May, 1986
Michael walked sleepily into the kitchen, which glowed yellow in the morning light filtering in through the window, and opened the cupboard and pulled out a box of cereal. He looked up as Lindsay came down the stairs in her pink bathrobe, her hair wet from the shower.
"Good, morning," he said.
"Good morning," she replied, going to the fridge and taking out a bottle of orange juice. She poured herself a glass and sat down at the kitchen table.
"You're not going to eat anything?" he asked.
"No, I'm good."
"You sure? I could get you a bowl of cereal."
"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
"Okay," he said uneasily. Recently he'd noticed that Lindsay was eating less than ever and spending long periods of time swimming laps in their pool every night. He kept hoping he was imagining it, but it was getting increasingly difficult to convince himself that she wasn't skinnier than she had been a month ago. He hoped it wasn't because of their mother, who had shifted the focus of her criticisms from Lindsay's nose to her weight. This was especially baffling since if anything Lindsay had been slightly underweight since middle school, a fact Michael also blamed on their mother. She'd also seemed a little down lately, spending all her time shut in her room and being very irritable. At first he'd thought she was just upset about the breakup and that it would pass, but it had been over a month and her mood hadn't improved at all.
The one bright spot was that they were getting along better. Michael had been trying to be nicer to her after realizing how damaging her insecurity had become. She was quick to latch onto this, spending all her time with him and constantly complaining about some aspect of her appearance just to hear him say it wasn't true. He didn't mind. He liked the way her eyes lit up when he said it, and that she was spending her Friday nights with him on the couch watching TV instead of going out with friends like usual. He couldn't tell if it was because she preferred spending time with him or because she was too depressed to socialize, but either way he liked that he was the one she turned to when she didn't want to talk to anyone else. He just hoped this change in her mood was only temporary and that it would resolve itself.
