Eat Your Words
Chapter Nine
Sebastian got his IV fluids, his shiny psychiatric appointment and a discharge after he flat-out insulted his mother.
He tried to make himself seem like this big sad victim—refusing to eat or drink, always putting on his 'I am so sad and hurt and fragile' face. He learned that face from Kurt Hummel.
It was exhausting pretending that he actually barfed up warm, microwaved apple bits in soy yoghurt in his spare time.
Sebastian felt like, in the last few hours, he cried so much that he lost the fluids that he'd been given. He learned how to make himself cry at will a long time ago. Actual tears gave him pity points. Sebastian first used it when he tried to explain to the principal that all the other kids were picking on him. In reality, he was the one that picked on them.
Sebastian sobbed so much throughout the whole hour of them asking questions—screaming, throwing fits, and slamming his head into walls until the principal was convinced that yes, Sebastian was the victim there.
When he was called to the principal's office at fifteen, he lost most of the weight. The only thing left of it was this small doughy-ness in his cheeks and little bits of flab on his arms and legs. This was far from the child that walked into the school hallway a year ago, the one who couldn't really fit in the seats. Sebastian used his pronounced weight loss to his advantage, as he shrieked in French to the principal: "They hurt me so much I can't eat! They hurt me so bad!"
But something changed that day when Sebastian came back home.
Sebastian knew like his mother didn't believe him. She wanted to, but she didn't. Lena offered a fake plastic smile, but ever since then, Sebastian felt like they were looking for the moment where she could proclaim that her son was a disgusting little piece of shit. He felt like both her and Lena just saw this hideous monster that he became.
Honestly? His mother wasn't buying this 'eating disorder' ruse one bit. In fact, she looked livid.
They were in the car, driving to Sebastian's art exam. The only thing he could think of was all the reasons why he was sitting in the back of a car on a hot Tuesday morning, driving to his school only moments after he got his first psychiatric appointment date for his fake eating disorder. How did he get here?
"They don't understand that your brother—he eats," Nathalie said to Lena, who just kept flickering her dark eyes back at Sebastian and her mother. Lena was doing the eating this time. A large order of McDonalds' fries was on her lap, and Sebastian wanted to vomit. "Sebastian eats all the damn time. And he's trying to pull one over at them like he did at the principal's office in France but not this time, Sebastian. I won't let you this time. I won't."
Sebastian just stared at her, hands on his knees. Now, their secret was out. They really hated him for what he did back there in the principal office last year.
They didn't talk to Sebastian about it, but he knew that it was all about what he did there.
Before the principal office-bullying incident, his mother used to kiss his forehead, and tell him that he was the most special child in the world. He believed her. Sebastian would wake up on Christmas Day and feel like the luckiest kid in the world. Sebastian walked downstairs, sat down and open present after present. His smile stretched out so much that he felt like his face was about to split into two halves.
That same smile disappeared when he walked to school for the first time ever, and he saw the way the other kids looked at him. They called him names, and when he walked to them to sit with them, they laughed like it was the most absurd thing in the world. Fourteen-year-old Sebastian lived in absolute rejection. They poked fun at him all the time, mostly because he was huge. He remembered students making pig noises whenever he walked past them with his massive lunch tray. Fifteen-year-old Sebastian stopped eating junk food, ran around the park even when other kids sneered, and fought back. Then his well-meaning stances of pride just turned into these malicious, cutting comments that made those same kids cry. The icier the comments got, the more comfortable Sebastian felt when he went to school. Sometimes, people even paid for his new lunch (a single carton of skim milk with a tinned fruit salad). Other times, they walked him home to his mother. Sebastian felt like this was the only way he could have friends.
On his most recent birthday, Sebastian didn't feel special at all. He woke up late, and his mother gave him a monogrammed spoon telling him to eat more green things. Nice. So, he refused his own birthday dinner because it was all beige and brown. He wouldn't eat a single sprinkle off his cake. His mother was furious with him.
"Giving me the silence treatment, aren't you, you ungrateful brat?" Nathalie continued to rant. "That's it. I'm done with you. I'm through trying to get to you. The minute that you are eighteen, you're out of my house. Do you understand, Sebastian? Do you understand that I'm not playing your little childish games anymore? I-I know what you are and you're nothing more than your own father. I always knew that! Deep down, I always knew… I knew that day at the principal's office. I just thought I could bottle up those-those feelings. That's why I believed them so quickly. Those sweet, sweet boys that came to our house the other day—Kurt and Blaine. Because I know what you are deep down. I just didn't want to face up to see what my child has turned into."
Sebastian flicked his sea-green eyes towards Lena. She was twenty-one, close to twenty-two and still wasting her life away in that fucking house. But he had to bolt the second he turned eighteen because 'he hurt people's feelings.'
Bullshit. The only reason he became like this was because of how everyone else fucking treated him. Assholes.
"You do have an eating disorder, Sebastian," Nathalie looked serious. "An overeating disorder."
This surprised Sebastian. He felt his chest tighten. He wondered if his mother caught him sneaking off in the bathroom to eat filled chocolate bars, because he didn't want to lose more weight. At the same time, Sebastian didn't want to be caught eating all those refined carbohydrates and sugars all the time. He was ashamed that he was maintaining his weight on fucking gross, cheaply produced candy bars. But he didn't have a choice. If Sebastian ate healthy, he knew he'd lose even more weight. He just knew he couldn't possibly fit in all those green salads and kale smoothies back in his diet without him ending up in a serious calorie deficit because he only ate something like once, maybe twice, a day.
Eating this shit made him feel like that helpless, fat nine-year-old kid that got beat around by his father.
Sebastian remembered the time that he walked into his father's room and found a secret stash of posh chocolates (which he didn't know was his father's). He sat there, eating one by one by one. His father found him there and belted him until he bled on their cream-coloured carpet. Sebastian remembered screaming out for his mother to help him. Where was she then? Nowhere. But you know, at least, he got to the hospital before he died that morning.
But he remembered that she came to the ward with a giant pizza. Sebastian was so sick of eating, but he ate it anyway because it was the one single time in the fucking day he could convince himself that his mother loved him.
"Yeah, when I was two, I was the one that fed myself with Coke," Sebastian mumbled dryly.
Nathalie just shrugged. "It was the only thing you'd drink."
Sebastian looked away from her. He was ashamed enough that he snuck off to the bathroom to eat high-calorie junk food. He didn't need his mother to rub it in by reminding her that Sebastian was one big comfort eater.
When he got to his exam, he wore his Dalton uniform and realised his mother forgot to pack his belt along with it. Sebastian was fucking furious. He'd changed in the bathrooms, and found out that he couldn't walk more than a few centimetres without his pants ending up on the ground. Sebastian got irritated, and pulled out safety pins from his butchered Nike backpack. Yes, he put safety pins all over his bag because he was the edgiest.
He clipped them to his pants and went off to do his art exam.
Sebastian pretended that people weren't tossing looks over at him when he was busy doing his 'rainbow over the bridge' whatever thing. Sebastian had four hours to finish his piece. His actual piece was absolute crap because his hands wouldn't stop shaking. The professor would probably love it because he found everything about poor, gay Sebastian heart-breaking and tragic. Typical.
By the time that everyone could leave, Sebastian turned around to walk out as fast as possible to avoid having anyone talking to him. No such luck because he was immediately cornered by Nick and Jeff.
"How-how was the hospital?" Jeff asked, moving closer to Sebastian.
Sebastian snorted. Where were you BEFORE, asshole? "Great," he then sarcastically added on, "I can't wait until I take a dozen different type of pills that I've never taken before. It's so much better than weed." Nick stared at him.
"It's a joke!" Sebastian yelled out, noticing their faces crumble with relaxation before they fake-laughed.
"You're funny," Nick said. If Sebastian was so funny, Nick wouldn't look like he was about to be sick. "We should get coffee together. Just—just the three of us. How does that sound?"
Sebastian rolled his eyes. He did go to coffee with them. It was really nice. He didn't talk much. He just watched them talk mostly. He wanted to try to be nice again, but being nice didn't get him in the Lima Bean post-exam with two other guys that he didn't really hate. He could tell though, that they wanted him there because they felt guilty and scared, not because they liked him. But like the days where he used to drink large banana milkshakes and pretend his mother loved him, Sebastian sipped his soy cappuccino and pretended he had friends that actually liked him.
