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It broke John to put him on the diet, but Dean’s last physical hadn’t gone well — after the scale broke John had gotten an earful from the doctor.
“He needs to lose weight, John, or he won’t make twenty-five.”
It had been a slap in the face he needed, that warning. It woke him up to what he’d been doing, what he’d let happen.
But every time he looked at Dean he didn’t see the 698lb twenty-year-old spoiled brat who was never going to get a job, who threw his plate across the room if he didn’t get a fourth serving of dinner, or cried when he didn’t get the latest video game on release date.
Whenever he looked at Dean he saw the malnourished and dirty seven-year-old, with weary eyes, who hadn’t eaten in a week because he’d given all his food to his younger brother. Who was dying because John didn’t care enough to check that he had enough money to live on, who’d been abandoned for weeks because John was so hell-bent on revenge for the death of his wife that he’d forgotten he was a father. Every time Dean looked at him he couldn’t say no, he couldn’t refuse him anything.
He’d looked back at how awful he’d been, how little he cared about his own son, and he’d break and give in to his every demand — but the guilt that had been eating away at him was now killing Dean. So he had said no more.
No more takeout orders whenever Dean wanted, no seconds thirds fourths or fifths at dinner, no more buying anything Dean demanded — “It stops now,” John told him, “It’s for your own good,” he’d tried to explain.
Dean screamed and cried, red-faced — he stomped his feet hard into the ground, sending his body into a frenzy of jiggles and shaking a few picture frames from the mantle. After a few minutes of tantruming without John giving in, Dean stormed off to his room, waddling ponderously, wheezing and panting, and then slammed his door hard. Every second of it had broken John’s heart and he’d slumped onto the sofa and cried for an hour afterwards.
He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t keep it up — but he had to, for Dean’s sake.