Joe was amazed at how easily he adapted.
He still limited his calories as much as he could, putting up a fight at meals, cutting food into miniscule pieces to make it seem he had eaten more than he had, taking his diet pills, and drinking his water, but now he also visited the bathroom three teimes a day, feeding the toilet his regurgitated meal. Although he hated throwing up, he found he liked this new routine: he was still losing weight, but he didn't have to be as restrictive as he was before. Not only that, but his family and friends backed off as the week went on, pleased that he seemed to be trying, even more pleased when he told them he had gained two pounds. Another lie.
Deprived of exercise, he felt he had very little choice. The voice in his head insisted with renewed fury that the weight come off, come off faster, that he should push harder, lie more, cut even farther back, vomit again, lie lie lie…
But try as he may, he could not escape the wary eye of his brother, could not escape Frank's continuous presence, the looking over his shoulder, the questioning what he ate, the fear and nervousness, the nightly check-ins. Joe was beginning to feel desperate and cornered. It was only a matter of time before his older brother saw through his lies and told on him again, started it all over. Only a matter of time before Joe was forced to see a doctor, to be told what he feared all along: that he was fine, average, normal, nothing special, nothing unique, a brawn who'd lost his strength. A nothing.
Thursday night the weeks of restricting, of starving and vomiting and pills and exercise caused a coup of Joe's body: he had his first binge.
It happened after dinner. He had finished throwing up and, dizzy, stood at the sink rinsing out his mouth when suddenly he was seized by a desire, a biological need for food: his mouth was desperate for something to chew, to bite on, to fill his mouth, swallow and digest. Joe, longing to resist, stumbled out of the bathroom and leaned against his wall taking deep breaths, only to find himself racing out the door to the hall down the stairs to the kitchen seeking needing desperate for food, throwing open the refrigerator and finding a container of ice cream, barely opened, grabbing a spoon and the container and racing back to his room, locking his door and the bathroom one and eating, eating eating shoving it in despite the cold and the massive headache, breaking down and sobbing through it as he felt his stomach fill, lurching in protest to the assault, chasing the last of the frozen dessert into the corners of the carton and, upon finishing, racing to the bathroom, turning on the shower to prevent his brother from hearing, and spending the next half-hour with his finger down his throat, vomiting the contents back up, finally laying on the floor and sobbing when it was done.
But this too, went unheard.
***
This can not go unpunished.
Joe lay curled in a fetal position on his bed, his body trembling and weak after the terrible assault on his body, his throat sore, his stomach still rolling, his mouth tasting of regurgitated vanilla.
You lost control, lost it terribly, and it is not enough to vomit or take pills. You need something more, something new, something more intense.
The younger Hardy, still unsteady, got to his feet and made his way across the room to his computer, taking a deep breath and settling himself before clicking the bright blue "e" and pulling up the internet. He remembered the night he'd called the pharmacy about diet pills, the pharmacy he now visited loyally to purchase the bottles he kept hidden from his parents, friends, brother.
No matter. He needed something that would help him with these new issues, with the vomiting. But what? Did anything like that exist?
Joe went to a search engine and paused, thinking, then typed in "vomit+aid" and clicked 'search,' selecting the first link that loaded on the screen, squinting at the odd name.
"Ipecac," he murmured, and wrote it down on a piece of paper to take to the pharmacy with him.
***
Author's note: Never, I repeat, NEVER use ipecac to aid you in throwing up (while we're at it, never, I repeat, NEVER force yourself to throw up!). Ipecac can KILL you after ONE USE. It is used on children or adults who are poisoned to induce vomiting, and then only if not vomiting would kill them as easily as ipecac could. I wrote it in because it is, on occasion, used by those with eating disorders, and those fortunate enough to survive its effects often suffer heart or esophagus damage. Take care of yourselves.