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These days, Jack Merridew does not eat. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint when this habit of meal skipping started, sometime after the island probably. He didn’t eat for 4 days, and 2 hours after being rescued. Perhaps it was his way of punishing himself. He didn’t deserve to eat. But evenso, he felt a sense of relief knowing that he could simply not eat. It gave him a sense of power, maybe ‘control’ would fit better. The power of knowing that he could control himself if presented with a cake, or something. Of course, Jack didn’t like sweets eitherway.
—
These days, Jack Merridew cannot bear to look at the sight of pork, or bacon, or anything that was made from a pig (let alone eat one). He can stomach steak sure (even if its thrown up 5 minutes after in his bathroom, his mother would atleast think that he was eating something). Jack’s mother would often say, “I haven’t seen you eat all day? Have you eaten at all? You’ve gotten so boney, you should eat more.” And various other alterations. He would carry around a shiny red apple with him out the door on school mornings.
“Hey Maurice, want my apple?”
He threw his apple to Maurice, who happily accepted it and took a bite. Jack winced ever so slightly at the loud crunch. Nobody noticed, probably. Roger silently noted down Jack’s behavior from behind him.
—
Jack is taking a smoke break from behind the chapel. He stares off at nothing, he’s slouched, and he can feel his stomach caving in on itself. His choir cloak does a fair job of hiding his weight loss.
“You need to eat.” Roger says, appearing from the corner of the chapel wall. A shiny red apple landed into Jack’s lap.
Jack picked up the apple, inspecting it slightly. It was a fairly small apple, Jack was able to cup it in his hand.
“I do.” Jack replied, lowering the apple down, and looking up at Roger.
“Don’t try lying to me, Merridew. You may be good at hiding from everybody else, but I know you best. Don’t you even forget that.”
Jack inspected over the apple yet again, then took a meek bite of it. He doesn’t remember the last time he ate. Smokes and tea were a constant in his life now.
“There, happy?” Jack narrowed his eyes at Roger’s gaze.
Roger shrugged, and took his place on the bench next to Jack.
“Please, that’s barely enough to feed a baby.” Roger nudged at Jack’s shoulder, Jack’s face visibly cringed at how boney his own shoulder feels.
They talked, talked about everything, talked about nothing. They talked until the sun started to set, and them Roger walked Jack home.
His mom wasn’t home, and so that’s how Roger ended up in Jack’s bed.
Jack sat at his desk, watching over Roger as he slept. He felt something crunch inside his cloak pocket (he’d started to wear his cloak more so as a blanket now, he always felt cold no matter what the temperature was). He fished out a fun-sized chocolate bar.
Shakily tearing open the package, Jack took a bite of half the bar. Making an audible gulp as he swallowed.
He got up, took off his choir clock, folded it and laid it on his desk.
Jack joined Roger his bed together, face to face. And so, Jack allowed himself to be swept away by sleep.
Roger opened one of his eyes, slipping a pack of biscuit cookies into Jack’s pants pocket. And joined with Jack once again in sleep.
—
These days, Jack Merridew is rotting away, counting until the scale reaches a low enough number to where he’ll blow away at a gust of wind.