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For the first time since Ilya kissed him goodbye on his first day, Shane was relieved to see his family leave after family therapy on Sunday. Until Sunday, Shane’s worst days involved either his mom crying or Ilya yelling then crying, and Sunday involved them both. At each other.
The whole time, it felt like a mistake that hasn’t been caught yet. Shane’s waiting for someone, anyone, to figure out that he clearly does not have what everyone else here has. He hopes no one else is embarrassed about how they’ve all been acting. He is going to be embarrassed for the rest of his life about this, part of him hopes it’s not just him, part of him wants everyone else to feel it, just for a few minutes.
He doesn’t want to think about his family, so instead he thinks about the movement rules. The movement levels are the most fascinating rules at inpatient. Earning levels almost makes sense- following rules, finishing meals, not acting on “disordered behaviours”.
And for the record, because there is a record, Shane spends the 30 minutes required after meals staring at the print of the birds on the wall and Not Thinking about what everyone else is doing to manage. Everyone else is here because they have an eating disorder. He's here because he wants to play in the fall. The print has nine different birds. There’s a mallard. There’s a loon. There’s a goose. There’s a swan. There’s one that looks like a swan goose hybrid. Shane wants his phone to text Ilya if there’s a swan goose hybrid. Shane wants his phone to google types of swans. It is a good thing to be annoyed at forgetting, after meals. Shane can eat chicken breast with the skin and white rice and chocolate pudding and no matter how heavy it sits in his stomach, because he will be looking at the birds. He wants to tap his feet together, but he was stopped after his first lunch, so the rule is that they shouldn't be moving, not even a little bit. Not the whole time. He can shift and itch his knee but he knows if he starts moving he'll keep fidgeting. He just laces his fingers together and tries to let them sit as heavy as he can in his lap. He imagines it’s Ilya’s head laid in his lap. He looks at the bird.
The thing is you can do everything right, but if you lose weight or your labs come back funny or anything “physical health related”, you go down a level or multiple. He didn't process it fully when they explained it at intake, but they gave him a folder with all the rules printed out. He mentions to the nutritionist - her name is Isabel - that it's unfair they're allowed to punish him for what his body does when they're the ones deciding what goes into it.
She blinks, and studies him for a moment.
“Do you think being here is punishment for what your body did when you were deciding what went into it?” The longer he's alone with that question the more it pisses him off, so he tries not to think about it.
He's built a process to tackle the meals. They make vegetables like fancy events to, done all fancy to show people that vegetables can taste good. It’s annoying. Shane likes how vegetables taste normally - steamed or raw. There are a lot of vegetables, which is good. There's a chef, who talks to them every now and then and will talk about loving food. Shane wants to joke with Ilya about how this is probably not the best audience, but Ilya doesn’t think any part of this is funny. Isabel the nutritionist says a lot of important vitamins in vegetables are fat soluble, so there's a lot of vegetables roasted or sautéed with oil. The first few days they sit so heavy in his stomach he wants to yell about it. He knows how he's supposed to feel after eating broccoli, and it doesn't feel right. He adjusts. The first few days his stomach cramps after meals. He thinks about telling someone, but that sounds humiliating. He knows what they think should be happening to his body, which is unfair enough. He’s not giving them anymore credit.
Isabel makes it up to him by telling him she pushed for him to be approved for movement level 2.
“You're a professional athlete. I'm willing to bet a lot of your hunger cues are tied to movement. You also don't use exercise as compensation. At least, no one thinks you do.”
“I really like yoga,” he says lamely.
“What do you like about it?” She asks. She sounds curious, but everyone always sounds so curious here. They all want to know how he feels about food and exercise and it's exhausting trying to explain it all in a way that will prove he isn't crazy. He can’t say “My job is to win Stanley Cups,” without sounding like an asshole. He's weeks into living here, and he's tempted to become an asshole about it.
“It's relaxing. I'm a thirty year old professional athlete and so a lot of my exercise is making sure I am keeping up with myself. Yoga is about making sure my body will keep letting me.”
“That’s a very balanced way to look at it,” Isabel says.
Finally, he gets to participate in his first three pm movement block. He gets to follow a worker out of the day room, leaving behind the people who are stuck waiting for the hour until group.
He hasn't been in the movement studio yet. The lights are dimmed and there are those pink Himalayan salt lamps. He's interrupted in the last ten minutes and tries very hard not to make a face about not getting the full 50 minutes he was promised.
Apparently, Carly, the family therapist asks him how he feels about the disastrous family therapy session from Sunday.
(He should have been cleared on Monday, but everyone was nervous after Sunday, where running after Ilya made him lightheaded enough to sit down and he had to drink an extra apple juice for it.)
Carly asks if he wants to continue with everyone this week. The idea of not having as much time with Ilya and his parents sounds more painful than another messy fight. Also, given that Ilya is still living with them, Shane doesn't think his husband is going to make his mom cry again.
“I think your family would benefit from doing something together. All of you focused on the same goal, not having to sit for fifty minutes.”
Shane could have told her that before last week, so he just nods. He thinks about how nice it is for someone to call Ilya and his mom and dad one title. Family.
“We're active people,” he tells her. He wonders if they'd get a walk. There's a trail, through a little birch forest. It's a two kilometer loop. It's a level 3 movement perk with staff, and a level 5 perk to go alone. No one is actually on that fabled level 5 movement. Most people are only on level 4 when they get discharged. Shane wants level 5 movement an amount that would be embarrassing to explain. Everything about the situation is embarrassing to explain.
“You’re on level two movement, right?”
Shane frowns. “Yeah.” For now, he thinks.
“Okay.”
“How are you folks with games? Cards?”
Shane thinks about the swearing, yelling, and chaos from any game. Harris bought them Phase 10 for trips because Ilya (and the rest of Centaurs) won't play Uno with him. He smiles thinking about Dutch Blitz and how Ilya wears his face off grin while waiting for David to count them down. The bar on Somerset that had a puzzle speed competition where his mom and Ilya were actively terrorizing the team of baby faced nineteen year olds.
“Competitive,” he says, and apparently doesn't make the right face for Carly to know he means it like a compliment.
“Okay. I'll think of something.” Carly says.
Which is how they end up making cookies.
The recipe only has six ingredients. It's a photocopy from a kids recipe book. It would be insulting but it's shockingly overwhelming. Shane does not want to eat something made of white flour, white sugar, and butter. Topped with rainbow sprinkles.
“It's pride month,” Ilya says, shaking the loud little bottle. He’s grinning. Of course he’s grinning. Ilya loves refined sugar.
“Shut up,” he says, which he regrets immediately. Shane realized a week before agreeing to inpatient that he actually couldn't tell Ilya to shut up or fuck off about food without hurting his husband's feelings. There's been no consequences for those words since he was 17, but food brings out the worst in them.
Shane wants to ask if he's going to have to eat one of these stupid cookies, but that sounds like a question someone with an eating disorder would ask. Especially since he doesn't want to see Ilya's reaction to that question. He doesn’t want Ilya to see his own reaction to the answer. Shane doesn’t want Ilya to see relief or pain on his face over a fucking cookie. Shane wants to ask if eating a cookie counts as his dessert for the day, because that's a rules question, but doesn't want to in front of his family. Shane doesn't want them to know how crazy the rules make him feel. He doesn't like the rules, but he's good at following rules. He wants the rules to make sense.
The butter is soft. They measure it out with a butter knife and the lines on the wrapper. They have to eyeball three quarters of a cup and no one agrees where that is, and every time they try to use the butter knife to gently mark where it might be, the butter gets squished down a millimeter or so.
“Can't we just weigh it?” Shane asks, before remembering that he isn't allowed food scales. Carly takes a deep breath. Maybe she’s trying to remind them. Ilya looks at him. “I just want the cookies to turn out right,” he says, like an apology. He thinks about going back to the kitchen when Ilya didn’t weigh out the almonds for him two days before checking into the program. Shane wanted to eat one serving and Ilya just grabbed a handful.
“This is clearly a recipe for children. I think the butter does not have to be perfect.” Ilya says.
“You don't think we'll ruin the cookies with an extra tablespoon or two of butter?” David teases. Shane and his mom are still looking at each other, and their respective husbands. It's more than a little uncertain.
“If they don't turn out, we don't have to eat them,” Yuna says. Ilya whips his head up to stare at her. Shane can see his jaw clench. Yuna closes her eyes for a half second longer than a blink. “Like if they're inedible.” She continues. “Do you remember those cupcakes for your bake sale in grade four?”
“You said you couldn't overmix cream cheese icing,” Shaun replies, thinking of the chunky icing that split into tiny curds and thin milk. Ilya visibly chooses to relax.
“Maybe it'll be good for this family to not do something perfectly,” David says in a very neutral voice.
“The recipe is very forgiving,” Carly says. “I’ve made it with my nephews.”
Shane scoops the cup of sugar. It looks like a lot. It looks like way too much. He dumps it onto the butter.
“How many cookies does this make?” he asks.
“24,” Ilya says, checking the recipe. Shane tries to visualize the sugar split into 24 piles. He wishes he knew how heavy a cup of sugar was. It is heavier than water? Is there going to be 10 grams of sugar per finished cookie? He wishes he knew if that was a good estimate.
“Cream together the butter and sugar,” his dad reads.
“Shane, I think recipe wants me to beat the sugar,”
“Those are both baking verbs, son,” David says.
“Huh,” Ilya says.
“You can use a hand mixer,” Carly offers. Ilya turns the hand mixer on and grins. Shane immediately hates the noise. It’s got a whine under the fan and it’s too overwhelming for how stressful this entire ordeal has been. Ilya frowns, turns it off and says, “Can I do it by hand because I am big and strong?”
Shane laughs as Carly hands him a whisk. Shane watches the butter and sugar mix together. His mom asks if he wants to crack the egg, so he does. Ilya beats that in too. Vanilla, then stirring in flour. It’s quiet while they roll 24 little balls of dough. The dough has a weird texture. Shane can feel the sugar and butter coat his hands. They end up with 25 balls of dough. It makes his teeth ache. He wants the recipe to be right and he wants it to be so wrong they don’t eat them and he doesn’t want to split the last ball into equal pieces and he doesn’t want the cookies to have even a gram more sugar - and just when his face feels hot like he’s going to cry over some dough, Ilya does his own count, in Russian, stopping at eighteen to see if Shane knows the next number, and eats the twenty fifth piece of cookie dough. Pops the whole thing in his mouth.
“Husband tax,” Ilya says. “Quality control. Quality is top tier.”
They decorate the cookies by pressing them into a bowl of sprinkles. They look cheerful and messy. Shane believes it’s a recipe for children. They only bake seven minutes. Shane wonders if they’ll burn.
Within a minute, the kitchen smells incredible. Shane doesn’t remember the last time he had a sugar cookie. His last cookie was a disastrous chocolate chip cookie. Before February, he's wanted plenty, but not as much as he wants hockey. He knows everyone in this room wants him to eat a cookie. He doesn’t like how it feels to know he also wants that.
I made them, he thinks. Why can’t I have one? He thinks about how gruelling recovering from this diet is going to be already. He can’t give up mentally even if he’s giving in physically. But he’s stuck here for at least another few weeks. What are the chances sugar cookies come up in the dessert rotation? What if he makes his family sad and has to eat the cookie anyways? He wants to eat one so badly and what then. What if he eats the cookie and then he never gets sharp enough to play again?
“-Shane, it’s okay.” Ilya is saying. “You are good. Everything is good.”
There are tears on his face. He’s breathing too hard and fast. The cookies are out of the oven. His hands are dirty. He wonders if the sugar and butter are going to soak into his skin. He knows he needs to breathe. He’s acting crazy. He’s crying over the fact he hates how much he wants a cookie. It’s that thought that feels like a diagram spasm. Ilya sits him down. He’s holding Shane’s dirty hand. Ilya didn't wash his hands either.
“Our hands are dirty,” he says.
“Okay,” Ilya says. Then his mom brings over a damp cloth and wipes their hands down like they’re little boys. Shane breathes a little easier.
“Shane, what are you thinking right now?” Carly asks, and honestly, fuck everything nice he’s ever thought about her.
I want a cookie. I don’t want a cookie. I don’t want to care about the cookies. I don’t want anything to do with this. I want to go home, right now.
“I can’t do this,” Shane says. Ilya’s grip on his hand tightens for a second. Shane rubs his thumb. “I can’t do this.” He puts his head against Ilya’s chest and closes his eyes.
“Do you want some privacy?” David asks. Shane nods against Ilya’s chest.
“I’m not allowed to close the door if you two are alone in a private area,” Carly says, sounding like an apology. “But we can go to the hall.”
Shane shrugs.
“Thank you,” Ilya says to her.
It’s quiet with less people breathing in the same room. It still smells like vanilla and sugar. Ilya smells like his deodorant and his parents' fabric softener. Ilya doesn’t ask if he’s okay. He plays with Shane’s hair, which has grown annoyingly since moving to treatment.
“Will you split a cookie with me?” Shane asks. He feels Ilya’s heart rate pick up.
“Yes,” Ilya says. Shane can feel his husband resisting follow up questions. Ilya walks to the stove and selects a cookie without thinking. Walks back.
“Do you want to split it and I pick my half, or do you want me to split it and you pick?” Ilya asks like it’s well-practiced.
“What?”
Ilya smiles. “You are such an only child.”
“I want to pick my half.”
Ilya splits the cookie in what look like perfect halves. Shane picks his half before he has the chance to overthink it.
The cookie is warm, bland, less sweet than he assumed. The sprinkles are crunchy.
“My mama made cookies like these. Sugar on top though, not sprinkles,” Ilya tells him. “My job was to brush the cream on top so the sugar would stick.”
“You should make them,” Shane says. His half of the cookie isn’t sitting too heavy. He could eat a whole one if it meant sharing an Irina memory with Ilya. He could eat one more cookie and still have enough control for hockey.
“I love you,” Ilya says.
“I love you too,” Shane says. They don’t say anything else until the hour is over, and Carly comes back.
His parents hug him goodbye, and Shane doesn’t comment on the fact his mom has washed her mascara and eyeliner off. He feels like he should apologize, but words are too much. He just hugs them back tightly, and finally, he watches them go.
“I ate half a cookie with Ilya,” he tells Carly. “Does that count as my dessert for today?”
“No,” Carly says, her voice trying to be kind. “But I’m proud of you.” There’s nothing to be proud of. Dinner is pork chops and beans and carrots and brown rice. The carrots have honey and butter added to them. He clears the plate. He drinks his glass of milk. Shane eats two oreos as his dessert. His stomach hurts and he looks at the birds.