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“I need to talk to you in the breakroom,” Robby tells him, when it becomes clear the lull in the ED is here to stay for a little while. The best case they have is a kid with a broken arm but everyone's too cautious to mention the current rest they’ve been given.
“Is everything okay?” Frank asks, biting down the urge to ask if he's gonna accuse him of stealing saline.
Santos tenses next to him, she’d apologized for the accusation when it became clear he wasn't a thief. Saying she didn't want any trouble and would like to start over. Frank had just shrugged, said everything was fine, and that while they were far from friends, they were civil. He and Robby live in the same gray area that he and Santos do. They don’t fight, only speak over patients about treatment, and work well together but that’s all.
Frank knows it’s grating on Dana. Her eyes follow him whenever he walks away from Robby. She’s become desperate enough to resort to cornering him in the break room to ask how long he’d hold this grudge. When he tried to claim he wasn't holding onto anything, she threatened to hit him.
“Yeah, everything's fine. It should be quick.” He nods twice, handing off the chart in his hands to Santos before following Robby to the breakroom. They pass Dana leaving it, she and Robby have an entire conversation with their eyes directly in front of him. Leaving him feeling slightly left out. She gives a smile, not a true one, no teeth and slightly taunt, to Frank before getting back to her station.
“What's up?” He asks when the door shuts, trying not to show any signs of the anxiety crawling into his gut. He’s fine, he’s not an addict. There’s nothing Robby can confront him over. The room’s fully empty, he notes to himself. Usually, there’s at least one person in here. It makes him wonder if a memo about it went around. Robby stands closer to the door, trying and failing to appear casual. His shoulders straight and hands on his hips, completely blocking him from accessing the door.
“Are you eating?” The words short-circuit his brain, mostly because it’s so unexpected, and because it means it’s finally showing. He knows it is, he’s been watching the numbers climb down on the scale and his bones slowly become more prominent, poking through his skin. But for someone to notice, to ask. He’s doing better than he thought. Excitement mixes with the anxiety.
“What kind of fucking question is that? Of course, I’m eating” He has exactly one thousand calories a day. Never more, two hundred less than he would eat in high school cause although his kids give him more than a workout he's not an athlete anymore. He doesn't need extra calories to burn.
“Dana and Collins have both come to me because of how thin you are. None of us have seen you eat more than a granola bar in the last month.” He’s being watched and he has no fucking idea. People have been watching his every move. It makes him sick. He wonders who else has been tracking him.
“Oh forgive me I didn't realize I was being fucking stalked.”
“They’re not stalking. They’re worried.” They, Robby says. They are worried because he is not. Why would he be? Frank is his best resident, nothing else. He can find another Frank in the next class coming in.
“Well tell them I’m fucking fine.” He goes to leave, maneuvering around the brick wall Robby’s created, but he stops him quickly with a hand covering the doorknob. Any false casualty has fully melted away.
“If you're so fine how about you have some lunch?” Robby motions with his head so Frank turns to see what he's trying to show off. The table is fucking filled with food. All packaged coming straight from the shitty cafeteria, he avoided even when he ate two thousand calories a day.
Looking at the spread and thinks about the binges Jackson would have. He’s never been a puker. He’d tried as a teenager but no matter what he shoves down his throat it never catches right. The most he can get up is salvia. Jackson, the other star of the wrestling team, was and he was fucking amazing at it Frank remembers. He was able to do it with the coach in the bathroom and he’d been none the wiser even though it wouldn't have mattered if he’d known. Ice cream, fries, burgers, he could bring anything up. Once he got up an entire rotisserie chicken on the side of the highway. Frank had been driving and watched the entire thing disgusted and amazed as the untouched carcass went right back into the bag.
He wasn’t able to starve though, cuts were hell for him while Frank himself despised bulking season. They’d bitch about it over pizza Jackson would destroy in a few bites; Frank would pick the vegetables off his slice and snack on them. Allowing Jackson to take the leftover cheese and carbs. That’s why he was Coach's favorite even though Jackson was just as good. He was strong enough to starve.
“Frank.” He ignores him, trying to map away to get the fuck out of here without a bite. Fuck Robby who accuses him of being a thief and not fucking eating. Fuck him. Fuck Dana who was probably the true planner of this because why would Robby care? Suddenly it hits him that if Robby doesn't care he may have a way out of this. He could be like coach, who only pretended to care when his hand was forced.
“Are you fucking serious?” He asks, seeing how receptive Robby is to letting Frank weasel away. Maybe he can turn this around. Get them to laugh this off and go on with their day. A moment they won’t speak about again, like two months ago him and Robby with his locker wide open and the air tight with accusations.
“It would make everyone feel a little better if I told them I’ve seen you eat.” Robby's words are steel. Hard and unyielding. He sounds like a counselor at Sunny day’s, the place Frank went in college when his bone density was fucked and he got scared. Every meal they would patrol up and down the tables and when he tried to leave a single morsel they'd tisk. One more bite and I’ll be able to mark you as complete, Francis.
That tone tells Frank he will be eating this one way or another, even if it's after a fight. A fight he can’t have because it’ll send more red flags into the air. He rolls his eyes and stalks to the table. Shoving himself into the chair closest to the feast, ignoring the way his vertebrae bites into the hard plastic, surveying the food. Robby follows, sitting directly across from him.
A single-serve bag of chips, one hundred and sixty. A prepackaged ham and American cheese, three hundred and fifty, proudly displayed on the corner of the package. A cup of grapes, one hundred and twenty. A full sugar and caffeine twelve-ounce Pepsi, one hundred and fifty. A grand total of seven hundred and eighty calories, over seventy-five percent of the total amount of calories he’ll eat today. All in a single meal.
It makes him a bad person and he knows it but he prays for an emergency to interrupt this little Attending and Me lunch. Not a shooting, or anything that terrible but something closer to a car accident, no casualties but some work.
“Gonna report me for benzo use if I don’t?” Robby is his superior he really needs to remember that before he opens his mouth. That comment could probably get him sacked anywhere else. Although he’s pretty sure attendings aren’t supposed to force residents to eat. So maybe he’d be okay.
Robby winces like he's been stabbed. The reaction he always has when Frank mentions that day. His personal belongings on the floor, a lunchless locker that went fully unnoticed, and the growing horror on Robbys face when it became more and more obvious Frank wasn't the one stealing.
“No but I will sic Dana on you. You think I’m bad? She’ll follow you around with a cafeteria tray for the rest of the day.” He weighs his choices when he knows he really doesn’t have any. Robby is annoying and forceful but after this, he’ll let Frank go free. If Dana gets word about this she’ll follow him around tomorrow too and the day after that and the day after that. She’d also demand weight and vitals. She’s got daughters, at least one was a cheerleader he’s pretty sure. She’ll know the sighs and search for them. The second she hears former wrestler he’s done for.
“Frank.” Comes from across from him, clearly not the first time his name has been spoken. He refuses to make eye contact.
“Yeah sorry.” He says, not meaning it in the slightest.
Like a good little boy, he scooches in closer to the food. He can do this. It’s less than his daily intake, he just won’t eat anything the rest of the day to even everything out. He can fake a stomach ache to Abby, as long as he feeds the kids she won’t care besides a side eye and an ask if he’s sure. The kids don't like it when he skips dinner though. Parker tries to feed him off of her plate and Tanner asks what's wrong with his eyes as big as saucers. So he tries to save his calories for then. A small portion of whatever the main dish is and then the rest of his plate as salad dressed with light olive garden dressing. Seeing food in front of him like that always soothes the kids.
Robby’s watching him, he can feel the man’s eyes digging into his skull. A hawk watching its prey. He fights the urge to ask for a knife to cut the grapes in fourths and the sandwich in sixteenths but he knows better.
He starts with the grapes because they are fine. A little old and wilting but nothing impossible. Five chews per grape and one grape at a time, evenly paced, not too fast, not too slow. They’re gone quicker than he’d like. Sandwich next, fully processed, not healthy by any means but not full carb and fat chips. The first bite is dry, insanely dry he almost chokes on it. Robby, without saying anything, opens the Pepsi and pushes it towards him. The first food rule he’s ever made plays in his head. Don’t drink your calories. He was thirteen, trying to lose five pounds for weigh-in in and that was the first tip in sixty quick tips to lose sixty pounds.
One hundred and fifty, he could have an entire thing of grapes and it would be less. Still, he’s not stupid enough to try and explain that to Robby. He takes a gulp, the carbonation almost bringing tears to his eyes. It’s good, really good. He’s had diet and sugar-free for so long he’d forgotten how good a full sugar, cold soda could be. He puts the can down. Don’t think, chew. He reminds himself over and over again. The same advice he had to use in college. If he thinks too hard about calories and fat, he’ll never be able to force it down.
The bread is soggy, the ham has a strange aftertaste and the cheese is shockingly fine. Still, white bread is almost pure carbs. More than he needs. It’s when the sandwich is fully gone that he’s released how hard he’s fucked up. He should’ve started with the chips, then had the sandwich, then finished with the grapes. Starting with the easy thing was a bad move. He tries not to let anything show as he opens the chip bag. The worst part is he’s a little excited. It’s been months since he’s had chips, and god damn it he’s missed them but they're filled with saturated fats. It’s fine, he tells himself. You can go a little wild when this is all you’ll eat today. If he still feels it tomorrow morning he can cut down to seventy-five hundred calories.
Salty, crunchy, and worst of all good. So good he’s dangerously close to requesting another bag. He tries not to think about that. Chew don’t think. Finally, his hand touches the end of the bag. There’s one or two left floating on the sides but there’s no need for Robby to know about them.
“Happy.” He asks, folding his arms over his now full stomach. Feeling the bloat slowly start to grow into an ache. Wishing he were Jackson. This would be out in a minute if he were. He could try, shove his finger down his throat, and cough up his left lung for a while, but nothing would come up. It never does and eventually someone would walk in, and ask for an explanation he wouldn’t have. Yes I’m thirty-two and trying to throw up the first lunch I’ve eaten in weeks. How’s your day going?
Robby just sighs at him. Like an exhausted father trying to wrangle his child into a pair of dress shoes on the way to a holiday party they are already running late to. Frank would know, he’s done the same plenty of times. He however doesn’t appreciate it being aimed at him. Robby stands and starts leaving, Frank tries not to show his glee at the movement, instead putting his attention on the water ring the Pepsi left. He can feel the tension when Robby pauses his escape and settles next to him. A massive hand swallows his scapula, he barely fights off a flinch at the touch.
“Do me a favor man, gain some weight, you look hungry.”
It makes Frank think of Coach who used to smile and call him Frankie. Coach used to make him promise to never gain a pound though, he’d rather gauge his eye out than have Frank go up a weight class. When they did eating disorder screenings he added a few things to Frank's log and told him exactly how to answer. Yes I know I’m thin but I’ve always been thin and ask my mama she’ll tell you all about how I’m eating her out of house and home. Daddy always complains half his check is going to the food budget. The lie still lives in his head, partly do to how long Coach forced him to practice it. Thank God they brought someone in from out of town because everyone would know his mama didn't know shit about what was going on in her home and daddy never brought in a check. He’d do the same thing, put a hand on his shoulder. Pretending he couldn’t feel the bones peaking out, telling him exactly how proud he was of him for winning, for loosing a pound even though it was the holidays, for making it off the mat before fainting.
He just hums, not a no but definitely not a yes. He’s not going to, but Robby doesn’t need to know that. Robby just sighs again, giving his shoulder a little squeeze. Hard enough to be felt but not hurt. Before leaving Frank alone at the table, surrounded by the graveyard of wrappers.
He hopes Robby hasn’t noticed he’s only had one sip of soda, bringing his calories down by at least one hundred. He can eat dinner with the kids, just salad but something to keep them happy. He gathers the trash and tosses it while leaving the room. Evidence of his weakness is gone just like that.
He looks over to see Dana and Robby talking at the nursing station, most definitely about him. They fucking teamed up against him. Planning to make him fat. When Dana sees him standing there, she elbows Robby clearly warning him to shut up. Rage bubbles in his stomach, while it digest the food trapped in there.
His friends used to bitch about their parents constantly being a team against them and he never understood. He was lucky when his parents were in the same room without screaming at each-other and dad left again without leaving a bruise in his wake. He wonders if this is what they meant when they talked about that. The clear distinction of us vs you.
He nods at both of them, plastering a smile on his face, desperately pretending he has any control over what’s going on before walking to the board to see if anything new has come in. Killing two birds with one stone, walking off everything he just ate, and finding something to take his mind off of it. Santos is already there.
“Are you okay?” She asks and he wishes she didn’t clearly mean it. He could hate her if she meant it as a dig.
“Never been better.”