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One thing is certain, and that is he is angry at me: I continue to disappoint him, and the slope of his proud shoulders has steadily declined throughout this conversation.
It was the damn potato--untouched in the rubbish bin, when I had told him that I’d eaten.
I haven’t. I’m cold and foul-mouthed with hunger, and I’ve had six cups of tea since my meager lunch to stave off my appetite. Anton had been out, schmoozing with publishers, so I took the opportunity—he is so damn observant, though. I don’t know why I thought I could ever get away with my deceit.
“Dorian, you cannot keep doing this.”
His eyebrows are a pinched peak on his face, his graceful hands soothing the furrow; he is tired, and perhaps that is the most devastating thing of all. I make Anton exhausted with my stupid, paltry fancies: I force him to comfort me in my starving while still looking for all like a picture of excess. I am the director of his fucking pantomime, all because I’m too pathetic to be appropriate with my food.
“I know.” Somehow, I am still too weak to stop it, to quit in my disappointing him. “I’m afraid, Anton, that I’ll lose control, and that I’ll end up fatter and worse-off than I am now.”
This is a redundant conversation to him, I know. How he continues to put up with me is flummoxing—like caring for a fake invalid.
“You’re not even big, Dorian. You fit in my shirts, and you think I’m thin,” he laments, “those things cannot be concurrently true.”
But they can be, of course. He has height where I have immense, bloated width.
Still, I can’t upset him further, so I fall back. “I know.”
He’s still not satisfied, as he’s frowning, but at least he’s looking at me—I won’t be so needy as to tell him, but I hate when he shields his eyes from me.
We’re at a stalemate. God, I don’t solve anything—my weight, making Anton less upset; I’m a backwards locomotive, polluting the air of my life.
“I love you, Dorian.” he says, “I want you to be well, mon ange, and to live a full life.”
Still he is kind to me! My eyes are wet with emotion, and even this is embarrassing: his belief in me, that I even have a reasonable issue. His sympathy seems absurd.
I’m crying in earnest now, dually moved and peeved. “I don’t deserve it, Anton! I’m not worthy of that—look at me!”
He doesn’t. He can’t even deign to, so I’m both hysterical and neurotic! His head is turned, dejectedly facing the devan.
“We’ll get you help, Dorian,”
And I’m no longer there, in our parlor with him, but in bed. The duvet is warm with our shared heat, and my pillow is wet where I’ve been crying. Anton, with his effortless ribs (bastard), rolls on top of me, and I brace myself for our day, which will, with my luck, be 24 torturous hours of flaying déjà rêve. Lord, let dawn come soon!