Chapter Text
The third time Billy eats himself sick, he means to be sick, he means for that to happen. The third time— and every time after— it’s intentional.
It happens not too long after Neil brings Susan and Maxine into Billy’s life. Billy has watched women paraded in and out of his life. Maybe it was foolish of him, but he really didn’t think any would last. With Susan, he thinks he was wrong.
And she has a daughter. None of the others had kids. Not that he knew of, anyway. It’s a complication Billy never thought he’d have to deal with until this kid is just there.
Susan and Maxine just keep coming around. And before he knows it, Billy becomes a babysitter against his will. Walk Maxine home from school, keep an eye on her until Susan gets home, watch her while Neil and Susan go out for dinner.
But there’s food, now. Not just the food Billy hides away, but real food. Susan and Maxine are by so often, Susan is stocking the kitchen here.
When the urge to eat strikes, when Billy feels like a storm raging through and destroying everything in his wake, he has to stay away from the kitchen. Somebody will notice, now.
You would think, with food around, with Susan cooking meals, real actual dinners. You would think that Billy wouldn’t keep eating like that, like his stomach is an empty abyss.
There was a time, actually, that it was happening less often. Between the time he spent with his friends, or the time he spent fixing up cars with Ken, maybe Billy didn’t have much time for that sort of thing. Or maybe he was getting good at eating like a normal person, with all the practice he’d been giving it.
And Neil hadn’t been home much.
Neil’s around a lot, now, though. They’re all playing house here, together. Billy doesn’t want to play house. He knows what it’s like in this house, how it feels, what goes on. He wants no part in this. But it’s not up to Billy, not if he knows what’s good for him.
Neil has always been angry with Billy. Billy, who reminds him of the wife that left him. Billy has been his punching bag for years. But now, Neil has someone he wants to impress, a family he’s envisioning. And Billy sticks out like a sore thumb. Billy is Neil’s son, but he isn’t the son Neil wants, he isn’t what Neil expects him to be.
Neil being around more means that he’s actually noticing Billy. And he’s not impressed. Neil wants to play house and Billy isn’t playing along, Billy doesn’t fit into the house Neil is trying to build.
When pieces don’t fit, you either throw them out or you hammer them into shape.
Things get ugly again. But Billy’s older, and he doesn’t have the greatest reputation these days. Teachers don’t care what happens to a boy like him. He’s trouble. Whatever becomes of him, he probably deserves it.
He’s on edge all the time. The hunger gnaws at him.
The third time it happens, Billy has plans with Alex. Alex always knows the dives with live music, all the underground shows happening in the area. Some local bands are playing that night and Billy’s been psyching himself up for days.
Billy’s life and schedule revolve around Maxine now. And he wants to hate her for it, but the best he can muster up is resentment. She’s taken over his life and neither of them can do anything about it.
The problem is, she’s kind of a cool kid. She hangs out with mostly boys and she plays videogames and she’s been begging for a skateboard. She’s not what Neil thinks a young girl is supposed to look or act like. Billy respects that.
This doesn’t mean he likes having to skip out on his own plans because he’s expected to cater to Maxine’s every need.
Going to shows with Alex is the one thing Billy has that hasn’t been touched by this new fake family. Billy’s not Maxine’s keeper after dinner time. His nights are free.
“You got a fake, right?”
Billy rolls his eye, “You know they never card.”
Alex laughs, “Maybe not you, some of us got baby faces, dude.”
Billy’s pretty sure the bars and the bands don’t actually care. He waves the fake ID at Alex anyway, to confirm that he’s got it.
The bands are okay, not one band that really stands out, not any sound that catches his interest. The music is loud and fast, the pit swells and moves, bodies pushed this way and that. That’s really the point of it all, Billy thinks. Losing yourself to the mass, moving together, and then shoving away. A controlled violence.
Billy and Alex get separated, like usual, swept in different directions. They always meet up again after the show, but it doesn’t really matter when they’re moving in the crowd.
Between sets, Billy heads out the side exit for a smoke. He picked up smoking a while back, with Nate, before he moved away. Alex doesn’t approve, always complaining how the smell reminds him of his abuela. Whatever.
Billy feels a shoulder nudge his own.
“Bum a smoke?” The guy says.
The guy doesn’t look too much older than Billy, honestly. A little taller, maybe, but still lanky and awkward in that way some older teenagers are. His hair is long and could maybe look halfway decent when it’s not stringy from sweat. He’s grinning at Billy likes they’re friends.
“Last one, sorry,” Billy lies.
And this guy, he has the audacity to pluck the cigarette right out of Billy’s hand.
“Guess we’ll have to share. You don’t mind.”
Huh. The thing is, Billy’s not sure he does mind. He can’t look away from where the guy is holding the cigarette up to his own mouth.
Billy’s queer, he knows this. He’s been aware for a while now. But he hasn’t… Acted on it. He hasn’t had the occasion to act on it, even. In fact, since Nate left, Billy hasn’t even really wanted to.
But this guy is smoking Billy’s cigarette, and then holding it back out toward him, not handing it over, but making Billy crane himself toward it, smoke it while it still rests between this guy’s fingers.
And Billy wants. More than he’s ever wanted anything. Billy hasn’t known a want like this before.
Before he can do anything, or say anything. Before Billy can even make up his mind about how to react, the guy is patting his cheek with his hand, and walking away with Billy’s smoke.
He tosses a, “See you around, kid” over his shoulder as he goes.
Billy wants to chase him down, wants to take his smoke back, wants to throw the cigarette to the ground because they don’t need it. They don’t need it, this shitty placeholder for what their mouths could be doing.
“Wait!” He shouts, before he can stop himself.
Surprisingly, it seems to work. The guy stops in his tracks and turns back around. He’s grinning, like he had planned this all along. Maybe he had, Billy doesn’t care.
Billy feels brave. Or stupid. If there’s a difference between brave and stupid, he hasn’t found it yet. Brave gets him smacked around just as much as stupid does, it just lets him feel angry about it instead of hurt. Bravery is stupidity with confidence, he thinks.
But this is the stupidest thing he’s ever done and that also makes it the bravest. Because next thing he knows, he’s kissing a stranger on the side on this shitty dive bar. And if Billy misread the situation, this could go sideways fast.
But he hasn’t. Not if the way he’s being kissed back is any indication.
Later that night, Alex and Billy are exchanging notes about their nights. Mostly, they compare cuts and bruises, badges of honor from a night spent thrashing in the mosh pit.
Billy leaves out the part where he made out with a stranger outside the bar. The act itself had been foolish enough, even if it also made Billy feel brave as hell. But to talk about it, openly, with anybody. To cop to something like that. No, not on his life.
Billy’s a lot of things, not all of them good. But he’s not naïve. There are some things you don’t talk about with just anybody. Some things, even, that you take to the grave without ever saying them out loud.
And the closer he gets to home, the excitement of the night starts to shift into something else. The feeling that he’s done something he can’t come back from. Because now that he’s done the very thing he’s been avoiding all this time, he knows it will happen again and again.
Sneaking back into his room, it sinks in. Billy is well and truly screwed. A secret is only safe if it stays inside the walls of your own head. Now that he’s let it out into the real world, let it become something physical, there’s no more containing it.
Neil will find out, one day. Or, if not him, somebody else. Somebody else who doesn’t care for that sort of thing.
Billy hasn’t felt safe for years. Not since his mom left, that’s for sure. Maybe not even before that, if he’s honest. Maybe he’s never really been safe at all. But tonight, studying himself in the mirror in his room, he’s acutely aware of the danger he’s in.
He tries to look at himself up close, from every angle. He’s sure that if he looks close enough, he’ll be able to see it. He’s sure that Neil will see it, right away. Something has changed.
He wants to scream, he wants to knock everything to the ground, he wants to smash the mirror to pieces, he wants the pieces to dig into his palms, he wants to bleed all over this fucking room.
Instead, he’s digging under his bed, tearing open food packages and swallowing bites before he’s really chewed them. It scrapes and scratches in his throat but he doesn’t fucking care because he wants to feel anything except this. This aching empty feeling, this fucking… Fear. Has it been fear this whole time? He wants to bury it under all this fucking food until its smothered and dead.
When he stops, he feels worse instead of better.
This… Food thing. This is his evidence of original sin, he thinks. He’s not all that religious these days, they stopped going to church when his mom left. But he remembers this much. Adam and Eve eating the apple, original sin. Billy is sick in the head, he thinks.
Like his mom was. That’s what Neil says, sometimes. She was sick in the head. “Not right”. Billy’s just like her. Neil’s always thought so, that’s why some days he can’t even stand the sight of Billy. Sometimes, Billy can’t stand the sight of himself, either.
This time, when he hunches over the toilet bowl, it’s on purpose. He can fix this. He can cleanse himself, if he can just figure out how to make this happen.
It only takes a couple tries. The process leaves something to be desired, of course. It’s uncomfortable and painful, and he feels more than a little awkward trying to figure out the mechanism. Even after it’s done, he can feel bile burning his throat and nose.
But he feels better, finally. This is one problem he can fix. When it happens, the black hole opening up inside him, he can sacrifice everything to it. And then he can vomit it all up, black hole included.
He can empty himself of this sin, even as he commits it again and again.
And the other thing, well. He doesn’t feel the same fear or guilt or shame about that, either. It’s far away now, like those feelings came up along with everything else. He’s flushing them away.