Imagines and One-Shots (Book Three)

No Matter What (Michael Clifford) *

requested by anonymous on tumblr

Warning: Mentions of an eating disorder

~

"What's up with Y/N lately?" you heard Ashton ask from the living room. The boys were over playing a new video Michael insisted they check out.

"Yeah," Calum agreed, "She doesn't look as...thin...anymore." Your heart sank slightly and you felt sick as you looked down at your stomach, then at the bag of cookies you'd gone into the kitchen to retrieve and already started eating.

You'd dealt with eating disorders your whole life, and you thought you were finally starting to get better – you were eating more and not caring what you were eating and not weighing yourself every ten minutes. You thought nobody could even tell you were putting on weight. But you were wrong.

"She's been gaining weight these last few weeks," you heard your boyfriend hum – but you hadn't heard all of them agree that they were proud of you for looking healthier.

You felt your head spin as you replayed the words over and over again. If the boys – people who didn't notice anything unless you explicitly pointed it out to them – then what did people who saw you buying your groceries think of you? And Michael... He was the only one of them who knew about your struggles with food... Was he grossed out by the newly gained weight and just didn't have the heart to tell you?

This prompted you to immediately close the bag and put it back in the cabinet, now walking like you were on a mission to the bathroom. But Michael's voice stopped you just before you were out of sight of the living room.

"Hey, princess," he smiled, making you stop and backtrack a couple steps. All the boys were grinning at you, giving you various greetings. All you did was barely grin back at them. "You okay?" he asked, "Feels like we haven't seen you all day."

"Mhmm," you nodded, "Just took a break from studying to get a snack but there's nothing I want."

"You wanna order something? We could have pizza or takeout or fast food – whatever you feel like." You quickly shook your head with a small noise of detest.

"Not hungry," you said.

"But you just said yo-" 

Michael cut himself off when you hurried down the hallway, the sound of the bedroom door closing echoing loudly throughout the small apartment. He sighed softly, excusing himself before getting up and making his way to your shared bedroom. He was happy to discover it wasn't locked, but his heart dropped at the sounds coming from the behind the bathroom door.

Before Michael found out about your eating disorder, he would hear you go into what sounded like a coughing fit. He didn't think anything of it at first, but he started to notice that it would only happen when you were in the bathroom, then he noticed it would only happen after you'd eaten dinner with him, then he noticed it would happen after every single time you ate something no matter how small it was.

He didn't want to believe it at first – he wanted to believe it was just his imagination – but after confronting you and having you admit that you were doing it to yourself – that you were purposely making yourself throw up – he was determined to help you get to the point where you could eat and not hate yourself for it. And he really thought you were finally there until now.

"Y/N," Michael said as he approached the bathroom door, "What are you doing?"

"N-Nothing," you choked out. He reached for the door knob – breathing a sigh of relief when he pulled it all the way down – and opened it, finding you kneeling in front of the toilet.