“So…how are you doing…in here? I mean…are you okay? Is it…is it a…safe place to be?” I fumbled nervously through these questions, uncertain of what I should ask or how I should ask it.

Stefan’s eyes began to well with tears. “It’s okay,” he muttered in a barely audible whisper. I was about to apologize when Ly appeared with four steaming hot cups of cafeteria coffee.

“Actually, its Hell!” Stefan blurted out as he squeezed the cup as hard as he could, an effort that barely broke the Styrofoam encasement. “They make me eat 800 calories a day! And if I don’t want to eat, they add the calories to this bag, which pumps the fat into my stomach, leaving me always feeling full.” I winced as I thought of the anorexic’s greatest fear: feeling full. “The nurses are always up in my business. I mean, I can’t even sigh without one of them grilling me as though it were something deep and meaningful and revealing, when really all it was, was a sigh!” Stefan’s face blushed a pale pink while his hands began to spin the cup around in irregular circles. His fidgeting fingers gradually broke the entire upper edge into a series of seismic cracks that radiated through the Styrofoam and quickly caused the hot coffee to pour like a lava waterfall over his hands and on to the poorly cleaned table that separated us from him. 

Stefan grabbed a handful of napkins from the dispenser and began mopping up the mess as he continued talking. “And then there’s group therapy, which is me and about twelve to fifteen girls who spend an hour and a half crying over their eating disorders. I hate it!” he declared as he straightened his back, rounded his shoulders, and twisted his face into a look of disgust. “I mean, I can’t cry for these girls’ experiences, because their experiences aren’t my experiences. And they’ll never understand my experiences because they aren’t guys. And I’ll never understand their experiences because I’m not a woman. So, why am I even there?” Stefan grabbed his nose tube as though he meant to rip it from his stomach, thereby denying his body of nourishment. But he stopped and slowly caressed it, having clearly thought better of his intentions.

Tears began to drip from his eyes. He cast his gaze downward, presumably to avoid the embarrassment of us seeing him crying.

“They’re raising my food intake tomorrow. By 500 calories! So, I’ll be up to 1300 calories a day. Can you believe that? I don’t know what I’m going to do!” He began to shake, so I reached across the table to reassuringly grab his shoulder. I felt like I was grasping a child’s papier-mache model that was being fragmented by the minimal application of the strength of my adult hands. 

“Those assholes!” I replied, though I was secretly hoping they would increase his caloric intake by more than just 500 calories. Because I wanted Stefan to feel better, to look better, to be better. Better than he was right now, sitting in front of me as a husk of a human being.

“Twice a week I have to see a psychiatrist, who just pumps me full of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills that make me sleep for twelve to sixteen hours a day.” Stefan’s face became flushed with anger. “Plus, I have to see a nutritionist, who just gives me long-winded lectures about the importance of nutrition and insists that I eat more because it’ll improve my mental health. She’s the one who keeps increasing my calorie intake. I hate her!” He began to grind his teeth and his eyebrows angled into a sharp point in the middle of his forehead. He clenched his fists so tightly I thought his fingernails would break the skin of his palms. I expected to see blood drip onto the table, but thankfully it didn’t.

“All the bathroom doors are locked, so I have to ask for permission every time I have to piss. Which is a lot, because these pills also act as diuretics. And the nurses watch me the whole time through a glass window in the door, which is super uncomfortable and makes it way harder to go!” He rolled his eyes in frustration. “And even when I’m eating, the nurses are hovering around, watching my every move, examining every bite I take of the bland, specially prepared hospital meals. I mean, eating is hard enough as it is, I don’t need those vultures eyeing me up, adding an extra level of discomfort to the whole experience. Can’t I just eat in peace? FUCK!” I had never seen Stefan this angry before and it left me completely speechless. “I hate it here. I wish I was home.” His eyes turned red and he began to unabashedly cry. “I don’t care if anorexia kills me, I just don’t want to be here!”

“Dude, you don’t mean that,” I started to say.

He abruptly cut me off. “Yes, I do!” he screamed. “This place is Hell! Eating is Hell! Being anorexic is Hell! Being alive is Hell! Maybe being dead is the only way to find peace!” Stefan stopped crying and his face turned grave.

“Dude, no!” I interjected. “Don’t say that. Seriously!” I tugged at his emaciated arm as I begged him to repeal his statement.

“No, I guess I don’t mean that,” he muttered reluctantly. “I guess this place is better than being dead.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt guilty and embarrassed. I was happy I wasn’t in the hospital, suffering the way Stefan was suffering. Yet I also felt awful for him because he was suffering, and I wasn’t. Was it selfish of me to be happy I wasn’t Stefan? Was it selfish of me to feel sad for Stefan, even though my life was going considerably better than his? Was I a bad friend?

We entwined our hands. I was startled as I was able to feel every one of Stefan's bones and joints. 

“It’ll be okay, I promise. This place will help you, I’m sure!” Stefan’s body stiffened as he clearly did not want to hear this statement.

I shook Stefan’s hand until he turned to look me directly in the eye. Without saying anything, I tried to convey my remorse through a series of visual cues. My eyebrows turned upwards, my mouth shifted, my jaw clenched, and my hand and forehead began to pour sweat. I wanted to cry. Cry for Stefan, cry for Ly, cry for myself. Cry for this disease that ravaged our bodies and our minds. Cry for everyone who had ever suffered through this debilitating disorder.

And I prayed. I prayed for Stefan’s recovery, for Ly’s recovery, for my own recovery. Because I didn’t want to end up dead. Not from anorexia. Not this young. Not when I have so much more to give.

Beside me, I could feel Elio watching. Without speaking a word, he placed his hand on mine and gripped it tightly, as if to say, “It’s okay.” Then Ly placed his hand over top of Elio’s and the two of them exchanged an awkward glance.

And so, we sat there, with each other’s hands wrapped together in a beautiful display of compassion, friendship, understanding, and mutual respect. We exchanged words, pleasantries, subtle glances, idle chitchat. But we never stopped holding our hands together. Not until Stefan began to yawn, shake, and breathe heavily.

“I gotta go,” he gasped as he pulled away from our discreetly implied embrace.

I didn’t know what to feel as Stefan walked away from our table, his every movement slow, awkward, and brittle. So, I decided it was best to feel nothing, because I couldn’t deal with all the emotions I wanted to feel. I sat cold and expressionless, never blinking as I watched Stefan’s body become the same abstract black blob I had seen when he first arrived. Only this time he wasn’t emerging from the empty whiteness, he was being consumed by it. And I wondered: is that death? Becoming a part of an endless, sterile emptiness? Is the colour of the afterlife just varying shades of white?

I blinked and Stefan was gone. Gone back to his Hell. Back to his prison.

Yet I remained free. Free to be anorexic. Free to control my weight and my eating habits. Free to be controlled by a disease of the mind.

Free to live by my own rules. Free to die by those same rules.

Free, but with a price. Always with a price. Because being thin doesn’t come cheap, and it doesn’t come easy.