The elevator ride to the 7th floor feels like an eternity. She usually takes the stairs to her cubicle, but today, the stairs are closed off for maintenance again. If she went home one more time, she’d be fired. She can’t lose another job.

She stands there alone in the elevator, trembling. The beating of her heart increases quickly with each passing second.

Blue. It surrounds her from all sides. Blue walls, a Blue floor, a Blue ceiling; there’s no escaping it. She tries to close her eyes and take herself somewhere else, somewhere happier, somewhere void of Blue. Fishing with her father. Her first kiss. Her 10th grade prom. She wore a beautiful Blue gown to that prom. She tries to take herself to times when the color didn’t control nearly every aspect of her life.

She feels the elevator stop, and a wave of relief washes over her. She opens her eyes and looks up, focusing on the floor number above the door. She’s only at the 4th floor. Disappointed, she closes her eyes once more and waits. The elevator doors open with a gentle ding, and she hears the steady muted thump of loafers against the Blue carpet making its way towards her. The footsteps stop next to her. The trembling coursing throughout her body only grows worse and worse. She tries once more to block out everything and bring herself back to happier times, but the presence of the man to her right made it impossible. Being alone in such a small and unsupervised area with a man who could easily overpower her filled her with fear. All she could do is wait.

“Beautiful day, huh?” The man says, his voice deep and intimidating. She opens her eyes and focuses on the grey elevator doors, attempting still to block out the Blue that surrounds her.

“Oh, yes. Gorgeous.” She tries to calm the shakiness in her voice.

“Perfect weather for a nice hike.” The man says. She pauses and carefully thinks about what to say next. She fears that saying one wrong thing would set the man off.

“There aren’t a lot of mountains to hike around New York City,” she says, feigning interest.

“Bear Mountain is only an hour and a half away. I’ve hiked it a few times, but the view never gets old.” He pauses for a moment. “You can see the entire park from up there.”

She remembers when she wasn’t afraid to go outside alone. She used to hike wherever she could every weekend. She would hike Mount Mansfield in Vermont and sit at the summit for hours, catching up on her reading and writing short stories. She hasn’t touched her writing journal in years.

“My name’s Patrick,” he says after a few seconds, “Patrick Quimby.”

“Sarah Knowles.”

This man seems different than other men that she’s had the displeasure of interacting with in the past.. His voice is stern, but still charismatic and friendly at the same time. She finally works up the courage to open her eyes and look at the man, a friendly and genuine smile spread across her face. She prepared to extend her hand to shake his.

“It’s a pleasure to meet--”

She stops.

Everything stops.

A Blue suit.

“Is everything alright, Mrs. Knowles?” Patrick says. A sharp pain appears in Sarah’s chest. She backs up into the elevators corner and slides down to the floor, hyperventilating and wheezing, tears flowing down her cheeks. The man takes a step towards her.

“Mrs. Knowles? Are you--”

“Get the fuck away from me!” She screams.

“I don’t--”

“Please!” She screams again, her voice shaky from the violent sobbing. She’s taken back to 3 years ago, walking home from her friend’s house at 2 in the morning. The hand that covered her mouth and dragged her away from the street. The sound of duct tape. The ripping of her clothes. Her muffled sobbing. It replays in her mind on a constant loop, over and over.

The gentle ding fills the small space as the elevator doors open, the thump of Patrick Quimby’s loafers quickly fading off into the distance. She looks up, wiping the tears from her eyes.

The 7th floor. 

And when the inevitable heat-death of the universe finally comes

and the Earth is scorched by the Sun

My body will be turned into ash along with everything there ever was

The ashes will mix and everything will become one

And from the ashes, a new world has begun.

Life on this planet will sprout and evolve

For millions of years, it will spin and revolve

The purpose of existence will finally be solved

And Humanity’s sins will be cleansed and absolved

Under a new skin I will be reborn

Subconsciously my soul will search for yours

Our souls are intertwined, they will find a way

One cannot change fate, no matter how far they stray

And when the inevitable heat-death of the universe finally comes

and the Earth is scorched by the Sun

My body will be turned into ash along with everything there ever was

The ashes will mix and everything will become one

When the Earth is finally scorched by the Sun.

“Do you think I’ve gotten fatter?”

“No, Tori. Actually, I think you’ve lost weight.”

“Are you sure? I’ve been growing a double chin. Am I growing a double chin?”

“No, Tori. You look beautiful like always.”

“You’re lying. I have a gut, see?” Tori lifted up her shirt, revealing her stomach, and began poking at it with her index finger. Each time her finger met the skin of her stomach, she made a boop noise.

“That doesn’t mean you’re fat. You’re still absolutely gorgeous.”

“You’re still lying. Do you think my nose is big?”

I wish she would see herself the way that I do. I constantly catch myself studying every detail of her face whenever we lay down to watch a movie, or any other activity that requires my attention. I find myself watching the way she furrows her brows when she’s focused on something. I find myself tracing the M shape of her lips with my gaze. I find myself carefully running my fingers through the waves of her hair, closely examining the different colors hidden beneath the strands of dark brown from excessive amounts of hair dye from her earlier years. I find myself falling in love. I have no doubt that she feels the same way, because I catch her looking at me the same way.

My memory is terrible. Sometimes, I’ll forget things she told me the week before, and end up asking the same question two or three times. Yet, I’ll never forget the way her foot shakes uncontrollably whenever she’s upset, or the way her voice becomes eerily soft and pleasant whenever she’s tired. I won’t forget that her favorite color is orange. I won’t forget that her first love was a guy named Adam, or that she cries every time people sing Happy Birthday to her. I won’t forget these things because these are the things that make her who she is.

Nothing in this world is perfect. Before I met her, there was no filter between my brain and my mouth. I never thought about what I said before I said it, letting words pour out in an incomprehensible jumble. Tori can go from completely fine to furious in an instant, so I’ve been forced to exercise caution with my words. This has actually proved to be extremely helpful to me socially, and academically. However, whenever I do say something to upset her, there’s no stopping it. No amount of apologies or kisses can stop her fury. She doesn’t strike me or call me names, she simply sits there and stares at nothing, furrowing her brow, focusing on ignoring my existence for as long as possible. During these times, I feel trapped, as if there’s nothing I can do to fix us, like I’m being forced to sit there and watch our relationship crumble to the ground. I worry that one day, I’ll accidentally push her over the edge and it’ll be over. But then she switches her gaze over to mine and a smile spreads across her face, and everything is wonderful again. Loving Tori means loving her imperfections.

Loving Tori also means loving her family. Specifically, her mother. Her mother is unstable, unpredictable. The first time I visited her house, Tori whispered to me. “Make sure you say hello and goodbye to my mom every time you leave, my last boyfriend didn’t and she didn’t like him.” One day, I forgot to say goodbye to her mother. As I walked through the doorway, I heard BYE HUNTER from behind me, echoing throughout the apartment building’s hallways. I quickly turned around and frantically said “B-Bye Nicole!” Her mother then went on a rant about how I must be pretty ballsy to disrespect her in her own house, how she was going to message my parents on Facebook and tell them about my “illicit activities,” etc, etc. The next day, her mother was right as rain. This turned out to be a common occurrence that would continue to happen for as long as Tori and I were together. If Tori can handle her mother for 17 years, I can handle her too.

Being with Tori has not only taught me to love another person, but it has also taught me to love myself. For the past nine years I have been unhappy in my own skin. I used to look in the mirror and see nothing more than wasted potential: a flabby, ugly, awkward, stupid waste of breathe. I began to notice the way Tori looked at me. She looked at me with acceptance and love. She genuinely didn’t care about what I looked like or about the little stupid things I did and said. I realized that pleasing everybody is impossible, that I shouldn’t be what others wanted me to be, that I should be who I wanted to be. I should stop worrying about looking fat or whether or not my hair falls perfectly in front of my left eye. Instead, I should start focusing on living life and being happy, and that’s exactly what I’ve done.

I wish she would see herself the way that I do: the best thing to ever happen to me.

I remember visiting my mother at the eating disorder clinic she stayed at in Boston. Her eyes were tired, but her smile was genuine. We sat in her little apartment and talked for a little bit.

“Mommy’s getting better, baby. I’ll be home before you know it,” she said. I didn’t know what to say because I knew she was lying. Even at 12 years old, I knew that it would be a long time before she came home. She rummaged through her bag of makeup and cigarettes and pulled out some sort of toy. It was a small rubber llama with large plastic eyes. She handed it to me and said, “Squeeze it.” When I tightened my grip on the llama, the pressure caused its eyes to bulge, and it squeaked.

“I got it at the comic book store a couple of blocks away. I could take you sometime if you want.” I smiled and said that I’d like that. Visiting hours were almost over, and it was a long drive home. My dad checked his watch and stood up, saying that we should start leaving.

“I love you, baby.” Mom said.

“I love you too.”

During the two hour drive back, I imagined what my life would’ve been like if I had lost my mom, if she hadn’t gotten the help she needed with her anorexia. I wouldn’t have had anybody else that cared. I would’ve been alone. Little did I know that history was bound to repeat itself.

I sat 4 years later, hunched over the toilet of my bathroom, and I remembered the 3 months without my mother. I remembered how ill she was before she was sent off without my knowledge. I stood up and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, my eyes seemed to bulge out of my skull, bloodshot and watery from the gagging. Look at you, I thought to myself, how selfish can you get? She worked her ass off for months to get better for you, and you repay her by doing the same shit she did? You’re slowly killing yourself, and for what? I wiped the tears from my eyes and brushed my teeth to get the taste of vomit out of my mouth. I had been doing this to myself for nearly 7 months when my mother confronted me about it. She told me that if I didn’t stop, she’d have to send me off to the same clinic she went to. At the time, I didn’t care. What I was doing didn’t affect anybody but myself, so it couldn’t have been that big of a deal, right? Besides, eating disorders weren’t usually seen as ‘male problems.’ But as I sat there and remembered how I felt, watching my mother slowly kill herself, I finally understood. I didn’t want her to have to feel what I felt.

While she took my disorder seriously, many people didn’t. Many people believed that since I wasn’t a female, it wasn’t that big of a deal, like it made a difference. In actuality, males make up about 25% of all individuals with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. These men typically aren’t taken seriously and are too afraid to ask for the help they need, fearing ridicule from their peers, which is why the mortality rate for males with eating disorders is actually higher than it is for females. I was picked on a lot for it, too. By my closest friends. They told me, “why even bother eating if you’re just going to throw it up later anyway?” I never stood up for myself. If they didn’t take it seriously, it must have not been a big deal, right?

It’s been 2 months since I last did that to myself. I have gained a bit of weight, which I’m not all too happy about, but my health is better. I’m no longer constantly dehydrated and tired, and I’m not always worrying about if I look fat. I’m finally becoming happy with who I am, which is what I’ve wanted for years now. However, not all males with eating disorders can say that. The de-stigmatizing of eating disorders in males is a necessity. People need to realize that women aren’t the only gender that face double standards when it comes to serious, life threatening issues. And perhaps one day, men will no longer be afraid to get the help they need.

My mom has always been sick, for as long as I can remember. She used to be in and out of hospitals a lot, for various reasons: shingles, fibromyalgia, she was even in a clinic somewhere in southern Boston for a couple months because of her anorexia. She was always in pain, always suffering, and she blamed me and my younger brother for it. Even when somebody forgot to brush their teeth, she would snap, calling us disrespectful little shits and reminding us that we were the cause of her constant suffering. Then, she would be normal again in an instant, dancing and sweeping the kitchen floor. I liked it when she was like that.

In June of 2014, I got a text from my dad: I’m picking you up now. Meet me outside, it’s important.

I was 14 then, only a freshman. It was 2:30, and I was staying after school to work on a project for my drawing class. The class wasn’t really important to me, however, the attractive Teacher’s Assistant definitely was.

“Dad, you’re gonna blow it for me. Pick me up at 3:30,” I replied.

That hour went by quickly.

Dad and I sat in the car, both waiting for the other to say something. The silence was deafening. Then, he said those five familiar words, the words I was hoping I would never have to hear again, “Your mother’s in the hospital.”

To this day, I’ve never seen my mother as peaceful as she did on that hospital bed, tubes appearing to sprout from her wrists and nostrils. For a while, the only sound that filled the room was her life support. The thought of her life being in the hands of some machinery and some potentially unreliable doctors made my stomach turn over. Eventually, the steady beeping of her life support was joined by the soft, jagged sobbing of Dad. I’ve never seen him cry before.

“Dad?” I said softly.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Do you love Mom?”

“I..” He seemed like he was unsure about what to say. “Of course I do. We’ve been

married for 21 years, why wouldn’t I love her?”

“Well,” I said, “why didn’t you ever show it?”

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling fan. My short attention span had completely disappeared. Dad said that Mom’s new medicine didn’t react well to her usual medicine, putting her into a comatose state. Nobody knew when she’d be out of it, or if she would wake up at all. The house was quiet for more than thirty minutes at a time, and I grew to despise the silence. The halls of the house no longer echoed with her naturally loud voice. I could no longer hear the vibration of her blaring Willie Nelson upstairs. My ears began to ring from the incessant silence.

The ringing ceased when somebody knocked on my bedroom door. It was my older sister, Cassandra.

“Hey bud, you doing okay?” she asked. I said nothing.

“Well, we have to talk. You know why Mom is in the hospital, right?”

“Bad medicine reaction.” I replied, with a tone of voice more monotone than usual.

“You’re not a child anymore, Hunter. You need to know what’s really going on.” She

looked at me with her sad, brown eyes.

“What?”

“Dad found Mom unconscious in her car, parked near the bank on Charlestown Road at 3 in the morning. Her medicine didn’t react badly, Hunter, she overdosed.”

She woke up about three days later. However, she was still very drowsy from the anesthesia, so she was kind of out of control. Dad said this is how Mom was whenever she hadn’t had her medication for a few days. I found that hard to believe, considering she had to have her own personal police officer outside of her hospital room in case she threw a fit.

My younger brother, Nason, texted her. He told her how much we missed her, asking her if we could visit her any time soon.

She replied with: Fuck off, both of you killed me.

We did eventually visit her, but she was still a bit out of it. She screamed at the police officer, calling him words like “pussy” and “bitch”. I hated seeing her like this, because I knew this wasn’t Mom. She would never hit anybody or blatantly disrespect strangers, much less a police officer. This was some kind of husk, an empty shell of her that some hellish beast took residence in. I needed answers, and I obviously wasn’t going to get them from her at this point. I asked Dad if I could go home.

Eventually, Mom came home. She was on our porch, smoking a cigarette, playing Words With Friends on her phone as if nothing had happened. Dad had driven me home from staying after school. At first, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. I slowly ascended the stairs, not once breaking eye contact with her.

“Hi, baby.” she said, weakly. All I could do was stare at her, forcing myself to mask every trace of emotion. Her smile soon faded. I wanted to scream, “How could you do this to us? To me? You were going to fucking leave me alone to fend for myself! Are you fucking mental?”

Instead, with tears beginning to form in my eyes, I opened the door to the house and quickly walked to my bedroom. I heard her attempt to follow, but she was too weak to keep up. I lay down once again on my back and stared at the ceiling fan.

I never did get my answers. Mom insisted that she would never attempt taking her own life, but why would my family lie to me about that? Things became relatively normal soon after she returned, but something changed inside all of us. We became more bitter towards each other, as if we were only tolerating each other’s presence. Dad always asked, “How was school, buddy?” but I swore he only said it to mask something else. I’d always answer with, “Fine, I guess. How was work?” and we’d continue our facade until one of us cut it off. He never cared about my day, and I never cared about his. It was a pointless act. The illusion of a functional family.

After two years, I still catch myself staring at the ceiling fan.