Note: this is a continuation from chapter 9, the ending. Also, I am interested in writing a few short stories about Ponyboy dealing with an eating disorder (probably from this universe but not necessarily?) And possibly other hurt/comfort stories with Ponyboy being the whumped character. If you have any ideas or anything you'd like to see, let me know and I'll consider them. :)
Alternative Ending.
6 months later.
6 months - 3 of which he spent hospitalized. Two cardiac arrests, kidney failure requiring 3 weeks of dialysis, multiple seizures. He wasn't expected to make it. He was wheeled out of the hospital after the third month like a ragdoll, head lolling to the side. He wasn't going home. Nobody thought that was a good idea except his brothers, but he refused. In a rare moment of incredible self awareness and clarity, he told his brothers that he would continue starving until he died if he went home, and he didn't want them to find him that way.
So he went to a mental institution indefinitely. 3 months, and he was still eating far too little, enough to require a feeding tube. He'd gained around 50 pounds in the last 6 months, putting his BMI at 18.5. In other words, in a half a year he went from looking like a literal skeleton to looking like someone who could stand to eat a few burgers.
He'd undergone several rounds of electroshock therapy which actually helped in stabilizing him mentally. He was no longer suicidal, and stopped pulling his feeding tube out. But it also left him feeling drowsy frequently and with a flat affect. They also had the young man on a high dose of antidepressants which hadn't helped a bit with his appetite.
He was required to attend group therapy twice per day, occupational therapy daily, one on one therapy, meals at a table. He was one of only two eating disordered patients on the unit, the other being a 26 year old bulimic woman who thought nothing of shoving her fingers down her throat and vomiting in front of perfect strangers. In fact she did it with a smile on her face. She was also very sexual and very flirty. She was rumored to be sleeping with multiple patients, and even tried to get Ponyboy to have sex with her on multiple occasions. Now that he wasn't on death's door, he'd become very attractive again by anyone's standard, easily the best looking male at the institution. He looked like a skinny male model you'd find wandering the streets of Paris, brooding demeanor and all. But Ponyboy wasn't interested. Maybe it was her, or maybe it was the fact that he hasn't had a sexual thought in several months.
He spent most of his time in bed or sitting in a chair in the day room, watching whatever they happened to put on TV, dozing off. The institution was about 30 minutes from home, and Darry would visit 3 times per week, Soda once per week. It was just too hard to come all the way out working all the hours he worked and then having the 3 kids at home. The visits with his brothers were the only time he felt human.
—-
"Johnny and Dally dying isn't your fault," Darry told his baby brother during one evening visit. He was told it had been a particularly bad day for his brother: he'd refused all meals and had a breakdown in group therapy. "Maybe we haven't talked about their deaths enough, but it's not your fault. You know that, Ponyboy?"
"I know," Ponyboy answered. He was laying on his side in bed, staring at the plain white wall in front of him. He didn't know, but that's what he was supposed to say. It wasn't relevant. They were dead and whether or not it was his fault wouldn't change anything. He didn't know if it was his fault anyway. He knew only a few things: he hated himself, he shouldn't eat, and he wanted to waste away into nothing.
Darry looked so sad as he sat in a chair next to his brother's bed, hands folded in his lap.
"It's not because of them. I just can't eat," Ponyboy explained, briefly making eye contact with his brother. "I can't explain why, Darry. I don't even know why myself." He let out a half snort, half cough. "I'm… afraid of food," he hesitated. "I feel disgusting with all this weight on me."
"Oh, Ponyboy," his brother frowned as he reached for his hand.
"I wish everyone would leave me alone and let me die," he stated bluntly without moving his intent gaze on the wall in front of him.
"Don't say such things," Darry replied as he tried to soothe the young man by gently rubbing circles into his hand. It hurt Darry to hear such things of course, but it also came as no shock and was somewhat routine. When Ponyboy got like this, it was best to just comfort him.
—
A year later and Ponyboy was still at the institution. He didn't even entertain the idea of leaving anymore, unless it was fantasizing about the binges he'd have if he was under his own reign. He'd had a few binges at the institution, never enough to fully satisfy him though; instead of giving him a moment of satisfaction and bliss, they only brought misery. Most recently though he'd been throwing up without binging. Not always, just at night when he felt he'd had way too much to eat all day. It was something, one simple way he could have some control. It was enough to satisfy him, at least for now.
Every few months Darry became adamant that Ponyboy return to living with family, but his doctors were very much against the idea. He was so ill that he would "require almost constant supervision" and apparently Darry, now a husband and father, would be unable to provide that. "Don't burden your new wife and son," one doctor told him gently as he placed a hand on his knee. He'd married a girl he'd been seeing since Pony was away at college, and they had a baby boy. Darry would, eventually, relent, and agree that it was in no one's best interest for Ponyboy to return home.
—-
There was still a bit of the old Ponyboy inside him; beneath the depression, anxiety, self loathing, dysmorphia, and debilitating mental illness a small fire was still lit somewhere deep inside him. The desire to be more, do more, make the world a better place.
The young man had been wheelchair bound for the past 2 weeks due to frequent meals refusals and weight loss. When he slipped under or certain weight and was undereating, the deal was he needed to get around in a wheelchair for safety reasons, though deep down he knew it was also a punishment. No walking.
So, there he sat in his wheelchair that was way too wide for him and had no cushion for his bony bottom. Pen in one hand, a pad of paper on the table in front of him. It would be a great idea to write down your thoughts, he'd been told with a smile more times than he could count. He'd collected a dozen or so notebooks over the past several months from well meaning therapists and staff who knew of the talent he had for writing in his Old Life and wanted to nurture that talent.
"You could be a writer. Write about your life. Your unique experience," his therapist had said.
He placed the pen on the stark white, lined paper and hesitated a moment before starting to write:
"I remember the first day we visited my best friend at the cemetery. I was 14 years old. I don't remember the pain or the tears or the looks on my brother's faces. What I do remember is fainting on the way back to the car - not because of stress but because I hadn't eaten in 2 days. I remember feeling good about it because it meant I was doing something right. The other thing I remember was obsessing over how many calories dinner would be that night, and how I could get out of eating it."
