Conan The Dandelion (Boyxboy) ✔

Chapter 3: Philip George

A/N: 16.10.2020

Warning: this book deals with some triggering content such as mental health and eating disorders. Readers discretion is advised.

Yeah, we're going there.

P.s: I'll be doing early updates on Patreon from now on, so if you'd like to be ahead a couple chapters, it'll be in the "My blooming treehouse" tier. Link is in my Wattpad bio ;)

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A week had passed since I moved into my new apartment. I bought some flowers and plants to decorate the house, but kept the walls empty and plain. My clothes and underwear were neatly folded in the closet and drawers, and all my books were stacked on the shelf. Nothing else in this house belonged to me. Well, there was also me in it. I guess to some extent I belonged to myself. Anyway, I digress.

By the time I snapped out of my thoughts, night had already fallen. I got up from my desk and pulled out a small notebook that was gifted to me by one of my doctors before I had left my hometown. It was a notebook where I wrote down all of the new dishes I'd make. I called it the Recipe Book That I Never Use, but the doctor told me, "It's not catchy enough, Conan." So he re-baptized it to simply, The Recipe Book. Though, I still secretly called it The Recipe Book That I Never Use, but that's between you and me.

I flipped through the pages and stopped at 'Turkey sandwich." I followed the instructions one by one: two slices of bread, a slice of turkey, mayonnaise, shreds of lettuce, and cheese.

I carefully stacked the ingredients one by one and cut the sandwich into two triangles. I sat at the table and smiled, happy with the result. But that was it. I was happy with the result, but had no desire to eat the finished product. I picked up the sandwich nonetheless.

"I will eat," I said aloud.

So I took a bite, and chewed. I took another, and then another, and then stopped at my fourth after realizing that all I had been doing was chewing but not swallowing. It took me a while before I could. And then I put the sandwich down because I couldn't take another bite.

My stomach already burned and my chest twisted. Or perhaps it was my stomach that twisted and my chest that burned. I wasn't good at expressing my pain, I just knew that eating felt wrong. Because eating meant living, and perhaps I didn't want to live.

I stared at the plate, hoping that I'd grow some kind of appetite, some sort of desire to give my body some energy, wishing that the sandwich would miraculously disappear from the plate and go into my stomach, but nothing.

I gave up.

"Next time," I whispered to myself, the way I always did. I didn't want to waste the sandwich so I put it in the fridge. I felt relieved when I left the kitchen, as if a heavy burden had been removed from my shoulders.

I quickly washed up in the same cold water that I had been showering in for the past few days. Though, some part of me enjoyed the stinging cold water that pricked my skin. When I finished, I scurried to my safeplace: my bedroom. I crawled onto my bed and turned off the lights, snuggling under the sheets. I counted my fingers and then wiggled my toes to make sure all ten of them were there.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I heard my phone buzz. Philip was calling me. I knew it before checking my screen, because no one else called me on Sunday nights but Philip.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Conan," His soothing, calm voice made me nervous because I knew what he would say next. It was a question he'd always ask me. "How are you?"