One thing Joe began to feel that surprised him: anger.
First, there was frustration over the rapid growth of his body. Every bit of food he ate was jealously guarded by his system, and he watched his bones quickly vanish beneath flesh once more. Felt clothes that once hung loosely away from his frighten tighten again. Fought urge after urge to run to the bathroom and jam his fingers to the back of his throat, watch the hated meals fall into the toilet water and flush them away, instead of discovering them in his legs, on his chest, in his stomach, over his ribcage. Sometimes he'd tear off his shirt if it felt too tight, hurl his jeans across the room, sit on the bed in his boxers shivering and grasping at the foreign padding of his flesh.
Second, there was Gertrude. She was always there in the background lecturing, pointing to unfinished portions, harping on the size of his arms and legs, criticizing therapy and the price of the antidepressants the hospital had given him. And, try as he may, he had not forgiven her for her early comments, for planting the idea that he was nothing beyond a body.
Third was Frank. As often as he insisted his brother go away to school, he felt a growing resentment that the elder Hardy had forced him into recovery only to leave him behind. Here Joe was, in a body he despised, in flesh that felt unfamiliar, while Frank went about sending out applications and writing essays to schools no closer than an hour and a half away. Try as he may, he couldn't push aside the feelings of abandonment.
He erupted at Gertrude first.
They were in the kitchen one Sunday. Joe was trying to set up a balanced lunch the way they'd taught him in the hospital—using the exchange system—but found it increasingly difficult with his Aunt hovering over his shoulder, critiquing his every choice.
"Joseph, that's not nearly enough. Do you want to wind up back in the hospital? Do you know how stressful this is on all of us? Do you know how—"
Joe slammed the knife he'd been holding down onto the counter, sending it bouncing off the tile to the floor.
"You gonna come to family therapy and tell them how you put me there Auntie?"
Gertrude went bright red. "You're putting your insanity back on me?"
"What did you tell me? That I was nothing more than brawn. No brain, nothing but a body. And what did I do with that? I tried to see what would happen if the body went away. And you know what? People didn't care! Frank didn't care! You think you know so much? What have you done? What was your theory, that they force feed me? And it didn't work, did it? Nothing you've said has worked. You're an ignorant old bitch, you know that! You may as well have put me there yourself and now you're making everything all that much harder!"
Joe wasn't sure when he had started yelling, only that he became aware of his parents in the doorway and Frank coming in the back door, all of them silent, all of them wide-eyed.
"Don't you dare put blame on me, Joseph! You're the one who felt the need to draw attention to yourself through starvation, as if your family doesn't do enough for you—"
"Draw attention to myself? Why the hell would I want to do that if I hated myself? Huh? Why would I want people to look at my body? I didn't want attention, I wanted the opposite! I wanted to disappear! I wanted to die, do you get that? Do you even care?"
"Joe," Fenton said slowly, stepping up beside his younger son, "calm down…"
"Calm down! Don't you even start! You let me be sick, you and Mom both! You never checked if I was keeping my meals down and you didn't make me go to therapy, you just threw me on a psyche ward and walked away. You let me come home and keep going, without even bothering to ask me why I was doing this to myself! Like you didn't even care!"
"Joe…" Frank tried, seeing his parents pale and his mother put a hand over her mouth. "Please…"
But Joe turned on him. "And you," he snapped, "you were worst of all. Going behind my back to the coach, not bothering to fight to get me out of treatment. You made me recover so you could leave me, that's it! You pretend you cared so you wouldn't have my death on your conscious, and now you're to abandon me to my own! And will you blame me if I relapse? Will you even bother to visit?"
"I said I'd stay," Frank pleaded, "but that's beside the point. You're not thinking clearly, Joe. You're saying things you'll regret…"
"I hate you!" Joe shouted, shoving Frank backwards into the door. "You made me fat! It's all your fault and I hate you for it! You want me to be second to you, to be this fat miserable thing for the rest of my life and I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! Every Goddamned one of you!"
He turned and slammed his way up the stairs, smacking his fist into the wall, deliberately hitting each step with force. Laura was crying softly. Gertrude was pale; Fenton, stunned.
And Frank just stood there, holding the mail he'd been outside collecting: the mail that included his first acceptance.