Chapter Text
Flippin’ through all these magazines
Telling me who I’m supposed to be
Elena would never say it but she was scared. Scared to go outside with her sydnificant other after what happened. But looking down at these magazines was angering her.
She didn’t have to love a man to be happy.
Why did people have a hard time seeing that?
Why was it hard for him to accept her?
She felt a tear roll down her face as she thought of her father. It landed on the page she was staring at.
It was festive in color to try and demonstrate pride but it had a photo of a man and a woman, which angered her in the first place.
The man reminded her of her father but she couldn’t tell you why and the loud colors were a painful reminder of the fact that her father didn’t accept her.
Way too good at camouflage
Can't see what I am, I just see what I'm not
Penelope had a sense of style you couldn’t tone down if you tried. But at the same time the woman would say that it was all together tame.
However, joining the army made it so she forgot what she liked and what she didn’t. It was like she was a baby going through the clothes aisle trying to find what fancied her. Looking at all the dull clothing only made her mind wander over to the conversation her and her mother had.
It was about her marriage going south and how it didn’t match the Cuban culture. Her mother always did know how to make her feel bad.
She could always call Schneider but she didn’t really feel like it right at this very moment. All Penelope needed to be focused on was shopping for new clothes because her old ones got ripped by Alex.
I'm guilty 'bout everything that I eat (Every single day)
Feelin' myself is a felony
Jedi level sabotage
Voices in my head make up my entourage
It was a normal day but for Alex, it was the worst day somebody could ever have. They had been shoving food down his throat since they found out he was underweight in hopes to help him gain weight.
Well, they didn’t know that his tooth brush went down his throat after almost every meal. But what they don’t know won’t kill them. All that mattered was that he got back down to the weight he was before he started to put on weight.
“Their jealous of you”
They were jealous of him. He was skinny and that meant he was on the way to being perfect. They wanted to change him because he was perfect and they couldn’t handle that. That was their problem and he needed to be skinny.
He needed to be perfect.
So when he was looking down at his dinner, he couldn’t eat it.
He just…
He couldn’t.
Alex felt this anxiety in the pit of his stomach and his hands were shaking.
Was this what it was like to have a panic attack?
He couldn’t eat dinner because it had a thousand calories compacted into it.
They put grease onto his plate while he wasn’t looking. They all thought he was stupid but he knew what they were doing.
They were trying to get him fat and he couldn’t be fat.
He just might die if that happened.
“Um….I don’t feel really good. Can I be excused?” Alex asked his mother.
“Papito, you feeling okay, you look kinda pale” Abulita asked, putting a hand to his forehead.
He pulled away from it and looked back at his mother who had yet to say anything.
“Ya, okay. You can be excused” Penelope said looking deep into her son's eyes.
Alex got up and went to his room. He needed to get rid of the soda that he drank but he didn’t want to disturb his family. If they hear him then it would be lights out for losing weight and that is something that he needed to do.
“Do it anyways”
“Fat”
“You look like a whale”
“It’ll cause you to gain weight”
Feeling that anxiety creep back in, he got up and went to the bathroom, locking the door behind him. He turned on the shower and grabbed the toothbrush from the cup.
He grabbed a hold onto the bristle and put the end down his throat. It hurt and all that came up was bile that burned his throat.
It brought tears to his eyes and he was stopping every couple of seconds to make sure nobody was going to come in, even though it was locked.
After he was done, he got undressed and was going to get into the shower. He grabbed the towel and swiped the mirror.
His stomach fat was overflowing and his arms were filled with fat. There was hardly any muscle, just fat. Everywhere on his body was a surprising amount of fat, it bugged him.
A pounding at the door startled him.
“I’ll be out in a second just wait” Alex said and jumped into the shower.
He didn’t wash anything, he was in the shower only long enough to get wet. Alex grabbed the towel and put his clothes back on.
He went into his room and fell asleep once his head hit the pillow. What he didn’t know was what Elena discovered after he left. His toothbrush was on top of the bathroom toilet, the end still covered in bile.