Chapter 5
That night, it happened again. Gwen had woken up to excruciating pain on the side of her body she was sleeping on and needed to turn over to her other side. It was that feeling of being crushed to a brick wall, the kind of pain she would feel on intense and difficult missions.
This was the second time this had happened, and Gwen was worried about what was going on. Sleeping itself shouldn't cause this much pain, right? Especially not like this. Not in a way it made you feel like you couldn't breathe.
The moment Gwen woke up in the morning for school, she instantly remembered last night's dispute with her dad and her new plan. She already hated it, because it was everything she didn't want to do, and considered actually not going through with the plan.
But then she also remembered the way he father had looked so hurt and broken, and she felt guilty for doing that to him. She no longer wanted to hurt him like that anymore, especially because he was not someone she could avoid forever, and running away from home again was simply out of the question.
As Gwen got out of her pajamas to get dressed for the day, her eyes suddenly caught sight of something that she had never seen before. There was fine hair all over her arms in a way that had never been there before. It looked completely different than her usual blonde arm hair.
Out of pure curiosity, Gwen took off her pajama bottoms as well, and walked inside the bathroom to take a look at herself in front of the mirror. This was the first time in forever that Gwen took a close look at herself, and compared to last time, she looked like a completely new person.
Her whole body was basically nothing but skeleton and her lips, fingertips and toenails were blue-ish. Looking at her legs, there was also fine body hair growing just like on her arms. Her legs were so weak and unsteady, that she could barely keep her balance and kept on wobbling.
But what caught her eyes the most were all the bruises covering her body. They were normal. Of course, she was Spider-Woman so bruises were a given, but they usually faded away as quickly as they came.
But nothing had really happened yesterday during patrol. The last time she had seriously gotten injured was during the last mission with the others a few days ago. All right, sure. She got tossed around a bit and got hits pretty intensely, but those bruises should have healed overnight.
So why were all those bruises still there? Did her healing slow down? Because right now her bruises looked like the way they would usually look right after a battle.
But just by looking at the state of her body, Gwen didn't know how to feel. She had never been in a physical state like this before, not even during her worst missions. Not even after the intense battle with The Spot had she looked this troublesome and disturbing.
And was it even normal to lose *this* much weight at once anyway? Her body looked like that of someone who had been doing this for way longer than her. But honestly, Gwen didn't care.
Knowing that she managed to get in a state like this because she didn't eat, because she held through with her power made her sickeningly proud of herself. She was so proud of herself that she was finally going through with something in her life for once.
And now? She had to stop this all, and that made her nearly break down onto the bathroom floor half naked. But she had to stop it all for her dad, at least for him. At least to improve the atmosphere around the house, to make him happy, to no longer hurt and disappoint him.
So Gwen got dressed for the day, washed her face and sorted out her hair with her fingers. She was traumatized by the clump of hair on her hairbrush from the last time, yet there was still a lot of hair caught in between her fingers and Gwen didn't know what to do about it anymore.
She was about to open her door that would lead her to the living room but halted immediately. If she were going to open the door now, then she would also have to greet her father, take a bowl and then prepare her cereal breakfast for herself.
The thought made her stomach churn, and Gwen pondered whether she should actually do that or not just leave through her window and swing to school. It seemed way more ideal and less nausea inducing anyway.
But after taking a few deep breaths and giving herself some reassurances, Gwen opened the door with a trembling hand and walked out to see her father preparing his daily morning coffee for himself. The moment he heard sound coming from her room, he looked at her and her heartbeat started picking up.
For a few seconds, they were staring into each other's eyes in awkward silence, until Gwen broke it.
"Good morning, dad," Gwen mumbled.
She tried to seem as laid back and relaxed as possible, but everything about her behavior said the complete opposite. She couldn't speak clearly, was fidgeting with her hands and was avoiding eye contact again.
He looked a little surprise, most likely not expecting for her to greet him after what went down yesterday.
"Good morning, Gwennie," he said.
Her heart soared a bit from him calling her by her nickname. Gwen slowly made her way to the fridge to pick up the milk, the box of cereals and a bowl, and then walked towards their dinner table, shocking the hell out of her dad.
After weeks of trying to convince her to eat, listening to a bunch of excuses and not seeing her eating anything other then maybe an apple, this sight was overwhelming to him. Seeing something that he had been wishing and hoping for for so long, made him smile. So he took his coffee and sat down in front of her at the table.
They didn't really talk at all during breakfast, as the air around them was still pretty tense. But holy shit, Gwen truly wanted him to talk right now, which was something new. She really needed that distraction.
She felt close to having a panic attack. It felt like she was entirely out of control, even though it was her choice and decision to do this. But with each bite, she felt like she could just throw it all up.
Gwen didn't want to be here. She wanted to escape this torture as quickly as possible. She felt disgusting and disgusted at herself after every bite she took, and suddenly, the harsh voice returned to call her out on her nasty behavior.
'How could you do this, Gwen? how can you sit here and eat, when you're the last person on earth to deserve it?'
Gwen could not enjoy her favorite cereals at all, (or at least they were once her favorite cereals) and felt her stomach swirling and churning thanks to her anxiety.
But it was all worth it she thought. Seeing her father this content, something she hadn't witnessed in so long - 'yeah, because of you' the voice whispered in her head - made it a bit worth it to sit through this torment.
Still, she couldn't help the way she was eating. Very slowly and carefully, chewing a million times, breaking each cereal into smaller pieces and throwing glances at her father, somehow hoping that he would save her by saying something like 'you don't have to finish it all'. But she knew that this was never going to happen.
In fact, once her bowl was empty, and she had actually finished her breakfast he said: "Don't you want to eat maybe some more?"
That thought was enough to cause Gwen a mini heart attack and she urgently said: "No dad, I'm good. I have to go to school now anyway."
The fact that he even thought that she could eat more blew her mind away. She would rather face the Green Goblin on a day to day basis.
And once Gwen left their apartment and stood outside, she took several shaky breaths. She didn't remember the last time she had to handle torture like this. She felt so sick to her stomach that she felt like throwing up.
She held a hand up to her mouth, trying to keep the bile back, because one thing worse than eating was throwing up, and it had always been one of her worst fears since her early childhood.
Eventually, Gwen made her way to the subway hoping that this feeling was just going to pass. It had to, because this was all for her dad.
*
Sitting through each and every class today, Gwen didn't even listen or pay attention once. It wasn't like she didn't care or didn't want to, but her breakfast kept on haunting her. She felt so weak for not being able to skip breakfast, so weak for losing control yet again.
She remembered the way she had looked and felt while standing in front of her mirror this morning. So proud of herself, so strong and so invincible. But now? it felt like her life was completely in the hands of someone else, some strong force that had its grips on her.
Her leg was jiggling throughout every class. Was it to deal with her sudden anxiety, to boost her metabolism (something she had 'coincidentally' come across online) or to distract herself? Maybe for all of these reasons.
She could literally feel the food digesting and all she wanted to do was run a whole marathon around the school yard and burn all the calories off.
'Calm down, Gwen. Just calm down,' Gwen repeatedly told herself.
But she couldn't. Her hands were balled into tight fists and her teeth were grinding to the point her jaw started hurting a bit. She looked at the clock on the wall and saw that she had twenty minutes left until chemistry class would be dismissed and it was lunchtime.
Until then, she had to stay patient and try to forget about breakfast, about the way she felt so nauseous, and about the fact that her body kept on yearning for more of that breakfast...
'Bad, Gwen. Very, very bad.'
The only thing that was able to pass time at this point was drawing into her notebook. She was no Miles, but that didn't mean she couldn't draw, even though she was only drawing a bunch of random symbols, flowers, faces of anime characters etc.
It was nice though, and sometimes she enjoyed it. Even now. But she wanted to get better like Miles. He was so good at it, and she always loved going through his sketchbook. Maybe he could teach her some tricks and give some tips as well.
And then her heart dropped to her stomach when she realized what she was thinking and snapped back to reality.
'Oh God, Miles,' Gwen thought in sorrow.
It hadn't been that long since she last saw him, but their last moment together had been an absolute mess, not something that anyone would've wanted to remember as their last meet up together.
The last time they truly hung out as friends, joking around, laughing, and talking freely about whatever they felt like was so long ago, Gwen didn't even remember when that was. But her heart ached for those moments.
She wondered what he must be doing. Going to school, patrolling around the city, hanging out with Ganke (who she had been introduced to by Miles), doing art. She hoped he was happy. Gwen dearly hoped that he was doing well, because nobody in the multiverse deserved happiness more than Miles.
Did her ever think about her? Did he miss her? Hell, Gwen missed him so much that whenever her mind made room for something else to think about, it was always him to come up first.
She missed his awkwardness, his crappy jokes that were able to make her laugh, they way they used to prank Miguel and he would let them because that was his way of apologizing to Miles, their conversations, just everything.
A part of her hoped that Miles missed her and would come to visit her, but then she reminded herself of how much worth he was and that she was definitely not worth him. She would only disrupt his happiness and demolish everything that made him so good.
So as much as it pained her, she hoped that he could move on from their friendship. Miles already had great people in his life. Hobie and Pavitr were always their for him, as friends but even more so as his older brothers. And from the times she had seen Ganke, he seemed like a wonderful friends for him too.
It should be easy for him to forget about her, to move on from her. But holy shit, did that thought just sting and shot a knife through her heart.
Maybe, maybe Gwen *did* have a crush on Miles, and maybe her heart *did* flutter every time she was around him. If Hobie were to find out, he would certainly smugly tell her something like: "Yeah and the sky is blue and water is wet," (or whatever. This guy's language was unpredictable.)
But Miles certainly never made any move on her romantically other than throwing his arm around her, something that she had seen him do with his other friends too. And why should he be with her anyway? Her love would only contaminate him with her darkness.
He deserved better than that. He deserved a girl who could love him without poisoning him, even if the idea of another girl with him made her sick with envy. Just the mental image of Miles being happily in love with a girl who was everything that Gwen could never be made her really, really jealous, and she had shook that thought out of her mind before she would start reacting in the middle of the class.
But she had to move on from him, just like he most likely had moved on from her already.
*
After class was dismissed and it was time to eat lunch, Gwen was contemplating yet again.
She wanted to do this for her father, to see him happy, and to make home life for him not such a terrible experience. But at the same time, he would never find out about whether or not she skipped lunch at school.
And after this morning's fiasco, Gwen really didn't want to experience the same torment again. It was too much for her to handle, especially because she was already going to eat dinner with him this evening, too. Three times would be too much.
So she changed her lane and walked back to the library like always.
During that time, Gwen was just mindlessly doodling in her notebook and listening to music, because at this point, she had completely stopped caring about homework. She wanted to care, she really, really wanted to. But she couldn't, and so she just stopped doing them all together.
And the music she was listening to? It didn't even sound good, even though she was listening to her playlist of all her favorite songs.
But nothing in her life gave her any kind of rush anymore. Everything felt and looked grey, music didn't sound great, the sun was no longer shining for her, and she lost interest in all of her hobbies. She didn't remember the last time she actually sat down and played her drums.
The only thing that made her feel good at this point was being Spider-Woman. Just the way she could freely jump and swing around the city and beat up the bad guys, it all made her feel like she had a purpose left in life.
And all Gwen could do every day was counting back the hours she could finally either patrol around the city again, or receive a signal or something of sort that could notify her about another criminal around.
*
Gwen had hoped that with skipping lunch she would start feeling a little better, and while yes, she surely felt better than she did this morning, she nearly ran home and changed into her suit in super speed just so she could start patrolling as soon as possible.
And with that she means that she wants to burn off all the calories immediately.
Patrolling was definitely easier when she was swinging around, because once her feet would touch solid ground, they would start aching and then Gwen would have to sit down on a rooftop, hug her legs to her chest, try getting some relieve by massaging her legs and feet and hope that it would stop.
Long story short, the pain never really went away, but Gwen was adamant to keep on pushing herself beyond her own limits.
*
Her father cooked Mexican rice with chicken, one of her favorite meals from her childhood.
At first glance, Gwen thought that it looked delicious and it smelled heavenly. But one second thought, Gwen wanted to run away.
"You're just on time for dinner, Gwen," her dad said enthusiastically, as he put their food onto their plate.
Gwen gave a tight smile and said: "Great, can't wait."
She probably sounded sarcastic as hell, which made her wince because she realized that that was definitely the case, but regardless, she took her plate and sat down with her father.
This time around, the TV served as a distraction because it was finally not her own inner voice that was the only thing around, even if the only thing the TV was showing was some politician from some state talking too much and saying absolutely nothing.
Gwen was staring at her plate as her spoon was going through the food. It looked so good and the smell was enough to make her go high, but she didn't want to eat it, or more so, couldn't get herself to eat it.
But when she looked up and saw her father curiously staring at her plate, eagerly waiting for her to start eating, she surrendered and hesitantly took a spoonful.
The food was warm, almost hot, and her whole body shivered at the sudden heat. Her body was ice cold, despite the summer opening its doors. No matter what she tried, wearing many layers of clothing, sleeping with a heating pad and taking hot showers, she just could not get herself to warm up.
But it was only through eating this warm meal that she finally felt some type of relief from the cold.
It felt so... good. This was Gwen's first meal in what felt like forever, and suddenly she couldn't stop. It was as if her mind just shut off for the rest of the meal, and Gwen just continued eating in a hazy state.
Not only was it absolutely tasty, but her body was also thanking her. Is this what taking drugs felt like? If that was the case, then she was going to apologize the next time she saw a drug dealer before fighting them.
The moment Gwen finished her entire plate, was when realization hit her and she felt deeply and utterly ashamed of herself. 'Oh my God, what have I done?'
She held the spoon in a very tight grip, almost breaking it into halves as she continued staring at her fully empty plate. Nothing was left behind, but she could not help it. She was just so hungry, tired, had a permanent headache, and her mind was no longer functioning the way it once did.
Breakfast this morning was one thing. She felt chained down and had to do it, even if it was her own decision. But this dinner was a result of Gwen losing herself and losing control, and she hated herself immensely for that.
"Was it good? I know how much you loved it when you were younger," Gwen heard her dad say, who didn't seem to have noticed her inner turmoil.
Gwen looked up and smiled at him, hoping her discomfort wasn't obvious: "Oh yes, it was wonderful."
It wasn't a lie, but Gwen wished it was, because how dare she enjoy this when she didn't deserve to?
"I'm think I'm gonna study now for a bit. I have a chemistry test next week," Gwen said and promptly got up to leave for her room.
*
Gwen didn't study, obviously.
Instead, she spent that entire evening in her room panicking and questioning what the hell she just did.
But there was no other explanation than the fact that she was weak. So weak and so out of control, no wonder nothing in her life ever went right. She was so weak that she couldn't even not eat, and in fact even enjoyed it.
And it was that night when she tried to sleep but could neither relax nor properly sleep, because her mind just would not shut up.
It was aggressive, malicious and borderline evil, but Gwen agreed to the voice in her head anyway. It didn't feel like it ever lied, though. It felt like a friend who just told you the truth even if the truth broke your heart.
And that friend could never leave you.
*
The realization happened in a way that Gwen never expected it to.
She was waiting at the subway for her train to come to take her back home after school, when suddenly two girls passed by.
Thanks to her superhearing - which was unfortunately a curse at times - she picked up on their conversation.
"Can you look?" the blonde whispered to the girl next to her.
The brunette took a couple steps back, looked at her friends butt and the said: "Nope, all good," and then the two continued walking like nothing happened.
Gwen chuckled, understanding immediately what was going on and guessing that this was apparently a universal behavior for girl.
But suddenly another thought hit her like a truck, because Gwen couldn't remember the last time she had had her period. It had been so long, that Gwen never noticed it being gone to begin with.
And now, she was slowly starting to get worried because, even though her period had always been kind of inconsistent, she never missed it. Was this normal? Probably not.
A logical part of her brain said: 'Go to a fucking doctor, Gwen!' But another voice said: 'It's most likely just because of stress.'
Yes, stress. That sounded more plausible, especially because she had been stressed out to hell and back. The past week, Gwen had been forcing herself to eat breakfast and dinner, and she couldn't remember the last time she had ever been this stressed out before.
It was like walking through hellfire, and no matter how much she thought of quitting and going back to the old ways, seeing her father so happy every time she sat down to eat with him would be holding her back again.
The only reason why she started out was to make him happy, but it only resulted in making Gwen more and more miserable. The anxiety would be enough to keep her up all night, and what went from sleeping through the night as if she were in a coma, turned into not getting a glimpse of sleep at all.
And not only that, but there was a lot of pent up anger that she could not get a relief from. Was it anger at herself? At her dad? Both of them? Maybe, but mostly towards herself. But it didn't matter because she just wanted it to stop.
Once she arrived home and suited herself up to start patrolling, she cam across a group of criminals who were trying to rob a bank.
"Damn guys, in broad daylight? I think this is far beyond brave at this point," Gwen said as she started fighting them.
She had to use all her strength without holding herself back, because this was the only way she could fight at this point.
And it happened so suddenly. One of the guys took out his crowbar while she was fighting the other three, and hit her with it on her stomach as hard as he could, making her jostle and fall backwards.
She couldn't breathe for a mere second as she was too busy dealing with the pain of the strong hit. But strangely enough, the pain felt good. With all the anger she had been feeling towards herself, getting a really good hit felt like some kind of relief.
And so, Gwen accepted each and every hit during the fight without even really attemtping to block them off. She let them do it, until she felt like she was about to pass out and immediately made a cut to it by taking the crowbar away with her web and putting an end to the fight.
"It was nice to meet you guys, but I have to go now," Gwen said after webbing those guys up, and left.
*
Gwen was lucky that the guy didn't hit her any further up her stomach, because that could have caused several broken rips.
It was late in the evening, and Gwen was getting dressed into her pajamas when she saw a huge purple bruise covering her belly. It looked horrifying at first glance, and it made it quite difficult for to take in deep breaths as well, but this pain was absolute heaven.
It felt like a punishment for each and every meal that she ate, which Gwen deemed as a lot, even though it was not as much she thought it was. She still ate way too little.
Her breakfast was too small. It was the size of a meal for a small child, not a crime fighter who had an accelerated metabolism. Dinner could not make up to the hour long patrols and the lack of lunch either.
She was still very hungry, and whenever she got lost in the meal again, she still felt hungry after finishing each plate. But to Gwen's sick brain it was still way too much food that she consumed. She would preferably not eat any of that.
It felt like, no matter what she did, everything went wrong. She stopped eating and felt at her most powerful. But then everyone around her started getting fidgety and scared to death around her. However, when she tried to get better for her loved ones, she felt like an absolute wreck.
Like a ship that was repeatedly getting wrecked.
What on earth was she supposed to do?
*
Ever since that patrol, where Gwen had let that guy beat her up with a crowbar, she had started getting more and more reckless during fights. Letting the bad guys beat her up, purposely crashing against walls and so on.
And whenever she was not out there fighting, and instead either at home or at school, and she felt this urge for some sort of relief, she would scratch her arms with her fingernails until they would start bleeding.
Maybe this was completely foolish and Gwen had officially lost her mind, but she could blame that on her lack of sleep. She felt herself getting high every time she saw blood on her arms, as if the effect of a pain killer had kicked in. As if the shame left her body with each drop of blood.
But they never had a full effect, because even if she were 'fine' during the day, night times were the absolute horror. There was no escape from the darkness of her mind whenever she would lay in her bed.
It was just so tiring. Gwen was tired and felt the exhaustion deep within her hurting bones - literally, her bones caused a lot of physical pain - and she didn't know for how long she could endure this any longer.
It had been almost two weeks since she started eating again, and Gwen felt like walking on a very thin tightrope.
And once the calendar hit the 13 day mark of her in this routine of eating breakfast and dinner, Gwen hit a breaking point that night.
It was the desire to just sleep again with an empty mind, the desire to get rid of the boiling anger she just could not escape unless she stopped eating, and the wish to feel strong again.
Gwen just wanted to be strong, was that so much to ask for?
*
The timer was set back to its original time, and Gwen woke up later that morning like she did before.
And it was all fine and all good, until she opened the door and saw her father who was waiting for her.
"Morning, Gwen. Forgot to get up on time? Come on, you still have some time left. I can drive you," he said.
"It's okay dad. I'm-" Gwen hesitated for a moment. "I'm not really hungry. I have to go now, but thanks anyway."
Gwen didn't leave room for him to say anything, but his facial expressions were enough. He looked utterly defeated, and like he fell to pieces right in front of her, because he knew what her words meant. She was going back to her self-destructive behavior, and he could not do anything about it this time.
But Gwen just walked past him, and left to go to school. And the second she exited the apartment building, she felt tears welling up in her eyes.
God, that look on his face nearly broke her apart right on the spot, and she wanted to go back inside and say 'I'm sorry, dad. I'm so sorry. Please don't be sad. I'll do it just for you.'
But she couldn't do that. She just wanted to stop feeling like a complete failure. She just wanted to be strong. She just wanted to be good...
Her hand was still on the doorknob, but eventually she just let it go and made her way to school.