*rolls up six years late with Starbucks*. How is everyone doing?
I have no excuses for abandoning this. I'm sorry. College got busy, and life happened, and I just didn't find the motivation to come back after everything settled. Then I wanted to come back, but the pandemic happened. I'm back now. It's short, because I'm just getting my groove back, but it feels good to be posting again. As always, trigger warning for bulimia and descriptions of depression, anxiety, and a suicide attempt.
Teddy didn't nap. Instead, he laid in bed, thinking about the events of the past three days. What kind of mess had he made out of his life? His Nan, Harry, Ginny, the kids...All of it was too much, too fast. But it was all his fault, wasn't it? He was the one who cut his wrists open. He was the one who made himself throw up, over and over and over again.
If only he'd kept it together. Maybe Nan would still want to speak with him; maybe she wouldn't have pawned him off to Harry like discarded trash. Would Mum and Dad have thrown him away? The chasm in his chest grows deeper at the thought of his mother and father. Spunky, fun loving Mum and mischievous, bookish Dad. Nan didn't like to talk about Teddy's mother much. Teddy supposed that he wouldn't either, but it would be nice to know her more. But Dad? Teddy wished Dad were here more than anything. Sometimes after a bad night, Teddy stayed awake, daydreaming about the advice Dad would give him.
But what would Dad do now?
Teddy snorted to himself and rolled over. Dad would be nice to his face, he decided, but privately tell Harry and Ginny that he didn't want a freak for a son. That Teddy was too sick, too much for him to handle, and that he thought it would be best if Harry and Ginny took him for awhile.
Just like Nan.
Fucking Nan. And yet, Teddy missed her. He ached for her to want him, to not see him as a poor second best. She never said it outright, but Teddy wasn't stupid. It was in the way she looked at him sometimes, familiarity and longing and grief all mixed together in a horrible, twisted expression. I'm not Mum, he desperately wanted to shout. Why can't you just like me?
Teddy knew the answer. It was in the way he preferred to keep things neat and tidy, in the way he was bookish and kind, in the way his hair naturally curled and his naturally brown eyes and everything else to do with his father.
It was simple enough. Nan hated Dad. Teddy was similar to Dad, so she hated him, too. He was no longer her perfect boy. He could be perfect, he knew. It would be difficult, probably the most difficult thing he'd ever done, but Teddy was nothing if not a good actor. He'd grin and bear it, pretend like he wasn't bothered by the oozing, molten fat his body would play host to. His grades would come up, and he would stop being so awful at Quidditch. Harry wouldn't have to babysit, he'd get off Teddy's back, and Teddy could get back to what he was doing before in peace.
Throwing up was never fun. The endorphins rush felt nice, sure, but that was only temporary. After, he was left in the bathroom, achy, cold, and so ashamed that he wished the ground would swallow him whole. It was sick. He was sick. Wickerman and Wiessman were right, but did that mean he cared enough to stop? No. No it did not.
It was almost easier to stay sick. Being sick meant loneliness, and loneliness meant not having to deal with people. It was an endless cycle: ignore everyone, binge, purge, reemerge and be social for a bit, repeat. This eating disorder...it was complicated. Teddy loved and loathed it, craved it and admonished it. It was messy and disgusting, hurt and pain and comfort and relief all rolled into one. But thinking about calories, binge, purge, hiding, no, I'm fine, thanks for asking was better than the deep, aching sadness and the oppressive anxiety roiling inside of him. Sometimes he just wanted to scream, yell until he lost his voice and all that was left was his tired, weary self.
But he couldn't. Not when he had so many people counting on him to be good, to be perfect and kind and stay out of the way. Not when Harry and Ginny expected him to be a good example for James, Al, and Lily and Nan expected him to be a copy of his dead mother.
Harry, Ginny, and Wiessman all asked him a simple question: why?
Teddy stared at his blood stained carpet, the mark growing evermore the larger and had only one question for them.
Why not?