Holding To The Ground

Peter was happy. He pushed down the constant seed of doubt telling him it wasn’t real, it wouldn’t last, and focused on the joy that felt so foreign now.

He woke up on Monday morning to the smell of frying eggs. He sat up slowly, stopping when he felt his hand sink into the material beneath him. All at once he realized he had slept on the couch. He gasped, his stomach cramping up from more than just the ever-present hunger he had almost gotten used to. Holy shit, he was using the couch, he was using May’s couch. He shot up to his feet, already imagining what May would do when she noticed the wrinkles in the couch fabric, the bits of fluff stuck on his pants—

“Hey, babe, I’m making breakfast. Want some?”

He whipped around to face the kitchen, where May stood in a pink bathrobe and matching slippers. He watched, every muscle tense, as she wedged a spatula beneath an under-cooked egg and slid it onto an empty plate. She placed it next across from an already full platter of eggs and Peter shook at the quiet clunk that resounded as the porcelain hit wood. 

“Peter?”

Peter blinked. He looked at himself; he was standing on the floor. After sitting on the couch. And he was...okay. Rumpled, but comfortable. Scarred, but not newly wounded. Almost healed. “Yes,” he said, smiling softly. “I would.”

He moved to stand next to the table. He folded his hands in front of him and rocked on the balls of his feet.

May glanced at him. “Are you going to sit?”

”I can sit?”

She giggled. “Of course! This is your house, too.”

”...Oh. Thank you.”

May hummed her affirmation. Peter tentatively pulled the chair out from under the table, and it groaned in disuse. He cringed at the sound.

He bent his knees slowly until his bottom just barely touched the seat of the chair. He held his breath as he shifted his weight, bit by bit, until he was fully seated and comfortable. He sighed, a mix of relief and contentment.

He noticed that the eggs in front of him were scrambled, cooked to near perfection despite May’s subpar ability as a chef. Peter smiled despite himself.

May sat across from him and plunged her fork into her own meal. They ate in silence. May’s eyes skimmed the newspaper in front of her. Peter was too afraid of shattering the seemingly fragile moment by saying the wrong thing.

After wolfing down his less than satisfying breakfast, Peter stood, ignoring the way his stomach only screamed for more. “Thanks for the eggs, May. I’ll see you when I get back from school.”

She hummed in acknowledgement and turned a page. He took that as a goodbye, gathered his books, and left.

——

Over the next few days, they developed a routine. May made Peter breakfast—although she never invited him to sleep on anything softer than the floor again—and somehow cooked every dish perfectly. The only exception was Thursday night, when she caught him crying silently in the corner. He shakily sat at the table the next day. All of the blood drained from his face when he she gently handed him a plateful of pancakes, burnt to a crisp and sprinkled with mint, a rare May knew he couldn’t stand since the bite. The blows that followed were painful, but not as much as the awkward silence when he slunk into second period twenty minutes late, the same disgusting hoodie he’d been wearing all week hiding an ever growing bruise on his side.

Otherwise, things were alright. He came home from school so exhausted he could hardly hold his eyes open and tiptoed past May, hoping against hope she wouldn’t notice him. If she ever did, she never acknowledged his presence. Then, he shut himself in his room until the next morning.

After coming home from school the next Tuesday, he saw that May was nowhere to be found. His stomach growled so loudly he worried the neighbors may hear, and before he even knew what was happening his feet had moved him in front of the fridge. He paused; he hadn’t opened that fridge in weeks. He had started to pin his dirty, rumpled jeans to keep them from falling down to his ankles, and the stained, smelly hoodie that has once fit perfectly now swallowed his wafer thin frame. He figured he’d shrunk at least four sizes since May had found him in the mask.

But May had made him meals every day for a week, right? Surely he could just sneak a snack and she wouldn’t mind. He hesitantly opened the fridge, shivering at the cold air that rushed out of it.

The next minute was a blur. Somehow, a pudding cup ended up empty and in the trash can, and Peter’s stomach quieted its rumbling the smallest amount. His clawing hunger satiated the smallest amount, Peter trudged to his room and layed down on the floor, hardly able to stand. Before he could process how much the wood beneath him hurt as it pressed into his yellowing bruise, he was asleep.

He woke up to the apartment door shutting. He blinked the film of sleep off of his eyes and raised his head. He listened to May pad through the apartment, dropping her bag on the table and hanging up her keys with a faint jingle. She unwrapped some snack wrapped in incredibly loud plastic, then opened the trash can to toss it out. All movement stopped.

Something in the trash can rustled. Then, footsteps, loud and angry, began approaching Peter’s room. He sat up, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

The door slammed open and Peter jumped backwards, sprawled in the corner. May threw his empty pudding cup at his head, and he cowered as it bounced harmlessly off of his skull. 

“What the hell is this?” She snarled. Peter shivered. 

May took a step closer. “What is it?” She repeated.

”Pudding,” he whispered.

”Pudding. And I know I didn’t eat it. So who did?”

Peter whimpered in reply.

”Who. Did.”

”M-me.”

She stared at him, her cold eyes cutting to his very core and if she wished to see inside of him. Peter wilted beneath her harsh gaze.

Finally, she crossed the room and grabbed his arm. He flinched when her skin hit his. She pulled him off of the floor and began dragging him down the hallway. “I’m too tired for your shit, today. You’re doing this punishment by yourself,” she said.

She threw open the bathroom door and tossed Peter in. He hit the ground hard, and the impact kicked the breath out of his chest. He struggled to pull in air, sprawled over the cold tile floor. May stood menacingly in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, watching.

Finally, he managed to stutter his lungs back to life and gulped in air greedily. He slowly turned his head up to face May, her sneering face obscured by the greasy strands of hair that fell into his eyes.

”Get rid of it,” she commanded simply.

”What?” He asked stupidly.

She gestured to the toilet. “The pudding wasn’t yours. Get rid of it. In there.” Peter’s eyes widened, and when he cocked his head, she pretended to shove two fingers down her throat.

Peter’s skin turned white. He didn’t even think of the consequences before he asked, “Are you serious?”

All she had to do was cock an eyebrow and Peter knew the answer.

Slowly, Peter turned to face the toilet. Suddenly it was menacing, something far more malevolent than a household appliance. He hauled his body upwards until he rested on his knees, his head hanging over the bowl. He glanced back at May, almost expecting her to reveal that the whole thing was a prank, a big joke, and they were going out for dinner or to see a movie afterwards. But she just nodded at his silent question. He turned back to the bowl.

He lifted two shaking fingers to his mouth, which he held wide open. He pushed them as far as he’d ever done before, when he was eight and curious, then a little further. Nothing happened. He tried again, then again. He thrusted then back, sharper this time, and was rewarded with a slight gag. He added a third finger and shoved them into his throat as roughly as he could. His entire body heaved so hard that his eyes watered, a single tear escaping one eye. However, nothing came up. He didn’t know if he could produce anything. The pudding had probably already been metabolized.

He looked back up to May. “Please...” he whispered, feeling the cold tear roll down his cheek. “I...I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She glared at him like he was a roach she wanted desperately to crush beneath her foot. Tears slipped freely down his face and he turned back to his task.

His gags began to mix with his sobs, forcing his entire body to shake and twitch in time with his spasms. He scrunched his eyes shut and tried to forget that this was happening, forget the fingers pounding the back of his throat and the cold porcelain he gripped with his free hand. One gag overlapped a sob and he felt bile shoot up his throat, then retreat. He was struck with a sudden idea.

He waited until he felt his next sob coming on, hard and striking. Just at its peak, he thrusted his fingers back into his throat and pain erupted the soft flesh they struck. He quickly removed his hand as his stomach contracted once, twice, three times. Finally, with a monumental heave, he spit up a mouthful of acid and water. It splashed weakly into the bowl of water and Peter slumped to the ground. A string of bile hung from his lips, and the taste of vomit filled his nose and mouth.

He looked up to May, panting. She considered him for a moment, then nodded and left. She shut the door behind her, and he heard her drag from the kitchen a chair and leave it in front of handle. Her footsteps faded into the distance and the springs of the couch squeaked.

Peter slowly dragged himself to the door. From his spot collapsed on the floor, he reached up and jiggled the handle. It stopped short, and suddenly he was sure she had propped a chair there specifically to block him in.

He let his hand hit the floor and dropped his head. The cold from the tile seeped slowly into his body until he shivered where he lay. Exhaustion spread heavy through his bones, tempting him into sleep, a world without bile coating his tongue and a door blocked by a shitty wooden chair he would surely be able to break had he eaten anything real in the past three weeks.

The warm waters of sleep lapped at the edges of his mind, and he let them wash over his frail body and carry him out to sea.