Author's Note: As always, I'd like to start the new chapter with saying hello to all new readers/followers. I'm happy to see you like this story! I also want to say thank you to ManifestDoom, Love0802, hetaliatomalia, and Guest for leaving a review! :-) Thank you very much for taking the time to write a short comment! :-) I hope you all enjoy chapter 3!
(a)Guest: I've to admit I'v never heard of "Get well soon". Is it any good? However, naming the clinic in this story Sunny State was irony because Alfred has to spend his summer vacation there xD I'm terrible person, I know.
(a)Cat: Thank you for being such a great beta reader! :-)
{03. | inappetītus vs. 26.9}
Waiting for Feliciano's return from the dining room seemed in vain. Although Alfred had not occupied himself with counting the minutes, he knew for sure that he had been back in their room for quite a while now. Deciding to make the best of this situation, Alfred tried to get comfortable with his "new home". That was easier said than done, though, because the stuff he regarded essential for this purpose had been confiscated by the same nurse who had taken his laces, his razor and his nail scissors. He was so going to die of boredom without his cellphone, his laptop and the internet!
In his introductory talk with the doctor, it had been mentioned that from tomorrow on sport would be part of his recovery plan, too, but this did not help Alfred fighting today's stuffiness. Moreover, he no longer had the urge to do any sweat-including activities. Approximately seven months ago, Alfred had left his school's baseball team in a mad rush, in spite of the fact that he had been a passionate and talented player ever since his childhood. His parents still had not noticed. They never asked questions about their son's leisure activities or friends anymore, and Alfred preferred to keep his mouth shut concerning this matter...
Alfred really wished he could stop thinking about the mess he called life, but his current location didn't offer any distraction. The cream colored walls were undecorated, except for some landscape sketches hanging about Feliciano's bed. The barred window sat in the wall right across from the door. On the right wall as well as on the left wall of the small, rectangular room housed a wardrobe, a desk and a bed. The bedside tables met under the window. The furnishings were built out of light wood and had simple round handles. Although serving their purpose, they were everything but inviting. And what on earth was Alfred supposed to do with a desk? He was not the type of person who wrote letters or painted pictures, and since his summer vacation had just begun he certainly would not lift a finger for school!
He could use the desk to work on his new model airplane of a Boeing 747 SCA, though. This morning, right before departure, Alfred's parents had given him the huge box with the model airplane in it. The gift had probably been bought for one purpose only: to soothe his parents' bad conscience. Alfred could not come up with another explanation. The gift had passed through the nurse custom untouched, but Alfred was in no mood to sit down and enjoy his hobby. The huge white five printed on one side of the box referred to the difficulty level, and his new clinic life made Alfred way too jittery to focus on a horde of almost identical looking tiny parts. At the moment, he needed something else. Something that allowed him passivity without thinking, like the TV or the internet. All of a sudden, Alfred terribly missed his DVD collection and his video games, his room and his freedom. Getting better was impossible for him without these things...
Turning his attention away from his own misery, Alfred caught sight of the small card boxes on Feliciano's desk. Out of pure curiosity, he lifted the cover from one of the card boxes and was greeted by countless letters. Alfred was not surprised. If Feliciano's family was as talk-active as Feliciano, a card box was filled in no time. Alfred doubted his parents were going to send him anything by post during his stay in the clinic. Somehow this was not their style.
Feli's many books and magazines did not offer any distraction to Alfred either. Apart from the Bible(!) and some magazines dealing with architecture, all of Feliciano's readings focused on food, cooking and baking. Now that was counterproductive, was not it?
Alfred decided that reading was not an option for him and thus he did not even take a look at the blurbs of the two books his mother had conned him into.
With a heavy sigh Alfred left his room to check on Feliciano. Maybe he had finished his meal by now and chatted with some other patients in the living room. At least that was what Alfred hoped to see. Yet, his optimism had absolutely nothing to do with reality.
Sunken into himself, Feliciano still sat on his chair, meal status unchanged. Nurse Nancy, who shared the table with him, was fully concentrated on working in some files.
It was not until Alfred had abandoned his post at the door and actually entered the dining room that he could hear a weak whimpering. Feli was crying –and Nurse Nancy ignored him?! How could she? Quickly Alfred made his way to the table and took the empty seat right next to his roommate. Due to the decreased distance, Alfred was now able to see Feliciano's red-rimmed eyes, his running nose, as well as the half-dried remains of tears on his cheeks.
"What's wrong?" Alfred asked in a concerned voice.
His roommate lost a heart-breaking sniffle.
"Everything's fine. I'm just not hungry."
Extremely confused, Alfred looked at the nurse who shortly stopped writing to dart an admonishing gaze at Feliciano.
"Only two minutes left, Feliciano. You know what's going to happen if your time is up and you haven't finished your meal."
A pair of fresh tears popped into Feliciano's brown eyes. In a flash, one of them grew into a thick drop and plopped on Feli's serving tray. His whole body was slayed by a frantic trembling. Alfred was no longer confused but rather scared. This was so paradoxical! How could Feli endlessly dote on food, but totally distress in the face of his meal?
"Look, man. It's not that bad! I swear, and I know what I'm talkin' 'bout because I had to eat kohlrabi which is definitely the most disgusting thing in the universe! So, why don't you just imagine there's pasta on your plate, huh?" Alfred did his best to motivate the other patient, yet none of his words were of use. To be honest, Alfred could hardly work up any enthusiasm for the cold food on Feli's plate. It had been a while since the food had been served, and in the meantime giant grease drops had inhabited the brown gravy.
Clicking her pen, Nurse Nancy closed the file in her hands.
"Crying won't bring you anyway, love. Now, why don't you just start eating?"
"I don't want to..."
"You know the rules. You have to eat up."
"I better don't do that..." Signifying that he was serious, Feliciano shoved his tray away. Nurse Nancy's eyes laid on him like the weight of the world.
"Is this your final word?"
"No, come on, Feliciano! You can do this. I mean, there's chocolate pudding on your tray. I repeat: chocolate pudding!" Alfred wanted to grab the dessert but the nurse put a spoke in his wheel as her hand shooed his fingers away like an annoying fly.
"Keep your hands off Feliciano's pudding, Alfred!" This said, she turned her determination into resolute action by standing up and taking Feliciano's tray. "I'll go and get you your drink, Feliciano."
Drink? Alfred had no idea what the woman was talking about, and the answer was not written on Feliciano's face either. Worriedly Alfred studied his exhausted roommate whose legs boisterously rocked under the table. Feliciano had constantly been on the move since Alfred had met him. Not even while talking about his family Feliciano had been able to scrape together enough inner peace to sit down. Hence, Alfred was not surprised about the other youth's visible fight to stay seated. Jumping to his feet and running away as far as possible was apparently all Feliciano wanted to do.
By wiping his face with his right sleeve, Feliciano tried to erase the traces of his tears. Yet he did not manage to bring his sunny self back to life. With his paper-thin skin and his puffed, dull eyes he looked miserably to the core. Somehow he reminded Alfred of a stubborn child completely overstrained by the situation.
"I hate the food here, too," Alfred started a new attempt to distract Feliciano. "But how can you say no to chocolate pudding? Right now I'd give all my pocket money for chocolate pudding. Or a chocolate muffin. Or a cheeseburger with fries and a caramel Frappuccino. Jeez, that'd be so awesome...!" Alfred's craving for the sweet and fatty food was indeed so big by now that he could almost taste the rich ingredients on his tongue.
A blissful smile appeared on Feliciano's lips as he leaned back in his chair.
"You know, I'm great at making Frappuccinos, ve~! My fratello is a big fan of them. If I could, I would freshly prepare a Frappuccinos for you."
"Really?!" Feliciano's friendliness warmed Alfred's heart which was no longer used to receive kindness from people his age.
"Sure! I always do a special recipe for my brother with a shot of really strong espresso. But I also know a Frappuccino recipe with cacao. So if you like cacao better, that's no problem. In any case, I need fresh milk, caramel sauce, whipped cream, and some of my homemade vanilla ice cream. For the ice cream, I use my mother's recipe consisting of milk, cream, some sugar and, of course, vanilla mark. I never use vanilla aroma, I always buy vanilla pods and scratch the mark out of them."
"Whoa, dude! That sounds so delicious! Let's get outta here and –"
"You two are not going anywhere!" Nurse Nancy's icy words froze every spark of Alfred's enthusiasm. Feliciano's smile crumbled to dust as Nancy thundered a huge plastic cup, filled with an undefinable slimy liquid, on the table.
"Don't make that face, Feliciano. You wanted this." With a persistent strictness, the nurse took her seat and dove into the file she had brought along.
Alfred did not dare asking any questions about this strange drink. It was either pure chemistry (the thought did not bother him much) or something gross like whisked cuttlefish (this thought nearly freaked him out!). If only he knew what happened to Feliciano's chocolate pudding! They had not thrown it away, had they? But even if it was kept in the kitchen, Alfred surely would not be allowed to eat it. Despite this knowledge, he was no longer able to ignore his body's urge for candy. He had not had any candy all day long, and hunger was striving through his mind like a starving tiger searching for prey. Even if chocolate pudding was a no go for him, the nurse might show mercy if he asked for something else.
"Can I have a cookie?" He smiled innocently at her. A cookie would be a drop in the ocean for the tiger living in Alfred, but it was still better than nothing.
"A cookie?" Snootily, Nancy lifted an eyebrow. "My friend, some of the reasons for your stay with us is to eat healthy and thereby lose weight. So why would I feed you cookies?"
Lose weight
Lose weight.
LOSE WEIGHT!
Embarrassed by the truth, Alfred turned his gaze away and suppressed a cry for help. This nurse did not have the slightest idea what he was going through! Just because he had to lose weight did not mean the clinic staff could simply deprive him the last thing bringing happiness to his life! Alfred needed his favorite treats. The prospect of a life without coke, waffles, cookies, ice cream, M&Ms, crackers, burgers, and chips made him terribly nervous since he knew it would not go well for long. Alfred had not even been here for a whole day yet and he already felt like an addict without access to his drug. If only he had refused to come here in the first place...!
While Alfred was tortured by a sudden surge of panic and forlornness, Feliciano lifted his right hand. His long, skinny fingers slung around the huge cup as if he needed to befriend it first in order to trust its content. Eventually, he lifted the cup but still could not bring himself to drink.
"Hold your nose shut with your fingers and drink it, dude." What was so difficult about eating and drinking? Alfred simply did not get it. Not eating was so much harder, as first-hand experiences had taught him. He had skipped breakfast and lunch on many school days over the course of the past year; but no matter how hard he had tried to stick to his plan, he had always ended up hungry as a bear in the afternoons. And as soon as school had been over, the gorging had begun...
"Alfred, why don't you leave Feliciano and me alone?" The nurse's intonation left no doubt that this was an order. Furthermore, the constellation of her facial features gave Alfred the well-meant advice to never ever start an argument with her. Alfred's eyes narrowed furiously anyway. Why were his attempts to help rewarded with being removed from the table? That did not make any sense!
And how could it cost someone like Feliciano so much effort to empty a plate or a cup? He was not afraid of gaining weight, was he? Because that would be really ridiculous!
Knowing he was no longer welcome, Alfred stood up from his chair, put his hands in the pockets of his hoody and trotted out of the dining room. Obviously, the only patients allowed to eat in this stupid clinic were those who did not to want to eat on any terms. Alfred would bet his life that Feliciano would get a cookie if he asked for it!
"Morning, boys!"
Alfred almost got a heart attack as the loud voice cut into his dream and artificial light flooded the room. The destroyer of his nighttime peace, a nurse, stood unconscious of any guilt in the wide open door and seriously expected him to start a new day in this damn clinic.
Tired as hell, Alfred rolled on his stomach and pressed his face in his pillow. Somehow he was convinced that it was still in the middle of the night. The lack of movement in the other bed strengthened his assumption. If Feliciano did not get up, Alfred saw no need for himself to do so.
Alfred had not taken the nurse into account, though. With an angry "I can't believe it! Boys, it's been 20 minutes since I woke you up! Now get out of bed or you'll be late for breakfast!" she screamed him awake a second time. He had not even realized that he had fallen asleep again...
With his head still in dreamland, Alfred sat up and extensively rubbed his eyes. As he opened them again, his gaze fell upon Feliciano and Alfred was promptly wide-awake. Yesterday, he had thought it greatly exaggerated to force Feliciano to eat or drink against his will. Now, while watching the Italian boy removing one layer of clothes after another, Alfred changed his mind. Under Feliciano's pajamas, a long shirt, a t-shirt, and a pair of jogging pants emerged. Feliciano was shrinking with every piece of clothes he tossed on his bed, until he was only skin and bones in a white t-shirt and a pair of green boxers. Sharp like ice pickles, his shoulder blades, hip bones and collar bones peeked through the delicate fabric.
Paralyzing shivers ran down Alfred's spine and left him motionless on the edge of his bed. As much as he wanted to, he just could not stop staring for he had never seen such an emaciated person before.
Feliciano was either too tired to notice or he simply did not care. Sedated, he picked up his bathrobe from his desk chair and put it on. His slow steps lead him out of the room; his eyes were almost completely closed, as if he was laughing. Yet, there was nothing funny about this situation. Especially not for Alfred who felt fatter than ever due to the direct comparison between himself and the other patient.
Alfred would have gone back to sleep –he already hated his body too much to face other people–, but the nurse bestowed an impatient glance on him. Because of her silent force he stood up, fished his bathrobe from his wardrobe and followed Feliciano. The nurse nodded in satisfaction. The electronic watch on her wrist read 06:28.
A conspicuous line of patients stood in front of the weighing room. For some unknown reason, Feliciano suddenly seemed to be in a hurry. Visibly freezing, he passed one patient after the other like a ghost, until he was next in line. Neither complaints nor comments were heard. The rest of the patients was probably still as tired as Alfred who took his place at the end of the line. The hard light hurt his eyes, and he was not used to getting up this early as his blurred vision proved. Sighing, he leaned his head against the cold wall. Then and there, sleep embraced him graciously again, only to be chased away a few minutes later by a soft touch to Alfred's upper arm.
"You're next," the sweet voice of a huge pink mountain informed him.
Rubbing his eyes in confusion, Alfred slowly came back to his senses and realized his bad sight was not only the result of his lack of sleep. He had also forgotten to put on his glasses before leaving his room. Now that explained a lot...
"Uh, I can't really see who you are, but thanks anyway..."
The pink mountain flinched, turned around and whizzed quietly down the corridor. The bigger the distance grow, the clearer the picture got. Alfred eventually identified the pink mountain as the overweight blonde girl whose gaze he had met yesterday during lunchtime. She was wearing her hair in a long pony tail today, and her pink fluffy bathrobe snuggled to her wide frame.
"Hey, last one in line! Come in! I don't have all day!"
Turning his head, Alfred identified the source of the rude invitation as a slim woman standing in the door to the room of doom. Her fingers drummed a summoning rhythm against the door frame. With her pitch-black, accurately cut bob and her striking eye-liner she looked nothing like a nurse or doctor or whatever she was. She rather reminded Alfred on an ill-tempered Cleopatra who had been pushed from her throne and now vented her spleen on the poor patients.
Reluctantly Alfred followed her barked instructions, entered the room, took off his bathrobe and stepped, only in pajamas, on the scale. Cleopatra noted down the result in a file, measured Alfred's height and wrote down the number as well.
"Anything eaten or drunken today?" she bluntly asked. Alfred's reply was a negative shake of the head.
"Alright then..." With quick fingers Cleopatra typed something into the calculator laying on her desk, then she lifted her chin to meet Alfred's eyes.
"Your BMI hasn't changed since your preliminary examination. It's still 26.9."
"Okay." Alfred had no clue what he was expected to do or say, but he remembered the humiliating examination: He had been weighed by his family doctor who had scribbled the ugly number on Alfred's registration form for the clinic. Alfred had just stared at the piece of paper that was about to ruin his summer. All the while he had hung his head in shame because he had gained about 20 pounds since the last time he had weighed himself in private.
Cleopatra sat down and gestured Alfred to use the other chair. Her meticulously created cat eyes caught him like a mouse. While Alfred's veins filled with cold discomfort and burning abashment, he rocked in his chair and unconsciously adjusted his bathrobe.
"Well, Alfred, you had your introductory talk yesterday, so you probably know what a BMI above 25 means."
"That I'm too fat?" he guesses with a broad but fake grin.
"No, it means you're slightly overweight. And if there's one statement I never want to hear you say again in my examination room it's 'I'm too fat'. Got that?" Her harsh criticism almost wiped the smile off of Alfred's face. His old self would have argued without restraint with Cleopatra, but Alfred's current self was muzzled by the embarrassment he felt about his weight. With a simple "Yes" he pretended to accept her shitty expert opinion and was glad when she told him this was all for today. According to Alfred's feelings, this had not been all for today. It had been way too much! This day sucked ass before Alfred had even seen his breakfast...
While Alfred's mind juggled with the ugly number and the devastating effect it had on his life, Alfred returned to his room to collect his toiletry bag as well as some clothes. Then he headed to the men's shower room which offered four shower cabins in total. Despite the fact that each of the cabins was opaque, Alfred wished he had his own bathroom and some more privacy. At least he was not forced to undress in front of other people...
He entered one of the cabins, closed the door and put his stuff on the plastic seat attached to the wall. Apart from the crackling of water on the tiles in one of the other shower cabins, it was silent in the damp room. Most of the male patients had already finished their mourning routine. Alfred was just late because he had not gotten up in time.
Face blank, Alfred turned on the water, tested the temperature and stepped into the lukewarm wetness. For a moment, he just stood there and did nothing, except for commanding his negative thoughts to shut up. Needless to say, they did not.
He was too fat.
That Cleopatra did not want to hear it did not matter to Alfred. It was his body and it were his feelings, and he felt fat. During his introductory talk, the procedure of calculating his BMI had been explained to him. A BMI of 25 had been defined as one of his first long-term goals. Alfred remembered it now. Yet the memory did not help, it only hurt because 26.9 was not 25. Even if he would somehow reach a BMI of 25, he still would not have his old figure back. He was so, so many pounds away from normal and from happy...
A year ago, everything had been different. His weight had not even been an issue and he had been completely fit. As a member of the baseball team, he was used to step on the scale two or three times a year. He had learned that muscles were heavier than fat, and his coach had always been pleased with Alfred's weight and his performance on the field. Alfred refused to imagine what his coach would say about Alfred's current weight and lack of fitness...
Tilting his head until his chin met his chest, Alfred was glad he could not see much of his body in the pouring shower rain. Sadly, the water was unable to switch off his feelings. The fat was right there; Alfred might not be able to see it but he could feel it under his wandering hands.
How had he become so fat in so little time? No wonder people in school had started talking shit about him. The worst thing about the nasty gossip was that Alfred deserved it for he had not taken enough care of himself.
Matthew was not fat. He was not even close to chubby. He was just a guy, smiling from a photo Alfred had discovered on Facebook. This perfectly normal looking guy lived hundreds of miles away from Alfred, in Canada's capital. Although Alfred had never been in Ottawa, he had grown up with the name of the city in his ears since Ottawa had been the destination of his father's regular business trips for as long as Alfred could remember.
Full of raving hate, Alfred caught a small fold of his belly fat beneath his thumb and his index finger and squeezed it like a maniac. Despite the striking pain, he did not let go until he had repaired his demolished smile. The new born pair of crescents on his belly shone bright like a diamond.
Dear readers, please be aware that the BMI only indicates a standard value. It neither takes a person's statue into account nor the individual composition of fat and muscles. Nonetheless, for this story I decided it's easiest to work with standard weight categories. A BMI between 18.5-24.9 is regarded as normal for an adult. I put Alfred in the adult category since he's 16 and quite tall for his age.