Kristy's not Okay
Chapter Four
Things still didn't get better after therapy. Edward and Winry, of course, were worried, but it put their minds at ease that Kristy had stopped losing weight. Doctor Warren told them it wasn't her policy to tell the family what the kids said in her practice. This put Ed's mind at ease a bit, knowing that she hadn't told Mustang what he was saying while he was in therapy with her, but he was worried about Kristy's condition.
"I'll tell you if her condition is getting worse, Edward," Doctor Warren had said. "But I won't betray her confidence. She's just beginning to come out and talk to me, and I don't want to lose her trust now."
So the time went on with Kristy continuing not to eat. Ed had seen her eat small amounts, so he was grateful that she was actually eating. He just didn't know what she was doing after she ate. If she was throwing it up or exercising excessively in her room, he didn't know, but he didn't want to make things worse by watching extra carefully after meals. He didn't want to push her into Bulimia.
When Christmas came, the boys had returned home for the holidays. Their girlfriends had gone over to their own families' for the holidays, so it was just the boys. Ed was grateful. He didn't think Kristy could handle having a house incredibly full of people at the moment.
They were planning on having a Christmas party, and inviting their family and friends. Mustang and Hawkeye, Alphonse and Mei with their daughter Mao, and granny Pinako. Winry and Ed were still worried about how Kristy would behave in front of everyone else, though. They didn't want her to go further in starving herself because there were so many people around.
"Maybe if there's people around, she'll be more inclined to eat?" Winry suggested one night in their room. They couldn't speak so much about Kristy's condition out in the open. The boys didn't know, and Kristy wanted to keep it that way. Winry and Edward were respecting her wishes.
"Trust me, Winry, all a house full of people will do is make things worse," Ed said. "I don't know about her, but when I had Bulimia, I was actually embarrassed to eat in front of people. I thought of it as shameful in a way. If she thinks the same, it won't do anything for her."
"Well…I guess we'll just have to try our best," Winry said with a sigh. She didn't want to cancel the plans because it was the only time they were able to see all of their family and friends.
"Yeah." Ed sighed as well.
Things had been going as well as they could have. The boys were running around keeping everyone as entertained as they could. Alphonse had come and was catching up with Edward while Winry was spending her time with Pinako. Mustang and Hawkeye were surveying the area, occasionally going around to speak with the others when they could. Kristy was…well, she wasn't spending time with her little cousin, Mao, as she usually would have. Instead, she was sitting on her own, staring at the little buffet table her parents had set up in preparation for the party.
Mustang happened to catch onto this. He excused himself from Hawkeye, moving to Ed's position. "Edward?"
"Yeah?" Ed asked, turning his attention away from Alphonse for a moment to speak with the man.
"Have you seen your daughter?" Mustang asked. Edward turned in the direction of his daughter, watching the way she was staring at the buffet table. He gave a little sigh.
"Yeah, I've seen her…" Ed trailed off.
"Is she all right?" Alphonse asked. "You don't think she has…what you had, do you?" Edward knew when he was younger he didn't want anyone telling others about his disease. He frowned a bit when he realized that he would betray every instinct as a father and tell his brother and previous superior officer about his daughter's disease.
"She has Anorexia," Edward said in a hushed tone. "Please don't tell anyone. We're trying to keep it quiet. I just…I can't lie to you guys."
"Oh, brother…" Alphonse trialed off. He placed a comforting hand on Edward's shoulder, and Mustang did so on the other shoulder. "Has she been to the doctor?"
"She's going to the same doctor I went to," Ed said. "Therapy and a dietician. If things get worse…well, she'll be going inpatient."
"I didn't think you of all people would be willing to put your daughter into inpatient," Mustang said, his eyebrows raising a bit in shock.
"There's nothing else I can do. I mean, if she's not willing to help herself, how am I going to help her?" Edward sighed once again. "Anyway, not even the boys know, yet, so try and keep this between the three of us."
"Sure thing," Mustang said. After the three finished discussing Kristy's condition, they separated and moved back to what they had been doing before.
"Okay, guys," Ethan announced after some time had passed. "I wanted to tell you all together because you guys are my family, and my dad's friends. I'm joining the military."
"What?!" Edward, Alphonse, and Winry exclaimed simultaneously.
"You can't join the military, you idiot!" Ed shouted.
"Why not?" Ethan asked. "I'm over eighteen, and I figured you'd like it. You know, following in your footsteps."
"I was an idiotic kid when I joined the military," Edward said. "I'm not going to let you repeat my mistakes."
"Besides, you need to be here for your sister right now," Winry added. As soon as she had said it, she regretted it. She hoped Ethan didn't question her about it.
"Why?" Ethan and Anthony asked simultaneously.
"Is she sick?" Ethan asked. He would feel guilty if he left for the military while his sister was sick.
"She has…" Winry trailed off. Edward shook his head at her, not wanting her to reveal Kristy's disease. Not when she was barely into her treatment. "Your sister has Anorexia."
Edward whipped into the direction of Kristy, his eyes widened at the announcement to all their friends and family. His daughter had since stopped staring at the buffet table, sitting silently away from everyone else. At the announcement, she stood from where she was sitting.
"Kristy?" Ethan asked with wide eyes. He had never thought his little sister would have such a disease. Hell, he barely knew anything about it except from what he had been forced to read throughout college so far.
"Don't talk to me," Kristy said quietly before walking to her bedroom, shutting the door, and locking it.
"Why did you tell them?" Edward asked Winry. She had known that Ed didn't want anyone to know about it.
"Why did you tell Alphonse and the general?" Winry asked in return.
"Because Al is my brother and Mustang is the closest guy I got to a father; that's why!" Ed exclaimed. "I thought maybe they could help a little bit because they did so well before!"
"Before?" Anthony asked.
"Our daughter is now humiliated, Winry," Ed said. "How are we going to make this better for her?"
"I don't know how to fix this, Edward," Winry responded. "You're the expert; I didn't help before, and I don't know how to help now. Sometimes I feel completely useless because you know exactly what to do and how she feels, and I don't."
"Maybe we should go…" Alphonse trailed off. "I'm going to see if Kristy will tell me bye before we leave." Al moved to Kristy's door, away from the fighting of her parents, and knocked gently. "Kristy? We're going to go now. I just wanted to say goodbye…"
There was no response.
"I understand if you don't want to talk," Al said. "Just know, I understand that this is a tough situation for you. If you ever need me, you know my phone number." After a few minutes of no response, Alphonse left.
It had been a while since the party had ended abruptly and there was still no sign from Kristy. Winry had spent a while waiting outside her bedroom door with no response. Eventually, she gave up and sat on the sofa in the living room with her three boys.
"I don't understand…" Ethan trailed off. "How could this have happened and we not even know it?"
"Don't you think your mother and I are asking the same thing?" Ed sighed a bit, running his hands through his hair. "You two were off at college, and it wasn't your responsibility to catch what was going on. Your mother and I are the ones who are ashamed for not noticing, and when Kristy wanted to keep it a secret the most from you two out of pride, we failed her."
"We should've known," Anthony said. "And what did you two mean by 'before'? You said that the general and Uncle Al had helped before, but with what? Did you know someone else with Anorexia?"
"Sort of," Edward answered. He hadn't ever told his children about his Bulimia because he hadn't wanted them to know he had been that way when he was younger. With finding out that Kristy had Anorexia, Ed had been so tempted to tell her he knew exactly how she felt; he just hadn't found the right moment to do so yet. "I'm going to go check on her."
Ed walked to Kristy's door, knocking once again. It was silent. It took him a moment to pick the lock on the door before walking in to find his daughter laying on her bedroom floor with a cut up wrist and too much blood surrounding the wound.
"Kristy?" Edward asked, feeling helpless as to what to do. His daughter was on the floor, pale, with her slender wrist oozing blood. "Kristy!" Winry and the boys ran to the room when Edward shouted.
Winry gasped, running to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her. It didn't take very long for Winry to react and remove the light sweater she had been wearing, pressing it against Kristy's wound.
"Call an ambulance!" Winry exclaimed. The boys were already beside the phone, calling an ambulance with haste.
"It'll be okay…" Edward trailed off. "We're going to be okay…"
Edward and Winry sat in the hospital waiting room for hours. When Kristy was brought in, the two were instructed to wait in the waiting room, and a doctor hadn't been in to see them since.
Ethan and Anthony stayed home. They had wanted to come, but when Kristy was being loaded in the ambulance, Ed told them they would call when they found out what was going on. As it was, only one person was allowed to be in the ambulance with Kristy, and Winry had done that.
"I don't know if this is going to work out, Ed," Winry said quietly. "You were so much easier than her when you had Bulimia…You didn't do this."
"Winry, I did stuff like this, I just never did it too deep and you weren't ever there to see it," Ed said. "There's no such thing as being easy with an eating disorder. It's all hard and it's all deadly. We just need to hope for the best and put our time into her."
"But what if she doesn't come out of that hospital room?" Winry asked. "What if she doesn't make it because we didn't notice in time?"
"I don't know, Winry." Ed sighed. "I just don't know."
Next Update: Nov. 24th, 2015