I groan and shove Alexander off the bed with one hand. He rolls on to the floor and bursts into giggles.

‘So annoying,’ I mutter, before sitting up and turning on my bedside lamp, resulting in a shriek of ‘YAY!’ from Alexander. He begins to wander around my room, opening and closing the card so it repeats the first two notes over and over again.

Christmas is okay at Ben’s adoption parents’ house. It’s chilled. Quiet. Alex calls it a Meier Christmas, which he thinks is hilarious. We open presents when we wake up, then family come over for Christmas dinner and stay until late, and that’s it. I play video games with my brother, Alexander and cousins, Alex always get drunk, Ben’s Adoption father Spanish grandfather (Alex’s dad) has argument with Ben’s adoption mothers’ English grandfather (Mayres’s dad) – truly wonderful stuff.

But it’s not exactly a normal Christmas Day this year.

My twin brother, Ben, has an eating disorder. Anorexia. He had it for a long time, but it’s been particularly bad these past few months, and the stress of it caused him to have self-harm relapse too back in October. He lived away from home for a few weeks at a psychiatric ward that specifically cares for teenagers and young adults who have eating disorder and it definitely helped, but it’s still been rough. Obviously.

I don’t really think there was a reason he got so ill. That stuff just happens, like diseases or cancer. So it’s not his fault it got so bad. When I noticed that something was off with him, I didn’t tell his adoption parents and I didn’t ask him what was wrong. I didn’t talk to him enough. I didn’t do enough.

But it’s not about how I feel. It’s not even about his adoption parents. Christmas is a stressful time for people with eating disorders, since food is such a big part of the day, and I know Ben’s been feeling anxious about it. He’s been stressed all week, arguing with his real mum pretty much every day and shutting himself in his room.