Match Your Weakness With A Name

Eight? I Think We Need To Slow Down.

"Oh...um...nothing," he says. "Just...stuff."

"Did I interrupt your dinner?" I ask, it suddenly occurring to me that I may've. "Because I can call back later."

"No, you're fine," he says. "I just finished dinner, actually."

"Really?" I say. "It's six-fifteen."

"I eat fast," he says. "Anyway, what's on your mind?"

"You," I blurt.

There is a long pause before he speaks again. "Wow...um..." he trails off. "I'm flattered. Unless you decided you actually hate me."

"No way," I say. "I was just thinking about you in general."

"I suppose you want to know about my arms, don't you," he sighs.

"Well, um, not if you don't want me to know," I stammer.

"What?" he says.

"I usually assume that if someone wants me to know something, they'll tell me," I say.

"Good thing to assume," he says. "Do you want to know, though? Because if you want to know, I'm totally fine with telling you."

"Uh, well, kinda, but I-"

"But?"

"But if you tell me your tragic backstory, I'll feel like I have to tell you mine, and I don't want to," I admit. "I'm not ready for that." 

"Oh." He pauses.

"Yeah."

"I feel like you should know mine, though," he says. "You don't have to tell me anything, and goddamn it, I just want to tell you."

"Okay," I say.

Awsten takes a deep breath. "So. I used to be a model."

"That explains why you looked so familiar when I first met you," I say.

"Yeah." He chuckles. "So I was a model, because I'm attractive and have weird eyes and shit. I had real low self-esteem, and I'd like to think modeling helped with that, at least until November."

"What happened in November?" I ask, even though I probably already know the answer.

"That's when I started...you know...cutting." He trails off.

"Oh."

"Anyway, I didn't tell anyone. I just stopped wearing short sleeves and hoped no one would ask me about it. And I got away with it, too. I just kept on having low self-esteem, and all was well until I stopped eating."

"What?"

"I got really touchy around food, and every time I even thought about eating, I felt guilty." He pauses to breathe and goes on. "I lost a ton of weight, which wasn't exactly good, as I was already pretty thin to begin with. People noticed, but they didn't think it was anything bad. Heck, they started complimenting me on how good I looked. I was proud of it.

"Then one day in April, I was getting ready for a photo shoot and I passed out."

"Whoa," I say.

"I know," he says. "They took me to the hospital, and the doctors said 'You weigh eighty-six pounds. You need help.' So they put me in a mental hospital, which I hated, by the way, and they let me out in May when I'd gotten back up to a hundred."

"Damn," I say. "And you're okay now?"

"Not really," he says, and laughs. "Eating still fucking sucks. I'm always worried it will make me throw up. I'm dead scared of throwing up for some reason. But I haven't cut myself since I got into the hospital, and that's good, I guess."

"Yeah, it's good," I say. "It's really good. Don't relapse."

"No shit, Sherlock," he says.

"Well, I relapsed, and I got cheated on," I say. "Figured I'd spread the luck."

"Wait, what?"

"No! I didn't mean-" I curse myself for wording it like that. "I'm not gonna cheat on you. I just think relapsing is bad karma."

"Good," he says. "I figured you wouldn't cheat on me-you don't seem like the cheating type-but you scared me for a second."

"There's a cheating type?"

"Yes, don't you know?" he says. "How many people have you been with?"

"Before you? One," I confess.

"Just one? How old are you, sixteen?" he asks.

"Eighteen in, like, two weeks," I say. "Why? How old are you?"

"Um, fifteen."

"What?"

"Relax, it's not that big an age gap," he says. "The last guy I dated is twenty-one now."

"What?!"

"We didn't date that long," he says. "Kellin and I only went out five times or so. Then his band took off, and he ditched me for some fake-ass band guy."

"Still, six years?" I say. "Okay, I guess compared to that, you and I are fine."

"So we're dating."

"...yes."