I'm Fine, I've Always been Fine, and I Always will Be

(Day 104: Friday Afternoon)

"You wanted to see me?" Ben comments as he walks into the headmistress's office.

"You're not speaking English," she notes.

"You know French. I know French." Ben sits down in the chair. "So, let's speak French."

"Alright," she accepts. "So, I've asked you here, because it has become apparent that you've been saying you got your injury from a fall."

"Down the stairs," Ben clarifies, before he points to the cup of mints. "May I have one?"

"Go ahead," she addresses, before Ben takes one and presses the white ring out of the clear wrapper and into his mouth. "Like I was saying, when these kinds of claims are made I like to look into them."

Ben bites the mint, and it breaks in half, "I fell down the stairs."

"Yes. You said that," Fairy Godmother frowns, before she mentions, "but how did you fall? And where?"

When the mint dissolves he goes to grab another one, "At the castle. I wasn't being careful, and I fell down that one staircase that leads to the top floor. Well, you know." He brings the mint to his mouth. "If you don't count the towers, that is." He gestures, "The staircase that leads to the hallway of the west wing dining and bedroom space. You know it."

"I do," she slowly addresses, before she continues on. "You say you weren't being careful. Would you like to explain further?"

"I wasn't watching where I was going."

"What do you mean by not watching where you were going?" she picks out.

"Just that I literally wasn't watching where I was going," Ben furrows his eyebrows, before he straightens up and leans forward with a smile. "Come on, Lucinda. You've known me my entire life. Do you really take me for a liar?"

"What I take you as is a student," she firmly responds, "which means that as your headmistress you should be using my working name."

Ben leans back in his chair and frowns, "Yes, Fairy Godmother."

She attempts to smile, "Now. You're also a political figure who I'm sure knows how to tell the truth without being fully honest, which is why I'm not letting you leave until you tell me the full story."

Ben lets out a breath, "Let me see." as he thinks it through. "I just got done with a council meeting, I went up the stairs, and my father started talking to me." He pauses, "I don't really remember the specifics, but it was something about policy or another." before he takes a third mint from the clay cup. "At some point I took a step backward and lost my footing. My father reached for me, but I was already falling. And the banister was too far away." He thinks, "I, uh… well." before he sits up and wets his lips. "The next thing I knew my father was checking on me, my mother was coming down the stairs, and I realized something was wrong with my shoulder." Ben faces her, "That's when they took me to the hospital. Or, you know, the emergency room."

"So, how did you fall?" she questions again.

Ben eyes her for a moment, "I took a step back."

"And why did you take a step back?" she inquires.

He awkwardly smiles, "Why does anyone take a step back?" before he places the mint in his mouth. "Do mints make you hungrier? I think they make me hungrier."

"Then, perhaps, you should hold off on them," she suggests, and after Ben nods she continues. "So, you don't know why you took a step back?"

"I don't even remember the conversation," Ben bypasses.

"And why do you think that is?" she addresses.

"Well, it's not very important in the grand scheme of everything that happened that night, is it?" he suggests, before he goes to grab another mint.

The headmistress places her hand over the cup, forcing Ben to meet her eyes, and she can see the unsettled expression on his face, "I would like you to focus, please."

He shifts in his seat, "I told you the story. What else do you want from me?"

She's quiet for a moment, "You tell me. Is there anything else I should know?"

Ben frowns, "No." as he rationalizes why she shouldn't have to know the details; however, she seems even quieter than before, and he can't help but feel like he's failed her. "May I be excused?"

"Pardon?" she questions.

He wets his lips, "Can I leave?" and she's silent for a long minute. "I told you the story. You said I could leave after I told you it."

"I told you I wouldn't let you leave until you told me it," she corrects.

"I don't have anything more to say," Ben softly responds.

Fairy Godmother nods, and there's more silence before she asks, "What are you thinking?"

"Honestly?" Ben begins before glancing down. "I just really feel like going back to my room, ordering a pizza, and then eat the entire thing, because I skipped lunch to work on homework and now I'm super hungry."

"No teacher would want you to skip lunch to do homework," she opinionates.

"When else am I going to get it done?" he counters, and he notices her clasp her hands in front of her. "I'm not dropping any classes."

She quietly comments, "I know you won't." before she faces him. "Which is why I was going to remind you that a person needs energy to function. That means eating and sleeping."

Ben half laughs, "Trust me. I eat enough."

"Do you skip meals regularly?"

"I guess," he furrows his eyebrows.

"So, how do you know?" she calmly questions.

Ben looks off for a second, "Because. The pizza I'm about to eat has to be at least one thousand and five hundred calories." before he widens his eyes at her. "Trust me. I eat enough."

"You know," the headmistress addresses, "binging isn't very healthy behavior either."

"Binging?" Ben exasperates. "You make it sound like I have a fucking eating disorder." She sits quietly, and his mouth gapes, "You're seriously questioning it."

"Binge Eating Disorder is more common amongst males," she informs.

"If I had BED," Ben loudly comments, "then I would be fat."

"Not necessarily."

"But likely," he interrupts, "and I'm not."

"Then, keeping the restriction in mind, bulimia also has binge eating—"

"I'm not bulimic," Ben defends, before his eyes shift in thought. "I don't even throw up."

There's a tense pause, before Fairy Godmother calmly continues, "A person doesn't need to use self-induced vomiting as a purging tactic to have bulimia, but with all of the classes you've taken I'm sure you already know that."

Ben motions his pointing finger down twice as he sternly responds in a quieter voice, "I do not have an eating disorder." before he nods up. "You know who has an eating disorder? Evie. If you want to help someone, you should help her. She's even skinnier now than when she first got here."

"You're deflecting," she lets him know, and then he sighs. "And I've already spoken to Evie. I gave her resources, and I will speak to her again once it's relevant." She nods, "But, for now, we're taking care of you."

"Don't you think I'm sick enough?" Ben disbelieves. "Why are you trying to push another illness onto me?"

"I'm not trying to do anything," she evenly responds. "I am merely saying that what you're doing isn't healthy, and if it's not an eating disorder it certainly at least sounds like disordered eating." He looks off. "This is a dangerous line you're on, and eating disorders are very dark things. You may think you have control of this, but you could easily fall into destructive patterns and lose yourself in it." He frowns back at her. "If you are not currently suffering from an eating disorder, I would like to take preventative measures to make sure these unhealthy behaviors don't turn into one."

It takes Ben a moment to say, "I never claimed to have control over anything." before he wets his lips and slightly shakes his head. "My life is already not my own. I don't need an eating disorder for that to happen." He sits up straighter, "And if I really had binging issues, then I wouldn't be planning to order a pizza. I would just be rummaging through the kitchen."

"Does the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders specify that binges can't be planned?" the headmistress inquires, and at that Ben silences. "People binge when they are craving something. People with eating disorders may ignore those cravings, until it reaches a point where they can't help but eat that thing in large amounts. The easiest way to prevent binges is to listen to your body, eat when you're hungry and make sure you are getting the nutrients your body is craving."

"Some cravings are bad," Ben points out.

"But they're there for a reason," Fairy Godmother finishes. "When people crave sweets it's because of the sugar, which could have easily been obtained from complex carbs like fruit, vegetables, or whole grains."

"And fat is supposed to make people not hungry," Ben counters, "so why wouldn't avocadoes work for me? Or high fiber cereal? Or literally anything?" He eyes the desk, "I just don't get why I can't make school or work priority over eating if I'm always just going to be hungry anyway."

After a long pause the headmistress slowly addresses, "Ben, different kinds of people have different kinds of needs." He looks back at her, his mouth cautiously gaped slightly. "Surely you know by now that your father's curse would have affected him on a genetic level." She meets his eyes, "And if that's the case, then there's a chance that some of those genes could have been, uh, retained even after the curse broke and that you may have inherited a few."

"Which is why any child of someone who has undergone an animal transformation would have to be legally documented as a hybrid," Ben evenly comments.

"Yes, uh," she uneasily responds, "not that many people know about that." Fairy Godmother hesitates, "Ben. There's no need for you to suffer." as she frowns at him in concern. "Surely you must have had cravings that could tell you how to solve your hunger issue?"

"They're bad."

"What do you mean?" she inquires, before she notices him take his watch off and then put it back on.

"They're just bad."

"Would you like to explain?"

He shakes his head, "No. I don't want to think about it. I— eh, uh— don't want to, uh, talk about it." He meets her eyes, "May I leave? I want to leave."

"Ben," she begins, "you're a teenager. With all of the hormones and growing that you've gone through, this has to have been taking a toll on you. All I want to do is help."

"Things are fine. They've been fine," he whispers in desperateness as the tears shine in his hazel-green eyes. "It's always been like this, and I've been fine. So, why change now?"

"Ben," she slowly starts. "If you are ignoring your hunger that is restriction, and most people who restrict end up binging. You say your cravings are bad, but if you think that now, I can only imagine how you would feel if you binged on whatever it is you crave."

"I won't," Ben quietly asserts, but she continues staring at him in concern. "I eat rare steak every week and meat every day. Shouldn't that be enough?"

"Not if your body is telling you it's not," she addresses, and when Ben looks towards the ceiling she notices the tears stream down from his eyes. "Look. This isn't as bad as it may seem to you." He faces her again, gulping. "You're not the only person at this school with those kinds of dietary needs, and there's something in the kitchen for everyone. In fact, if you look in that second fridge you will find nothing but fish, meat, and blood in it— animal, of course, all from the butcher shop."

"And if I were to get caught?" Ben worries.

It takes the headmistress a moment to inform, "I find that most people with your needs go to the kitchen at night to eat in peace. Not that I'm encouraging you to eat alone." and she notices him look away again. "This isn't something you should have to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed." Ben looks back at her, "I just don't want to do it."

She glances at her hands for a second, before she faces him again, "I highly recommend that you reconsider that."

"And I highly recommend that you let me out of here," Ben counters with unblinking eyes, the eyelashes still wet from the tears.

The headmistress nods, "Okay. You may leave." but when he rushes to the door she continues. "Ben." He stops in his tracks, turning to see her. "I'm here if you need any help with any problem."

"I don't need help," Ben denies. "I'm fine, I've always been fine, and I always will be."

Ben sits in his dorm at the circular table, looking over his French translation of the DSM. In the section about bulimia it clearly states in the requirements that a binge must consist of a lack of control, but as he read further into the diagnostic features it also said that some people have given up on controlling their binges and that they may indeed be planned. "What are you reading about?"

Ben looks over his shoulder as he watches Doug walk over to him, before he turns back to the large book, "Just looking things up."

"Looking things up?" Doug inquires before sitting a couple seats over.

Ben had gone over the criteria: binge eating, an act that involves eating a large amount of food within the span of a couple hours, and inappropriate compensatory behaviors, which just happen to include fasting and excessive exercise. The binging and behaviors also have to have been happening at least once a week for three months, and it just so happens that he's been going out to that restaurant at least once a week for a long while now; however, that's just because they have good steak. It has nothing to do with binging, even if he does order a little more than just a rare steak when he goes there, and he doesn't do so-called inappropriate behaviors afterwards either. Sure, sometimes he skips meals and he likes to exercise, but it's not like he's doing those things to lose weight. He doesn't even do those things on purpose. He shifts in his seating. No. He does it on purpose. He definitely does it on purpose, because only someone with an eating disorder could find themselves helplessly exercising or skipping meals. Down in the description it also says that people with eating disorders may exercise even when they're injured and he hasn't done that yet, so all he has to do is not exercise while he's injured and it will be all good. Not that he has to prove anything, it's not like a hybrid can have an eating disorder anyway. He looks up at Doug in question, "Do you think a hybrid could get an eating disorder?"

He gives him a look, "Are you serious?" and Ben fails to respond. "That's like asking if hybrids can have gender or sexuality. Hybrids eat, so yeah. I would think they could get eating disorders too." He watches as Ben wets his lips and closes the book. "Why? What's this about?"

Ben shakes his head, "Just Fairy Godmother… One thing after another."

"What did she say?"

He skips past her accusation about falling, "That no teacher would want me to miss meals to do homework… And that if I feel like eating something then I should, even if I don't want to." He pushes the book aside, "I was going to have a pizza, but now I don't know."

"Ben," Doug sighs. "You haven't eaten all day. Just have the pizza."

"I can't make her right," Ben disagrees. "If I eat now, I'll make her right."

"Ben," he sternly addresses, "normal people eat. If you want to prove her wrong, then you will have the pizza and not eat it all."

"I don't know," Ben mumbles again.

Doug finds Ben's blue laptop across the table and opens it, "Password?"

He makes a noise before pulling the laptop towards himself, "I want to do it." and by the time he passes it back to Doug the internet is already pulled up.

"I'm guessing you have the pizza place bookmarked," Doug assumes, before he finds it and the site loads. "Looks like you're already logged in. What now?"

"Go to my history. It's saved."

Doug does as instructed, "So, do you want the bacon and pepperoni or the… the one that has all the meat on it?"

"It's not all the meat," Ben defends, before Doug gives him a look. "The first one's fine."

"This is one expensive pizza. I wish my family had an extra fifty dollars a month." He notices Ben's frown, "Not that I'm complaining. Your raise was really nice." before he moves the laptop over to him. "Credit card. I'm not touching that."

Ben presses confirm himself, "There. It's done."

Doug attempts to smile, "How do you feel?"

"Not great."

Doug sighs, "You know… I was half joking when I said I wished my family had more money. I wasn't trying to make you feel bad. It's your money. You can spend it how you want."

"No. I know," Ben softly replies, before he looks off. "It's just…" He faces him, "I have enough problems. I don't want her to be right."

"You just have to eat the pizza without eating it all," Doug reminds him.

Ben nods, "Right."

"So," he grabs the remote to turn on the TV, "what movie are you watching?"

"I don't know if I am."

Doug frowns at him, "You always watch a movie when you eat pizza."

"Because it takes that long," Ben whispers. "Maybe I shouldn't."

"Ben," Doug reasons, "you never get to enjoy yourself. You can watch a movie and eat at the same time. Just don't eat the entire thing. Stop when you're full. It's not that hard."

Ben is silent for a long minute, "Are there any Christmas movies?"

He looks at him, "It's April." but when Ben continues to frown in silence he goes to look for one anyway. "Here. You're lucky."

Ben mumbles, "Thank you."

Doug tries to smile at him, "No problem."

When Doug takes the last piece Ben complains, "Hey. I was going to eat that."

"I'm helping," he continues to stand as he takes a bite. "If you ate the whole thing, you would have made her right. But now, you proved her wrong." He takes another bite before sitting down, "This is some good pizza."

"I'm still hungry," Ben mumbles, crossing his arms as he leans back in the chair.

"You nearly ate the whole thing. How can you not be full?"

It takes a minute for Ben to answer, "It's not that I'm not full. I can feel there's stuff there. It's just not full, like…"

"Satisfying?" Doug suggests.

"Sure," Ben continues on before shaking her head. "I should be used to it, but it's hard." Doug doesn't speak. "At least I'm not… What's that word?"

"Starving?" he questions.

"Yes," Ben remembers. "At least I'm not starving. That's worse."

"So, the pizza didn't help a lot," Doug comments before turning towards him. "What else do you want?"

Ben pauses the movie, "I don't want anything."

"But you said you're still hungry," he contradicts.

"I'm always hungry." Ben eyes the table, "I shouldn't have said anything."

"The first thing that comes to mind," Doug continues on. "What do you want?"

"Nothing," Ben enunciates through a loud whisper.

Doug observes his desperateness and the gleam in his eyes, "It's okay to be scared, Ben."

"I'm fine," Ben attempts to reassure. "I promise you, I'm fine."

"You sure?" he doubts.

"I'm fine," Ben repeats. "Okay? I'm going to be okay."

"So, there's nothing I can do for you?" Doug asks.

He wets his lips before glancing down, "No."

"So, what are you going to do now?"

"Homework." Ben asserts, "I want to do homework." before he sighs. "But even math has a lot of English. It's all words now." He shakes his head, "What happened to math just being math?"

"Can I help you with that?" he asks.

Ben shakes his head, "No." before he stands from the table and heads for the door.

Doug furrows his eyebrows, "Where are you going?"

"Chad." Ben unlocks the door, "I need Chad." before he opens it and walks off.

- Okay, so I literally just told someone in a private message that I wouldn't be delving into Ben's food issues in this fic. Well, not literally, this was last week, but anyway... The chapter was too short and I had to make it longer, therefore I made it longer. This happens a lot actually, where I don't think certain characters will interact so much or a certain plot won't be able to be explored thoroughly but then here's a gap where it fits well. So, yeah. That's why. Anyone have a guess as to what Ben's cravings are or a theory as to why he doesn't want to act on them? It may or may not be clear from things that have already been written.