DISCLAIMER: I do not own Glee or any of its characters.
WARNING: May be triggering.
Saturday morning, 1:30 AM. Marley Rose sat in the corner of the living room couch, curled up under a blanket, watching the credits roll on the movie she had been watching. She hit the power button on the remote and stared at the black screen.
It was eerily quiet in the house, since Mrs. Rose was out of town at a friend's wedding. Marley had pretended she had too much homework to be able to accompany her mother—but really she had just wanted to stay home and do nothing. She never felt like doing much anymore. At the wedding reception she would have been expected to smile and laugh, and to eat the rich, fatty food, and then go and dance because she was "young" and "so pretty!"
The rumble of her stomach cut through the stillness of the house, and an intense pang of hunger shot through Marley's abdomen, so strong she grabbed her stomach in pain, grimacing. Well, I haven't eaten in three days… she thought to herself.
She flipped the blanket off of her and padded towards the kitchen. Glancing around, her eyes fell on the half-finished loaf of white bread on the counter. Marley practically tore it open and started eating. Slice after slice, she didn't stop until the entire bag was empty.
She was still hungry. Her hands fumbled for the freezer door, pulling it open, shivering as the frigid air hit her already cold body. Unthinking and unable to control herself, she grabbed the pint of cookies and cream—the first thing she lay eyes on—and shut the freezer again. Grabbing a spoon from the drawer, she opened the container and dug right in.
Within ten minutes, she had demolished the entire pint. Her spoon scraping the bottom of the package immediately sobered her, made her realize what she had just done. "Oh my God," she murmured, clasping a hand over her mouth, feeling sick, feeling her stomach was so full that it was about to burst out of her right then and there. She dropped the spoon back in the ice cream container and pushed herself away from the table. After a few stumbling steps backwards, she turned and ran up the stairs towards the bathroom.
Holding her hair back with one hand, Marley shoved the index and middle finger of her other down her throat, triggering her gag reflex and causing herself to throw up. The first try was pretty pathetic, but the second had her puking for a solid minute. She leaned back against the wall for a minute to rest, but still felt there was more she could get rid of. She kneeled back in front of the toilet and repeated the action again.
She managed to throw up a bit more. But after trying to push the envelope and tried for a fourth time, she only managed to gag and spit up a bit of foul-tasting bile. She looked at it spinning in the bowl beneath her and felt disgust at herself. Marley slammed the lid down on the toilet and blindly fumbled for the flush.
Stumbling towards the stairs, she felt her world was spinning. You're messed up, Marley, she told herself. You need to stop. You need help.
On the fourth step down, her foot slipped and she tumbled the rest of the way, hitting the linoleum in the entryway with a loud thud, but thankfully not hitting her head anywhere. She groaned loudly, pushing herself up slowly and checking for injuries. One ankle throbbed—she'd twisted it—but everything else seemed in order at first glance.
But as she examined her arms and legs for broken bones or bruises she realized that her skin was practically translucent. She could see blue veins running up and down her arms. A layer of sweat was clinging to every inch of her. She was sick, and she couldn't stop being sick.
Marley grasped at the stair railing behind her, pulling herself up onto the first step. She leaned against the wall, her eyes half-closed. This was utterly hopeless. I'm never going to be okay.
She took her phone out of her pocket, holding it with shaking hands. She needed someone. She searched through her phonebook until she found the right name, and then pressed "call." Holding the phone to her ear, she listened to each ring and prayed that he would pick up.
In the middle of a ring, she heard the phone answered. "Hello?" came the somewhat groggy, yet concerned voice of Ryder Lynn. "Marley?"
"Hey," she whispered, her voice breaking and a tear finally falling down her cheek.
"Hey…Marley, are you okay?"
Marley sobbed once. "No, I'm not."
"Are you at home?"
"Yes."
"I'll be there in ten minutes. Listen, I'm on my way, okay? Don't move."
He was there in less than that, walking through the front door in seven minutes flat. He appeared out of breath, anxious, and was still wearing his plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt with a jacket thrown on over it. "Thank God you still have a key under your mat," he said as he shut the door behind him.
Marley hadn't moved from her spot on the stairs, still leaning her head against the wall, having hovered somewhere between awareness and oblivion in the time from making the phone call to Ryder's arrival. Ryder hurriedly sank to one knee in front of her, tucking loose strands of her hair behind her ears and grabbing her shoulders gently. "Marls, oh my God," he murmured. "Are you all right?"
Clearing her throat hurt her irritated esophagus. "Hey," she whispered again, attempting to smile at her friend, but it came out a grimace instead. "I…I fell down the stairs." Ryder immediately started examining her for broken bones. "Nothing's broken, I just twisted my ankle." she assured him.
Ryder gently probed the ankle she gestured to, trying to see if it was, in fact, just twisted. "How'd you fall down?" he wanted to know.
"I was a little dizzy 'cause I…I g-got sick earlier," Marley admitted quietly.
His gaze snapped up to meet her eyes. "What do you mean by got sick, Marls?" he asked gently.
"I threw up," Marley confessed in a small voice. When Ryder still looked at her expectantly, she dropped her eyes to her hands. "And I made myself do it."
"No," Ryder murmured immediately, the word just slipping out. "Marley. Why?"
"Because I had to," Marley answered blankly. She had started to shiver violently, and Ryder grabbed her hands, rubbing them in his own to try and warm them.
"Do I need to take you to the emergency room?" Ryder questioned, concern etched into every inch of his face.
Marley shook her head violently, her world spinning as she did so. "N-no, please, no hospitals," she begged. "I'll be fine, I promise, please, don't take me to the hospital."
"Okay, okay, shh," Ryder soothed, smoothing her hair with one hand and pulling her head to rest on his chest in a comforting way while she still shivered. "Okay, no hospitals, if you don't want to go then we won't."
"Thank you," Marley sighed, feeling some relief pour into her. She closed her eyes and listened to Ryder's heartbeat, constant against her cheek.
"Hey, I'm gonna take you upstairs, okay?" he suggested. She nodded, and started to get up, but soon found that Ryder had other plans. He easily scooped her up into his arms, very gently, and carried her bridal-style up the stairs.
In Marley's bedroom, he carefully placed her in her bed, pulling the covers up to cover her snugly. He moved to sit in the chair next to her bed. "No, wait," Marley pleaded weakly, holding a hand out to him. "Will you lie here with me? Please?"
"Of course," he said, lying down next to her—she barely took up any room in the twin-size bed. He put an arm around her shoulders, hoping to warm her up some more. Marley rested her head on his chest, listening to his breathing.
"Marls, I thought you were over your eating disorder," Ryder said quietly. He felt Marley's body shake with crying and he stroked her hair soothingly.
"I stopped, for a while," Marley confessed. "After sectionals. I really did. But then when things started going bad with Jake…I don't know it was sometime before prom and I wanted to fit into the dress. And it's all just gone out of control, Ryder. Having Jake cheat on me, Bree parading it under my nose…I just…I've lost control, Ryder. I feel like I'm drowning and no one can save me."
"I'll always be there to save you," Ryder told her. "I will never ever let you drown."
"And I rejected you," Marley whispered. "Ryder, I don't want you to think it's because I don't like you that I didn't want to be in a relationship. I do like you, a lot, it's just…"
"Marley, stop," Ryder begged, holding her close. "I know why. You're scared."
"I know you're not Jake," Marley murmured. "But I still need time."
"And I get that," Ryder replied. "You do need time. You need to get this under control." This was clearly her eating disorder. Marley sobbed and nodded, burying her face in Ryder's shirt front to give way to a few tears. He squeezed her shoulders, pulling her close to comfort her.
After a few minutes, Marley pulled away, sniffling. "I don't know why you're always so good to me, Ryder," she murmured. "I've treated you pretty crappily."
"One, I'm not sure crappily is a word," Ryder teased, smiling down at Marley. "Two, no you haven't. You've just tried to do what you thought was right. And I get that. I do life that way too, following my instincts or my heart or whatever." He paused for a minute. "And three, the reason that I'm always here for you…" He shrugged. "It's always the same. I think you're the most amazing girl I've ever met. I've thought that since the day I walked up to you and talked to you for the first time at your locker. And I will never stop feeling that way, okay?"
Marley smiled despite the tears in her eyes. "Okay," she said simply, snuggling closer to Ryder. "Ryder…will you stay here tonight?"
"Of course I will, Marls," he told her. "I'll stay here as long as you need me."
And so, feeling incredibly safe and loved, Marley managed to close her eyes and fall asleep.