Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Katherine, can you hear me?” Camden squeezed my hand. “Are you okay? Should I call a doctor?”
I wrenched my hand away from him. “I don’t need anything from you.”
He didn’t move. Not a single flinch. As if he’d been bracing himself for however long he’d been sitting there. Anticipating my anger.
“Why am I here?” I demanded.
“Because you have anorexia, and the doctors wanted to keep you overnight for monitoring,” he said flatly. No life in his voice. Just cool calculation. Camden Percy to the max.
“I am not anorexic anymore! My dress was too tight. I’d gained weight, and I wasn’t supposed to move a pound. It was like pulling the strings on a corset. I couldn’t breathe. That’s all that happened.”
“Katherine, you and I both know that isn’t true.”
“Well, if you say so, then it isn’t, right, Camden? You are the be-all end-all.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. You have been getting worse for months. You’ve lost too much weight. You’re hardly eating. You’re obsessed with your body image. You count calories and work out multiple times a day for hours on end.” He flattened his hand on the bed. “You have anorexia.”
“No, I don’t,” I spat back at him. Fury rising up in me. “You think, because I was hospitalized before, that you know something about my previous condition, but you don’t! You know nothing. You weren’t there. You didn’t see what I was like. I was skin and bones. I didn’t even have muscle. I was sick all the time. I was frail and could barely eat more than a few bites.”
Camden clenched his jaw. “You’re frail now. You barely eat more than a few bites now,” he growled. “And you don’t even see it.”
I closed my eyes. He had no idea what he was talking about. “I’ve lost weight, and I’ve been exercising but not like before. I knew I was spiraling around Puerto Rico. Lark asked me about it, but I was careful after that. I didn’t want to be back in a hospital bed. Then you and I… well, we were together, and everything was looking up. I knew I wasn’t sick. I was just living in the moment with you. Then I wear a too-tight dress one time, and you assume that I’m as bad as before.”
“I’m not assuming anything,” Camden said. “The last thing I want is to see you here, Katherine.”
“You’re the one who put me here! And you know how I feel about it.”
“I know,” he said, his voice still hard. “I knew that you’d hate me for doing it, and I did it anyway. Because you were sick, and you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you!”
“Yes, you did. I asked you the night of English’s party if you were sick, if things were back to how they had been, and you said no.”
“Because they weren’t back to that.” I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m being so careful, Camden. I’m actually happy again. Our relationship is great. I actually want to eat. Of course I care what I look like, that’s part of my job, but I’m trying to starve myself.”
He shook his head. “And you still don’t see it.”
But I did. I saw exactly what he’d said. It was just skewed. He expected me to have anorexia, so he saw it in every aspect of my life. I had been exhibiting signs of previous behavior, but I’d been able to pull myself out of that. I didn’t need to be in a hospital. I wasn’t a threat to myself. I wasn’t a shell of a person anymore. If anything, I was so, so much better than I’d ever been. He just couldn’t see it, refused to see it.
“You should go,” I said softly, turning my face away from him.
“I’m not leaving you.”
I clenched my fists and tried not to cry. “I don’t want you here.”
“You’re sick, and I should—”
“You should what?” I snapped. “Haven’t you done enough? You command me to go to the hospital because you’re my husband. As if that gives you some authority over my body. Then you demand to stay, watching me suffer through my fears. No, you should go.”
“I don’t want you to be alone.”
“Tough shit. You ignored my wishes. I told you that I feared ever coming back and that I never ever wanted to do this. And you… you betrayed me.” Tears welled in my eyes despite me wanting to push them down. “You betrayed everything.”
He straightened at that. Going stiff and looking remarkably like his father. “All right. Stay here and wallow then.”
I balked at his tone. “Don’t try to turn this around on me, Camden Percy.”
“No, of course not, Katherine. It would be much better for me to slowly watch you kill yourself at home.”
“God, did you not listen to a word I said? I was better. We were better. This,” I said, gesturing to the room, “is only necessary to your ego. You have to be in control. You have to be the one to save me. But you don’t realize that you had already been doing it.”