.:Chapter 25:.
Promises, Promises
Cody sighed, slouching down in his seat, resting his hands on his stomach. He raised his eye to count on the dots on the ceiling once more. He knew the number by heart: there were over five thousand dots on the ceiling and that was before he ended up getting cross-eyed. But there had to be something that would take his mind off the fact that he was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, listening to his mother try to stifle the sounds of her sniffling, his father pacing back and forth up the hall, and his friends were all sitting around him, trying their best to occupy their time as they waited to hear what was going on.
Cody looked around at his friends, they all appeared just as anxious as he was. Every time a doctor would pass by, nearly everyone would perk up, to see if something had been said in an update to Zack's condition, but still, nothing. Cody glanced over at Rhuben, who was slouched down in her own chair, hood pulled up over her head, partially concealing her face. He hadn't talked to her since she had revealed to him that she was anorexic, being the reason why she thought Zack was.
He had been completely stunned and then suddenly angry about it. He shook his head, remembering how the rest of their conversation had imploded.
Cody stood, blinking at Rhuben, trying to process what she had just said. She's anorexic too? What? His eyes squinted. It didn't make any sense to him. She didn't have any signs of it herself. She wasn't particularly irritable; though there had been times where even Zack's tendencies got on her nerves. He hadn't noticed her throwing up just as he hadn't noticed if she had ever gone to the gym more than usual. It seemed common practice for the Jacksons and Mannings to be at the gym or exercise in some way at least once a day.
"What?" he finally managed to choke out.
Rhuben let out a huge breath, giving Cody the sense it was something that she had never wanted to tell him. "I'm anorexic," she repeated under her breath. "And I have been for a long time." She paused, raising and lowering her shoulder. "For a relatively long time."
"But…you don't throw up or…" Cody trailed off.
"Throwing up aren't the only signs of having an eating disorder," Rhuben said patiently, though Cody could still detect the edge in her tone. "There are a lot of different things to look out for. Body temperature suddenly drops, make excuses to leave the table when it comes to eating." She held up her hands. "Then there's my personal favorite; chewing the pieces of food long enough until it becomes liquid so you're not gaining as much and chopping up the food on your plate so it makes it look like you've eaten more."
Cody scowled. No. Zack hadn't done any of those things. Not that he noticed anyway…Cody lowered his gaze, still scowling. That was it. He hadn't noticed. That was why he was so angry. He hadn't seen that his twin brother, his big brother, his other half, was fast tracking it to rock bottom and now he got to the point where he couldn't help him. Cody shook his head. No. No. That wasn't what was going on.
"And, of course, you didn't know that I am anorexic because I don't look it," Rhuben continued, grabbing Cody's attention once more. "I'm in recovery and have been for a while, but it's still hard to get back to the point where I was before I developed it." She placed her hands on her hips, shuffling her feet. "Ever notice how whenever we'd be at a restaurant I'd be the last one eating and it'd take a while for me to finish?"
Cody didn't respond. He hadn't really seen it as a big deal. Some people ate slower than others. He didn't think it had anything to do with that. She had been right though. He wouldn't look at her and think she had an eating disorder. Sure, standing at 5'3 and being as active as she was it made her appear tiny, but not bad enough…
"If you thought he was anorexic or whatever why didn't you say anything? "Cody demanded, turning the conversation around back on her. He was getting tired of everything being thrown in his face like that. Her low, calm tone was starting to drive him crazy. It wasn't as if he was the only one that didn't see it. Sure, everyone was worried, but it was all coming down on him? "You probably could have helped him!"
Rhuben's head jerked back slightly, startled at the sudden heat of his tone once more. Then her eyes narrowed. "It's not something that's easily talked about, Cody."
"Yeah, I get it," Cody said sarcastically. "You always run away from all of your problems, why help someone else with theirs?" He saw hurt flash across Rhuben's face, but didn't apologize. He knew he was being nasty; he just…couldn't help it. "It's not like their problems aren't bigger than yours. Or is it that you still can't get over everything that happened to you and just want to dwell on it, like you did, when we were younger?"
Rhuben lifted her hand and flipped him off before turning on her heel and stomping away from him. Cody turned and walked off in the other direction, going to look for his brother. He had found him in the nurse's officer, talking and laughing with her—no matter if the girl was older or younger than him, he was able to charm everyone—and he had reassured Cody that he had just been dehydrated. Cody asked the nurse for her opinion and she had said the same thing, though added that his blood pressure was a bit lower than she would have liked.
Zack, of course, had reassured the two of them that things were fine and had gone about the rest of his day, and the rest of the week with no problems at all. Even back at the hotel he was more lively and happy to go to work with the little kid every day, even when Cody wasn't sure if Zack liked kids that much. He barely tolerated it when he was working in the day car with Maddie that one time before, snapping at almost every kid that wouldn't go to sleep and leave him alone.
And now he was spending almost every late afternoon to dinner time with kids as they waited for their parents to pick them up. If he had started to turn things back around, maybe his worries were all for nothing.
And look where your worries got you now, Cody thought, briefly closing his eyes. You pushed it all aside and now he's in the hospital. "And it's all your fault," he muttered to himself. Crystal, who was sitting at his side with Aaron, looked over at him.
"It's not your fault, Cody," Aaron said quietly. "No one knew this was going to happen." At Aaron's words, Cody did his best to keep his eyes away from Rhuben, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
The sad part about it was that he truly did believe it was his fault and if he had said something sooner, if he had pushed harder with his brother, things would be better. And that was why he had gotten so mad at her before; he had taken everything he had felt about not being able to help Zack, Zack not wanting his help, and having that bomb dropped on him. He lashed out at the closest thing to him at the time and it had greatly severed the friendship they had.
"But he's my brother!" Cody insisted. He sat up then leaned forward, resting his hands over his eyes. "I should have seen there was something going on. I mean, at one point, we all knew that there was something wrong with him and we all weren't sure about it. But I spend the most time with him, at home and at school and I didn't see anything."
"Neither did we," Crystal pointed out. She reached out and rubbed his back. She looked around at her friends, who all nodded silently. "None of us knew anything was wrong. It's not like there's a sign that's going to point over anyone's head that says 'help me' or something."
"Besides," Noah added. "There isn't a specific…look…for people that need help and the fact that Zack kept all of this to himself proves that he needed help form his own thoughts and he wasn't sure where to get it."
"But why couldn't he get it from me?" Cody pressed. He reached up a hand and started to rub his temples. His head was starting to pound. How much longer was he going to torture himself about this? He could hear and understand what everyone was saying, but they didn't understand what he was saying.
Or maybe they do, Cody thought. Maybe I'm just trying to protect Zack, to take on his problems as my own. Cody sucked in another breath, holding it as long as he could. He could feel his jaw and lips start to tremble and despite Aaron and Crystal patting him on the back and arm, it wasn't helping.
"Cody," Carey said, grabbing her son's attention. She wiped at her eyes with a used tissue and motioned for him to walk over to her. He got up from his seat and moved over to her. Carey reached up and cupped Cody's cheeks in her hands. That one loving touch from his mother was enough for him to burst out into silent tears.
"Hey," Tapeworm said from down the hallway. "Let's give these guys some privacy."
Through his tear-filled eyes Cody watched as his friends al got up and left the hallways, giving the Martin family some privacy. He wanted them to stay, they deserved to be there to hear the news as soon as Zack woke up, but at the same time, it was probably for the best. Tapeworm turned back to Cody and nodded at him before he led the others away.
"Cody, you can't blame yourself with what happened," Carey said. She looked over at Kurt, who stood silently behind Cody, a hand resting on his shoulder. "I know you and Zack are close but you can't think that you two can protect each other from everything."
"Mom, you don't understand," Cody said, sucking in a large breath of air. He could feel the fight drain out of him as it was replaced with gut wrenching worry. No, not worry. Anxiety and fear. He knew it was what Zack was feeling, he could always recognize whenever something was wrong and it wasn't coming form his own situation. There had been many times before where Zack and Cody came out of nowhere and demanded to know what was wrong with their brother when they weren't there.
Cody's apprehension when he went to the math camp that one time, the first time he and Zack were going to be apart, wasn't coming from him. He knew the way Zack was acting that he wasn't going to miss him, then on the way there, he felt something in the pit of his stomach. It was a gnawing, tight feeling and every now and then he would feel boredom. It wasn't until Zack had made it to the camp just to—as he said—return blankie, that Cody knew he had been feeling Zack's fear about missing his brother. Now, he could feel how scared Zack was in that moment and wondered why he hadn't noticed it before.
Maybe because he was too preoccupied with his own problems?
There was going to be a time in life where they were going to be apart and while he had started to get tired of being only known as 'Zack and Cody', 'The smart one', or 'the nerd', he could think of any time soon that they would finally go their separate ways. Not even in college, maybe not when they got a job. All he knew at the moment was that he wanted to be there for his brother as long as he could.
Cody turned his body into Kurt's embrace, and allowed Carey to continue to gently stroke his cheeks.
He just wanted to see his brother.
Zack's eyes fluttered open though it took him a few moments to open fully. Each time he opened his eyes a little, the flood of lights seared his eyes, causing him to slam them shut again. He had a headache as well. What happened? Zack thought. Did I hit my head again? Twitching his fingers, he found he had use of his arm and slowly lifted it, dropping his hand onto his forehead. Tiredly, he moved his fingers around, looking for the bump that would show that he had, indeed, hit himself again.
Feeling nothing, he dropped his arm back down.
Zack opened his eyes all the way, focusing on the ceiling for a few moments. It was then that he was aware of a shuffling noise by the foot of his bed. He lowered his chin and watched as a nurse looked over the clipboard that sat on the foot of his bed, picking up a pencil, and scribbling it over a few boxes on the paper. Zack struggled to sit up, but fell back down with a sigh.
The nurse looked up and smiled warmly at him, moving up to the head of the bed. She had a motherly vibe to her that made him feel at ease almost immediately. Her eyes crinkled up at the corners as she smiled down at him. "So how's my patient doing?"
"Good I guess," Zack replied. He started to shift again and the nurse placed her hand on Zack's shoulder, pushing him back down.
"Sweetheart, if you want to sit up, just say so." She picked up a remote that sat by Zack's head and pressed a button, allowing his bed to slowly rise at the top. She turned back to Zack and patted his shoulder. "There you go, honey. Oh, by the way, I'm your Nurse. You can call me Donna."
Zack smiled and nodded. Then his smile faded, his eyes moving around the hospital room. Everything came back to him in that moment. The anger he felt, the way he yelled at his friends, the way his heartbeat quickened, his arm tightening up, everything burning with pain, then he found himself on the floor, gasping for air and crying. It was the only time in his life he had been that scared.
Zack could feel his breath hitch in this throat as he looked up at Donna, realizing the gravity of his situation. Donna continued to give him that kind smile, waiting patiently. "What happened, Donna?"
"You had a heart attack, kid," Donna replied, her voice just above a whisper. Zack's eyes widened. "Yep. I usually only see kids in here with heart attacks if they've been playing a hard game or anything, but from the stories I've heard, you were only talking to your friends when you just collapsed."
"Well," Zack said slowly. "I wasn't really talking. I was kind of yelling at them." His eyes shifted for a moment before returning to Donna's face. "You know don't you?" He asked. She smiled and nodded before her eyes dipped over Zack's face.
"It's kind of hard not to notice, sweetie," she said. "Once that large sweatshirt got taken off of you. We could all see how bad you got, plus it was hard to find a vein." She motioned to his arm, where an IV was placed. "We couldn't get it the first few times, it kept collapsing. Then we found one that worked." She placed a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. "You're a fighter, Zack. I could tell that as soon as you came in here. I took one look at your face, turned to the doctor and said, 'we don't have to worry about this one; he's going to get better.'"
Zack turned his head away from her, the words not really registering with him. If he was a fighter, why he did he allow himself to get to that point? Did the pressure really take control of him, more than he had originally thought? Pressure was a devil of a thing, he knew that now. Some could deal with it better than others and it appeared he couldn't handle it. Or he knew it was time to see what he was doing was bad for him and to get better.
On a subconscious level, maybe. He could see his friends were worried about him and as much as it annoyed him, he knew they were worried because they were his friends and they didn't want anything bad to happen to him. Donna seemed able to read his thoughts for she said, "You have a lot of people here for you. The most I've seen at once, apart from the time there was that party crasher. Literally." Zack smiled a little. "But, yeah, you have your Mom, Dad, and brother out there. And all of your little friends as well. They've been here since the ambulance left the school."
Zack barely remembered that as well. He remembered Patrick and Noah running to do the coach's orders of calling 911. He remembered Moose standing above him, lowering his voice and instructing him to take deep breaths and to calm down. He remembered Coach Carpenter taking lead of everything, trying to calm him down as well. Then there was nothing but black. He didn't know that the commotion had brought the freshmen class back into the gym from the locker rooms; he didn't know it took a while for word to spread around school, he didn't know how long it took for his friends and his brother to find out about it.
And he certainly didn't know how they had all dropped whatever they had been doing at the time and raced off to the hospital. Carey and Kurt had been notified from the school and through that, Christian had found out what had been going on, and hurried out to the school as fast as they could get there. And they had all been there since early that afternoon when Zack had arrived and been whisked away, when it was currently night out.
"What time is it?" He asked.
"Almost eight o'clock," Donna replied. She crossed her arms and leaned towards Zack. "Maybe you should be asking why you're here. It'll help with the recovery process."
"I had a heart attack," Zack said slowly.
"A heart attack caused by an eating disorder," Donna continued. Zack blinked slowly and nodded. "Feel better, Zack. The doctor will be back in here later, but for now, I think some people want to see you." She replaced the clipboard and left the room.
Zack raised both of his hands and ran them over his face. "Well this is a fine mess you've got yourself in," he muttered to himself. He closed his eyes, taking in a few deep breaths. He could still feel himself shaking a little bit and tried to run his feet over each other, bringing some warmth to them.
"A heart attack caused by an eating disorder."
A heart attack caused by an eating disorder, Zack thought to himself. Thinking about it, an image of his face appeared in his mind. Not a healthy looking face, a gaunt, tired, haunting, thin face. His eyes didn't light up as they used to. Instead they were tired and withdrawn, along with a hint of slight suspicion. A heart attack caused by an eating disorder. So how come you can say it in your head, but you can't say it out loud? Why can't you admit that's what's going on? He shook his head. Probably because it would make it all too real.
All of a sudden there was a commotion around him and Zack looked up just as he was covered by his mother, father, and brother. His blinked a few times then reached up to hug the three of them. He found, when he closed his eyes that he started to cry. Seeing how worried they were, feeling his father's tight grip on him, his mother's kisses to his forehead, and Cody's grasp on his arm.
"I'm ok," Zack murmured, hoping they'd move back far enough to get some breathing room.
"Zack, you just had a heart attack!" Carey said, backing up to look directly at her son. "You're malnourished. You haven't eaten anything in months!" She shook her head. "That's not being ok." She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. "The important thing is that you're going to get better."
"Well, no one can accuse me of not trying hard to get what I want," Zack joked. Kurt laughed and gently punched him on the shoulder, keeping his hand on his shoulder.
"That's not funny," Cody frowned.
"Oh come on, Codes, it was a little bit funny," Zack pressed. He crossed his legs. "The funniest thing is the fact that I ended up here, considering you know how much the two of us hate needles."
Cody gave him a long look. "You're scared of needles," he pointed out. "I'm scared of penguins." He shuddered violently. "They smell fishy and they waddle! I hate when they waddle!"
Zack chuckled.
"Zack," Kurt said gently. Zack looked up at him and immediately looked away. He could see the disappointment and hurt in his father's eyes. He preferred to see anger or something, but not hurt. "What's been going on, buddy?" He placed his free hand on his hip. "I know that you were going on a diet, but I hope you didn't get into this because of the basketball team and everything."
Zack was silent. He wasn't sure what the real reason was anymore, there were a lot of different things he had to work through. A lot of different thoughts and feelings he hadn't known he had. "I don't know," he mumbled, almost bashfully as if he was a little kid caught in an obvious lie.
He heard Cody's sharp intake of breath. "Was this about me?" He asked then leaned closer to his brother. "Did I cause you to do this? Because I took your spot on the team?" He curled his fingers over the blankets that covered Zack, tugging them into his palms. "You said you were OK with it! Why didn't you tell me? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this!"
"Cody!" Zack interrupted his brother, trying to keep him from going on a tangent, or worse, feeling badly about himself. "It wasn't you…" he paused. "It kind of was." He saw Cody's face wilt. "No, not like that! It was the pressure! Everyone was making such a big deal about the fact you and Tapeworm got on the team, let alone took the position I usually play."
"If you were under so much pressure, why didn't you every try to talk to someone about it, honey?" Carey asked him. In her face, he could see confusion and hurt as well. "You could have talked to anyone, Christian, Mr. Moseby, your father, me—"
"Ha!" Zack interrupted. "I could try to talk to you about anything and I'd just be turned away as soon as Cody so much as wiped his ass." Carey's eyes flashed and Zack crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry. But you know it's true. If anything, you put the most pressure on me, Mom. With school and everything. I know we talked about this before, but I don't think you get the full extent of it. I'd try harder in school; but because of his Cody being such an overachieving suck nothing I ever do is good enough! For anyone!"
"Don't speak to me like that, Zachary!" Carey snapped. "You know I try to treat you fairly."
"No, Mom, you don't," Zack interrupted. "It's obvious that you and Cody are closer and it's obvious that Cody is your favorite out of the two of us. I don't see why you just can't accept it like I already have."
"Zack, that's not nice," Kurt said to his eldest son. He was frowning hard at him. "And as we explained before, there are things that we've needed to work on while we were separated and before I came back to Boston, but your mother was doing the best she could. She loves you both equally, you know that."
"I love Mom, too," Zack insisted. "Really, I do. She's the best mother I've ever had. But we need to stop lying to ourselves."
Cody frowned, looking back and forth from his parents to his brother, noticing that they were speaking as if Carey wasn't there. Cody turned back to his mother and suddenly realized how tired she was. She had been working hard to make both boys happy; however he could understand the problem. Cody had naturally gravitated more towards Carey while Zack gravitated more towards Kurt and considering Kurt was never around, Zack found it hard to connect with Carey when the attention he got was mostly negative.
"Zack, I'm trying my best here, you can't expect me to—"
"Stop it!" Cody burst out, slapping his hands down onto the side of the bed. The intensity of his shout caused all three of them to turn to him, mouths dropping open in shock. "Just stop it! We've gone over this conversation before! Remember? But who cares? Zack is sick and we need to make sure he gets better!" Cody turned back to his brother. "It doesn't matter what caused you to get to where we are right now, what matters is that we're here to make sure we don't lose you." Cody slowly shook his head. "I don't ever want to lose you, Zack. You're my best friend, you know that. And if I did anything to start this, I'm sorry. I just wish you were able to talk to me about it."
Zack's eyebrows rose for a minute. Why did everyone want to talk so much? The last time he, Cody, Kurt, and Carey had talked about Zack's frustration with his life, they all thought things were going to get better. It had also been when Zack lied to his face, promising that there was nothing wrong with him.
"Thanks, Cody," Zack said honestly. He reached up and grabbed onto his brother's arm, holding onto it tightly. Cody smiled and nodded back. Zack closed his eyes as a wave of nausea washed over him. He gritted his teeth before curling up on himself, trying to hold back the urge to throw up. Once he relaxed, his slowly uncurled himself, his throat stinging from the effort to hold back the bile. "Ow."
"Are you ok, sweetie?" Carey moved back over to his side, running her hand over the side of his face.
Why isn't she mad? Zack thought as he continued to look at her. Then he realized that everything bad he could say in that moment didn't matter to her. She was too busy worrying about him as much as any mother could. It was then he realized how strained their relationship had become over the years and no matter how much he loved her, it may have been a lost cause. I'm sorry for always saying those things to you, Mom. They always come out at the worst times. I don't think you know just how sorry I am.
Zack suddenly felt very tired, his eyelids dropping.
"Hey, Buddy, maybe we should let you get some sleep," Kurt said, patting him on the shoulder. Zack nodded, trying to keep his eyes open, but found he couldn't. "We'll see you later, ok?" He leaned over and gave his son a kiss on the head. Carey gently caressed his cheek before leaning down and giving him a kiss as well. He could feel the wetness on her face and reached up, giving her a long hug.
He could have used that time to apologize to her, but found the words couldn't come out of his mouth. Carey hugged him back as tightly as she could and he knew, in that hug, she understood what he wasn't saying. Carey hugged him once more then started to leave the room with her husband. "Cody, are you coming?"
"I'll be there in a minute," Cody called back, staying by Zack's side.
"Ok, we'll go see if we can find the doctor and see what he has to say," Kurt said. He gave Cody a hug before leaving the room with Carey behind him.
"Cody?" Zack said sleepily. Cody turned back towards him. Zack slowly blinked, trying to keep his eyelids open. He yawned and turned on his side, pulling his blankets up over him. "Don't leave me. Please." He felt his eyelids fall closed and his breathing started to even out. Normally he would have been embarrassed to ask his brother to stay with him, to ward off the fear he tried not to let anyone show. But nothing would make him feel better than knowing his brother was by his side.
Something he should have realized long before.
Cody turned back to Zack and climbed up onto the bed and squeezed in beside his brother. Zack smiled, closing his eyes. They hadn't shared the same bed in a long time, even when they had grown from their crib and into their own beds, many nights they would still share. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it work.
"I'm not going anywhere," Cody murmured once he was settled.
"Do you promise?" Zack asked.
Cody reached out and grabbed onto his brother's hand, holding on for dear life. "Promise."
A/N: Aww, just the brotherly love moment that this story needed. Especially as a way to balance Zack's thoughts on his relationship with Carey. It was something my sisters and I had talked about. We think if the show continued with the hotel (and was a bit more realistic) that Zack and Carey would have eventually developed a strained relationship no matter how much they loved each other. Especially because Zack gravitated towards a father that was never around for him before and would probably want to make up for lost time.
That and I feel that—after watching some episodes recently—Carey and Zack would probably get to the point where they lacked communication in their relationship, especially considering Cody really was treated differently than he was. But that's just my thought.
You'll see more about Carey's and Kurt's reaction to what's going on with Zack later. I still have some things to do before the story ends.
owlhero: I know I've said this before, but you always give me things to think about in my stories. Especially if it works better than what I already had planned.
Guest: Thanks so much for that compliment. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. As you can see from this chapter, Zack's going to be fine. :)
cool: Was this update fast enough?
DEfan10: Thank you. I like to try and keep things on a cliffhanger as much as possible though there are times, like this one, where I think it needs to end on a happy note. And with this chapter, the brotherly love with Zack and Cody was long overdue.
I hope you guys liked the chapter.
Cheers,
-Riles