this is shit, sorry not sorry haha

thanks for all your amazing reviews though 3


Georgia was nervous. Not nervous in an 'Oh dear, what's going to happen now?' way. Nervous in a sweaty palmed, beating heart, shit-why-did-I-agree-to-this way.
He had told her about the neglected Starbucks in a muffled voice, and she had told him she'd be there in three hours. And here she was.
But where was he?
Georgia knew it was stupid to be scared of him. Hostility and fame aside, he was about a foot shorter than she was. But it was hard to forget the dirty looks and silence he had blessed her with for the past few months, and Georgia had to admit that he genuinely freaked her out.
And then the door opened and she wondered how she ever could have been frightened of this fragile little ghost.
Dougie's eyes flicked around the dark room, landed on her for a fraction of a second, and returned to the floor. He moved to the counter and mumbled an order Georgia couldn't hear but recognised instantly.
Black coffee, please. Pleasedon'tlookatme.

Holding the mug in both hands, Dougie turned and walked over with uncertain steps. He stood across from her for a second before edging into the chair.
"Hi, Dougie."
There was a pause. Then, in a voice smaller than his frame, "Hello."
Georgia watched him for a second, taking in the details she had learned off by heart years ago. The collar bones that stuck out through the layers of fabric piled on in an attempt to ward off the cold. The cheeks that seemed more bone than skin. The skeletal hands half hidden by a long shirt. The attempt to cover up his skinny body, when all he had wanted in the first place was for people to admire his thinness.
The terrible double standards of an eating disorder.
"You've lost weight."

For a fraction of a second, pride flashed across his face. Then, as if a lightbulb had been switched on, the pride was replaced by a terrible fear.

Georgia know, then, exactly where he was. Dougie had faced what had been gnawing at his mind for the past few months- he was killing himself- and it terrified him. The smugness at another pound lost was long gone.

But he didn't know how to stop.

Dougie opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "I've been throwing up."

Georgia nodded slightly. "Laxatives?"

Dougie swallowed and gave a tiny nod.

"Exercise?"

Dougie looked up then, cheeks flushed. "Exercise is healthy!"

"Not," Georgia murmured, "When each sit-up pushed your body closer to death."

Dougie's mouth snapped shut. "I was-" He choked and tried again. "I was being healthy. I was just- I was trying to be healthy" His eyes said more. His eyes said, please believe me I'm not lying I swear I was being healthy I didn't mean it to go this far I'm sorry-

"I believe that's what you think." Georgia stated. "But I also think you're wrong. You weren't doing this to be healthy. You're sensible, Dougie. You wouldn't have stopped eating completely if you were just trying to tone up."

Dougie gazed at her, trying to look irritated and failing miserably. "What was I doing, then?" His challenging tone poorly disguised his curiosity.

"I know a few theories," Georgia said around a sip of coffee. "I can tell you them, if you like. But it might reveal things about you that you don't want to hear."

Dougie narrowed his eyes.

"Well, the first one is a fear of growing up. A person is scared of leaving their childhood home, having to face problems on their own, having to depend on only themselves and so on. So they create a child-like body for themselves in hopes that they won't have to grow up." Georgia pointed her spoon at him. "Your body is definitely similar to an eight year old's right now. But I don't think that theory fits you. I mean, you left home at fifteen at your own- or so Danny tells me- will. It was a choice you made and didn't regret. You wanted to escape childhood early. Danny also told me that you're independent, always have been."

Dougie stared at her, mute, so she continued.

"Another theory is that you hate yourself so much it hurts. Your mentality towards yourself is complete disgust, and the emotional pain yu feel everytime you look in the mirror is extreme. You may think you're too much- as in, too loud, too obnoxious, too annoying. The next... logical... step is to get rid of the problem which, ultimately, is you. So you starve away your body in an attempt to starve away the parts of yourself that you hate so much."

Dougie's mouth fell open and he felt light headed.

Beth.

Everything that Georgia just said added up to explain why she did it. She had never made it a secret, on Tumblr or to him, that she despised herself.

Georgia raised her eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I just..." He bit his lip and regained his composure. Georgia watched him for a second, then continued. "But there's another one. One that I think would explain a lot about you, Dougie. Of course, I could be totally off the mark."

She took another sip of coffee while he stared at her, impatient.

"It's control, Dougie. It's all about control. Your Dad left and you were bullied. Danny mentioned that your little sister... well, she started doing things most thirteen year olds shouldn't even understand... and your mother veers towards being bipolar, doesn't she?

You couldn't control any of that. And when you escaped it and arrived at the band house, you just ended up with more problems. Tom and Harry fighting, the music getting harder to create, the management demanding things none of you could achieve yet."

"I've seen your room, Dougie. It's very neat. Bordering on the OCD, in fact." She paused, stirring her coffee slowly. "And it's you that tidies the house so vigilantly, isn't it? It's gotten a lot messier since you left. You like being in control of your environment, and when you can't, you freak out. Then you stumbled across the one thing you could control. Yourself."

Georgia paused for a second. Dougie was like a statue, watching her face with his mouth slightly open.

"It's so easy to fall into that trap. To focus your attention on perfecting yourself, because you can't perfect anything else. When the only thing you have any say over is your body, you hang on to it like a lifeline. Your weight- or lack thereof- is, as far as you can see, the one thing you can control. So you control it. You dedicate yourself to choosing what goes in to and what leaves your body, because you can. You say, it's my choice to be 90 pounds, and you make that choice, but it's not enough, because you need to keep controlling it. So the weight lowers... and so does your control. And then you look around and you have no control, you've gone to far, and you can't stop.

"Sound familiar?"

Dougie was frozen. His fists were clenched around the table. Georgia bit her lip, waiting for a response.

Finally, Dougie moved. He looked at his knees, curled in on himself, and let out a shuddering breath.

He nodded.

"Of course," Georgia said, her voice softer now, "Other things tie into it. You want to be as hot as Danny, as strong willed as Tom, as confident as Harry. Eating disorders feed you lies, Dougie. You want to be independent, but you end up with no say in your own life. You want to be confident, but you end up hating yourself more than you knew was possible. You want to be admirable, but people just pity you. You need to understand that, Dougie. No matter how much weight you lose it will never be enough. That's how you end up dead"

Dougie let out an emotionless laugh. "'At least skeletons are thin.'" He looked up, blushing. "It's a quote thing. It was on-"

"Tumblr?"

Dougie blinked at her. "Yeah."

"Is Beth from Tumblr, too?"

Dougie swallowed and looked away. Ne nodded.

Georgia sighed. "There are a lot of very sad people on tumblr. Very ill people, too. It's not a healthy place to spend too much time on, Dougie. The 'support' your followers give you only goes so far, and then it turns in to a competition to become the thinnest."

Dougie felt a lump in his throat. "I think... I think she's going to die," he whispered, and suddenly he was crying. Georgia grabbed his hand across the tabletop.

"You don't know that for sure. And anyway, you need to help yourself first, Dougie. I think she might have wanted that."