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Niall’s stomach growled loudly. He smiled. He loved when his stomach growled. It meant that he was empty inside—wonderfully, blissfully, beautifully, poetically empty. It meant that there was nothing in his stomach and his body was hungry. He loved being empty. It gave him a rush like nothing else did. He felt hollow, weightless, exultant, utterly alive with the thrill of not eating. He felt like he was weightless and floating on air, like he was lighter than the world around him, like he was going to fly away. He felt like he was on top of the world.
He loved being hungry. It made him feel so accomplished and proud. Because he knew that his body had nothing inside of it, that it was burning fat. He could feel himself burning the fat, he could feel his body breaking up the stores of fat in his body to get energy. He could feel himself losing weight. He could feel himself getting skinnier. And he felt alive. The exhilaration of being hungry, of skipping meals, was the high that Niall was addicted to.
How long since he had last allowed food to enter his body? Sixteen hours, seventeen hours? Twenty-two hours? He loved it. His personal best was thirty-three hours without allowing a morsel of food to cross his lips. He had been so proud of that. But he was also ashamed. Because he should be able to go longer. He should be able to go days and days without eating. But no. He was weak. He had caved and eaten out of the fear of becoming weak and not being able to keep up with everything. He hated himself for that. He wished that he could fast more.
Currently, Niall was at the point where he would wait twenty-four hours in between every single meal. And he felt so proud of that. Because he knew that it took twelve hours for his body to begin breaking down fat and eating itself to acquire energy. So he was letting his body burn fat every single day in between when he ate. He would eat one meal a day. And he loved the feeling of hunger.
He loved the emptiness that filled him. He loved curling up at night and just relishing in the hollow emptiness inside of him. Because he knew what this emptiness was. He knew exactly what it came from. It came from him not eating. And he loved that.
He felt like he was tricking everybody. Because at his one meal a day, he would eat normally. He would eat a regular sized portion without restricting or being too strict with what he could or could not eat. Well, mostly. There were some foods that he was absolutely not allowed to touch. Ever. Like mayonnaise, or butter, or macaroni and cheese, or anything in cream sauce, because those were basically pure fat, and he could practically feel the lard building on his already enormous thighs and stomach whenever he swallowed them. So he stayed away from those foods and some of the other really bad ones. But for the most part, he ate a normal meal. And he made sure to eat it around other people so that no one would ever get suspicious because, what are you talking about, you just saw me wolf down that turkey sandwich for dinner last night, of course I’m eating, don’t be ridiculous! If people saw him eating ‘normally’ then they wouldn’t be suspicious. And it worked so well.
Really, Niall was quite proud of himself for being so clever. Because eating one regular meal a day gave him enough energy to get through everything without being too dizzy or slow or weak or anything else. But he knew he was losing weight. He had to be. Of course, Liam had gotten Lou to get rid of the scale after he grew suspicious that Niall was abusing it, and Niall had vowed to himself that he wasn’t going to weigh himself. Not again. Because if he weighed himself, he knew that he would lose control. He knew that if he were to know his weight, there would be nothing he could do to stop himself from hardcore dieting and over-exercising again. He knew that if he knew how fat he really was, he wouldn’t be able to keep up his normal eating. Or if he knew that he had lost weight, there would be nothing stopping him from obsessing over losing more weight. So he promised not to weigh himself. He made a promise that he was fucking determined to keep. He wasn’t going to know his weight because that would just drive him crazy and make him get bad again. And he was good now. He really was. He was pretty sure that he was losing weight, or at the very least, he wasn’t gaining weight and getting fatter than he already was, and he got to be in control of his diet and there was no one forcing him to eat or watching him, and he could do the things that he wanted to do and get through his daily activities without collapsing or nearly collapsing. So Niall was going to keep it that way. He was going to stay in control. And anyways, it wasn’t that bad anyways. He still had energy to do what he wanted. He was still functioning. And hell, he wasn’t even getting that dizzy anymore.
So overall, Niall was happy with his regimen.
Though he was a little scared that perhaps his body was adapting to it and his metabolism was adjusting and slowing down as a result. That scared him, because it meant that even if he was barely eating, eating less than a third of the calories he should be eating every day, he still wouldn’t be losing weight. And that made him angry. Because he wanted to be losing weight. He was so fat. God he was so fat. And he needed to be thin. He needed to be skinny. He hated being fat. God. He hated it so fucking much.
A while back—back when he’d been weighing himself—he’d been losing weight and it had been good, well the losing weight had been good, but everything else had been bordering on falling apart completely. Niall was weighing himself at least seven or eight times a day. Any time he was alone, he would strip down and stand on the scale and close his eyes and pray and pray and pray that the number would be lower. He would go to the bathroom and weigh himself again, seeing how much weight he had dropped. He’d go for a run and come back to weigh himself to see if he’d lost any more weight. The first thing he did every morning was weigh himself. He’d then go to the bathroom and weigh himself again. The last thing he did before going to bed was to weigh himself, tracking his progress to see if it had been a good day or a bad day.
Only it wasn’t all good. Because it was taking over his life. He wasn’t in control anymore. He was a slave to the scale. The scale was giving him orders and he was helpless to disobey. The scale told him to go for an extra run, so he did. The scale told him that he had too much food on his plate, so he threw it out. The scale told him there were too many calories in the sandwich he wanted, so he ate salad instead. The scale told him that he was eating too much and too often. So he ate less. The scale told him he was ugly and fat and worthless and he needed to lose weight. So Niall ate less and less. He made excuses. He lied. He kept secrets.
He felt like his life was falling apart. Because he was getting so dizzy and weak, and he was trying so hard to keep up with his normal activities like performing and going for his usual runs and workouts with Harry and Liam, but he couldn’t. He was getting so winded and dizzy. He felt like he was going to pass out every time. And everyone was getting suspicious.
See, he could deal with the dizziness. He really could. Honestly. He’d dealt with it time and time again, but everyone else was getting so freaked out over it. They were getting suspicious and telling him he was too skinny and they were worried about him and they thought he needed help and they were beginning to watch him to make sure he ate enough. It was so horrible. Everyone was trying to make Niall eat. And that stressed him out so much. Because he was terrified that they knew his secret or that they were going to guess that he had an eating disorder, and then they would tell everyone, and everyone would know, and it’d all spiral from there. Everyone was getting suspicious. He needed them to leave him alone and let him starve himself. And he knew that they were all just worrying because they cared about him, but at the same time, Niall just wanted them to leave him alone. But that wasn’t what he wanted either. Because Niall knew that if everyone left him alone, it would feel like no one cared about him at all. And he knew it was so unfair. It was so unfair of him to do this to them. There was literally no way for them to win because if they care, he wished they would leave him alone, and if they left him alone, he wished that they would care. And he felt so bad about it, and he hated himself so much for it. He was so conflicted and confused and he couldn’t help it. And Niall hated it. He hated it so much. But Niall couldn’t let them find out. He just couldn’t. They. Could. Not. Know.
And then came the point where Niall was a fucking idiot and admitted that he had been using the scale probably more than he should have been. It had been a joke. Well, sort of. He had been joking around with Liam and Harry. He made a joke that he was abusing the scale. He hadn’t thought anything of it. He honestly just thought that it would fly under the radar like everything else. But no. He was wrong. Stupid fucking Liam had taken him seriously, and the next thing he knew, poof, no more scale. No explanation, no nothing, it was just gone. And it wasn’t like Niall could’ve asked where it went, because then he’d have had to admit that he had been using it in the first place.
So it was after they had taken the scale away that Niall vowed to not weigh himself. Because he knew that that was what had made him so bad. And he couldn’t let himself get that bad again.
Niall had kept his promise. And he had stayed in control. And no one was suspicious anymore. He could eat as little as he wanted but not obsess over it. Because he no longer had the scale. Niall could now just enjoy the feeling of being hungry without the added obsessive compulsive tracking of numbers. And he loved that.
He loved being hungry, he loved being empty, he loved starving himself. And he also loved that no one knew—he was fooling everyone. No one had caught on to his lie, and he felt elated. He was smarter than them all. He could hide it. He was better, cleverer than them. And one day, they would see how terrifyingly skinny and fragile broken he was, and realize that he had outsmarted them all, that they had been foolish, that they hadn’t cared enough about him to save him or stop him.
And Niall loved that. He truly loved that.
Niall’s stomach growled again, this time more persistently. His insides swelled with pride. He curled up on his side, savoring the emptiness inside of him. He loved going to bed on an empty stomach. No disgusting food inside of him to fatten him up while he slept. He was empty. Hollow. Weightless. Sure it hurt, but the pain was so wonderfully refreshing. He loved it so much. He loved the way the emptiness ate him up, consumed him. Filled him in a way that food never could.
He hadn’t eaten all day. The last time he ate was lunch yesterday. So it had been twenty-nine hours since he’d succumbed to eating. He was so empty, so hollow, but god, he felt so alive. And he loved that. So, with the emptiness growling and pulsing inside of him like an furious monster, Niall allowed himself to drift to sleep, relishing in the satisfaction and sick pride that nothing else could bring him. He was empty. But god, he was so alive. And he loved it.