You knew you were getting to look unhealthy. But you loved it.

You were struggling from an eating disorder. You’d starve yourself, binge, and then throw up. Pretty stereotypical eating disorder behavior. You managed to hide it well, though—you got your coffee black when you went to coffee with everyone else, you had a small notebook on your desk to track your calories (which was nothing out of the ordinary since you were a detective and has notebooks like that for separate cases), you ate salad and chicken to get a lot of protein in…the standard meals someone with your condition had. You were into the community deep. To be honest, the only thing that kept you from just stopping eating altogether was your boyfriend, Jake.

Jake had always loved your body, both in size and in general. He loved how you were always so warm, and how soft your skin always was, and how thick your hair was, and how you were a thicker person. He loved you. So of course he noticed that you were starting to lose a lot of weight. He just assumed it was something you were doing as a workout and diet, as there was normally a challenge in the gym to do. Even though you were a detective, you still liked to work out with the actual patrol officers. But after a few months, it became clear. He noticed how you only ate rice cakes as snacks and how you only ate one meal a day, which was lunch at the squad. He also noticed how instead of your lattes, you’d just get plain black coffee and end up not touching it because it was so bitter. He knew what he was about to do was wrong, but he figured for your health, it was okay.

Next day at the office around midday, you started getting dizzy and feeling sick. You then said to your partner, Jake, that you were gonna go for a short walk to get a snack. “Alright, that’s okay, baby. I’ll be here. Can I borrow one of your case notebooks?” You agreed, since you were working on serial cases and Jake tended to delete his cases right after they were finished. He thanked you and you stepped out.

Jake looked through your drawers to try and find something to confirm his suspicions. He couldn’t find anything at first, but just as he was about to give up, he came across a notebook labeled: “Calories Eaten.” As he opened it and flipped through it, he felt his heart break a little bit more every page. 04/23/2017: 197 calories. 04/24/2017: 286 calories. It just kept going on. Just as he was about to put it back, you picked that moment to walk back into the room.