You lie in bed, cocooned beneath heavy blankets that feel more like a shroud than comfort. Your body aches with emptiness, a gnawing that isn’t hunger anymore—just a void that swallows you whole. You tell yourself you don’t need it. Food. Rest. Care. You don’t deserve it. The world feels dim, muffled, like you’re submerged under water, and part of you wants to sink deeper.

Simon sits at the edge of the mattress, silent, steady. He doesn’t scold, doesn’t try to reason with you—maybe he knows it wouldn’t reach you anyway. In his hand, he holds a spoon, trembling ever so slightly, though his voice doesn’t betray it when he says your name.

You shake your head. Your lips barely move when you whisper, I can’t. The words catch like barbed wire in your throat. Eating feels like failing. Living feels like a punishment.

But he stays there, unmoving. His gaze is sharp, heavy with something you can’t meet without flinching. He lifts the spoon, careful, like he’s handling something breakable. He’s always been careful with you, even when you’ve hated yourself too much to understand why.

“Just one,” he murmurs. Not a demand. A plea.

The scent makes your stomach twist, but he waits. The silence is unbearable—thick with all the things you can’t say, all the times you’ve let yourself wither while he watched. Your hand trembles when you reach for the spoon, but he doesn’t let you. He brings it to your lips himself.

You want to turn away. You want to spit it out. But his eyes… God, his eyes. They’re tired, raw with fear he’ll never put into words. He doesn’t let go until you take it. The taste burns worse than any wound.

Your throat works against you, but the food goes down. And when it does, you want to cry. Not because it feels good—because it feels like weakness. Like surrender.

His hand lingers against your jaw, calloused thumb brushing your skin as if to anchor you here, to this moment, to him. “That’s it,” he whispers, almost broken himself.