley didn't mean to faint. It's not like she was planning on it, if she could pick she would have never went on that stupid diet in the first place. But it's to late for thinking that way.
Her stomach growled as she made her way to the kitchen downstairs. Well, she hadn't eaten anything in four days so... She had just gotten out of the hospital on Sunday but she still couldn't stop purging and skipping meals. Not yet at least...
She passed her mom's tiny bedroom, she could hear her talking with Marley's father on the phone.
She barely sees her dad. Only on holidays and birthdays. Her parents got divorced when Marley was five and now he lives in Columbus with his new, younger skinnier, wife and her perfect daughter.
Marley heard her mom said that she should have watched her more carefully, or that she was always worrying about Marley getting overweight but never even thought about the possibility of her being underweight. Needless to say, she thought it was all her fault, and she couldn't be more wrong.
Marley grasped the kitchen counter and she made her way to the fridge.
She opened it and her eyes immediately scanned through the various food items. Hunger pains shot through her and her stomach growled once more only making her feel more nauseous and dizzy.
Before she could stop herself she was reaching for the nearest thing she could get her hands on: left over fudge brownies.
She took it out of the fridge, unwrapped the plastic and got a fork out of the cabinet.
She hesitantly glanced at the chocolate covered dessert as she dug her fork into it and placed it on her mouth. She sighed before taking a slow and careful bite of it, the flavor savoring on her lips, missing the feeling of sweetness on her taste buds.
Then she took another bite, and another and soon half of the cake was gone and in her stomach.
She let out a silent yet desperate cry as grief set in. She realized what she was doing now. Marley suddenly put her fork down and set the cake back in the fridge where she found it.
She shut the fridge almost as if she had been burnt by it and moved onto the pantry.
Her eyes narrowed at the sight of all the junk food in their pantry. She settled upon a box of Chips Ahoy! Cookies and quickly grabbed them and sat at the counter with them.
Before Marley knew it she had indulged one whole tray of cookies, there must have been about 6 of them.
6 cookies X 60 calories each... 360 calories just spent on cookies! And don't even get Marley started on the chocolate cake.
She knew what she had to do.
She pushed herself away from the counter and ran to her bathroom upstairs, almost tripping on each stair, praying her mom was now sound asleep.
Marley got to her bathroom and shut the door behind her quickly.
She felt so disgusted with herself it was unbearable. She felt so guilty and weak and lousy.
People would like her if she was skinny. She wouldn't get made fun of if she was skinny. And who knows maybe Ryder might actually notice her if she was skinny. But she's not even close to skinny!
Within a few seconds she was down on her knees,sticking her pointer and index fingers deep in the back of her already sore throat.
Marley started gagging, and gagging, and gagging until finally all the contents in her stomach cake out and into the clear bowl or water below her.
She repeated this process two more times.
She puked until she couldn't puke anymore.
Relief washed over her, finally she didn't feel gulity anymore.
She desperately tried one more time, still sensing the unwanted food, unwanted calories, inside of her, as she stuck her fingers deep in her throat until she was gagging, and gagging.
Finally something did come out. It was whatever was left in her stomach, which wasn't much... But then she noticed something quite unusual, that's never happened to her before: this time she saw blood mixed in with the clear, nauseating contents below.
Fear shot through her veins as she felt herself getting chills and goosebumps as if her whole world was frozen, even though you couldn't feel the temperature in the bathroom.
What had she done?
She shakingly forced herself to stand up, putting all of her weight against the sink.
Her head was spinning, her vision was blurred, her chest tightened, and she felt as if she was going to die right then and there.
She weakly grabbed her phone, her hand shaking uncontrollably. She knew exactly who to talk to. She knew at least one person who wasn't mad at her.
Marley dialed the familiar number and waited until someone finally picked up.
"Ryder." Her voice sounded shaken and weak, she would never want to come off as weak.
"Oh hi Marley, what's up?" Ryder said through the phone.
Before she knew it, Marley was crying, "Can you come over..." Marley choked out in between sobs.
"Mar, what's wrong? Are you okay?" Ryder asked worriedly in a curious tone.
"Pl-please just come." She only grew more anxious and scared. "I need you."
Not wanting to press the issue on further he simply replied. "Okay, I'll be there soon."
Marley nodded through the phone before hanging up and collapsing on her bed. The tears piled in and began pouring down her gracefully pale face.
It seemed like forever when Ryder finally showed up at the front door. He didn't knock cause he didn't want to wake the neighbors, or worse Marley's mom.
Marley jumped up when she felt the front door open and close quietly.
She was startled even more when she heard a voice outside her bedroom. "Marley I know your in there, open up."
Ryder.
He was here. He actually came.
Marley scrambled to her feet and silently opened the door to reveal a worried looking Ryder who still had wet hair from football practice.
"Hi..." Marley glanced at Ryder uncertainly as she leaned against the door.
"What's wrong? Are you okay, I got here as soon as I could."
"Uhh- Yeah I'm fine. How did you get in?" Marley stuttered not wanting to tell Ryder the real reason.
"The front door was unlocked." Ryder shrugged.
"Oh."
"You sounded upset on the phone, wanna talk about it?"
"I just kind of got scared earlier."
"Scared? Why?"
"Because-Because I'm sick."
Ryder, not wanting to interrupt her, allowed her to continue without butting in.
"Because I haven't been eating, because I'm making myself throw up. I'm scared because I hate myself so much and I have no idea why. I'm scared because I can't stop myself and one day I'm gonna push myself over the edge and it's all gonna be to late!" Marley shouted, sobbing as she crossed her arms over her chest, rocking back and fourth.
"Marley you don't have to go through this alone. I'm here for you, your mom's here for you. Jake's here for you. Everyone in Glee club is here for you." Ryder explained, not taking his eyes off her for a second.
"I need you to promise me something, alright?"
Ryder reluctantly sighed. "Okay what?"
"Just don't leave me through all of this. Please?"
Ryder's eyes immediately softened at how broken her voice sounded. "I'll keep my promise if you promise me something in return."
"What?" Marley looked annoyed at this.
"Promise me that you will stop hurting yourself. This could end up killing you Mar. Nobody wants that to happen."
Marley met his eyes and nodded ever so slightly. "I'll try."
"Try?" Ryder raised his eyebrow in confusion.
"That's all I can promise for now." Marley informed with a nod.
"Okay, you will try to beat this. That's good enough for me." Ryder smiled at her, taking her hand in his and giving it a small squeeze.
"It's not gonna be easy."
"I know."
"It could take years to get over."
"I kind of figured that."
"Are you sure you wanna stick around through all of it?"
"More than anything. Marls, I'm not gonna leave you in this state of need. I love you Marley."
"What?"
"I-I love you." Ryder finally admitted. There was no way out of it now.
"You do?" Marley squeaked out.
"Yeah... I do." Ryder said as a grin broke out on his face.
"I love you too Ryder!"
"But I thought. I mean you and Jake-"
"We broke up." Marley shrugged carelessly.
"Oh, sorry."
"Don't be. We were better off as friends anyway. Your the one I wanna be with, you always were." That comment made Ryder grin like an idiot and blush like a tomato.
"Oh..." Without thinking Ryder leaned over and captured Marley's lips with his own.
The kiss was short and sweet but still passionate and memorable.
They pulled apart a few short seconds later.
"You're never alone Marley." Ryder whispered softly in her ear as he gave her a light kiss on the forehead.
Marley just nodded sadly as she hugged Ryder tightly, clinging onto him for dear life.
"I'm gonna love you through this. That's a promise."