WEAKENED: The Manhattan Bound Series Book One

by Juliet Braddock

  “Stop…” she pounded her tiny fists against his chest. “Just…please, Drew…stop…”

  She’d been a part of his life for a mere two-and-a-half days, and already, she’d tilted his already chaotic world on its axis. Jesus, he hadn’t even slept with her yet, but she’d captured his attention and held it steadily in her grasp. So young, so smart…and so very sweet, Maxine suffered so much, but she continued on with her life as best she could.

  “No, Maxine, I’m not going to stop,” he said and pulled back slightly to caress her tears from her face. “I’m here for you. Will you tell me more?”

  “Drew…I…”

  She couldn't confide in him. She wouldn't dare tell him the gritty details of her ugly secret world. His suffering far surpassed any silly little problem with food that she endured, and she couldn't just dump all of her anguish upon his shoulders. He deserved more than some kid, barely out of college, with silly body issues.

  As he held her against him, he sat down on the bed, then pulled her into his lap. She refused to look at him, but that was fine. What troubled him was her fear to discuss her troubles, even after he'd revealed a scant of his own. She didn't move…didn't sob…didn't cry. She held everything so close, and he needed her to talk to him, knowing all the while that he still had far too much to reveal to her.

  Fuck. They were both keeping secrets, if only to protect themselves from the fear of each other.

  “Little one…?”

  A slight heave of her chest quivered against him, its ripple stirring him deeper into his sadness for her.

  “Please, little one, talk to me…” Now it was Drew who begged. “I am not judging you. I’m worried about you.”

  “Why would you care?” she whispered so softly that he couldn't quite make out her words until she spoke again. “Why should you care?”

  “And why do you feel the need to ask me that?” he asked. “Maxine, I think you’re a beautiful, wonderful woman. Clearly, you don’t see that in yourself.”

  “Please, let me go…just leave. You don’t need my issues in your life. You have far too many of your own. You don’t have to see me ever again. I won’t work on your projects. I’ll fade into the background. I’ll—”

  After giving her shoulders a gentle shake, he placed his palms over her cheeks and turned her to look him dead in the eyes. “You are not getting rid of me so easily. Maybe you’re afraid, here, but so the fuck am I. On more levels than you can even imagine right now, Maxine. But you’re not well. You can’t start a new job like this. And dammit, I’m going to make you realize that you’re worthy…”

  “Please, don’t yell at me…please…I can’t…” Twisting and turning, she fought him in his arms, struggling to pull away. Once he finally just let her go, she crawled across the bed and tried to make a quick attempt to run to the bathroom. There was nothing in her gut to vomit, but she had to run. Had to try.

  Thinner. Prettier. Better.

  “Stop!” Drew bellowed as he caught her again in the bathroom doorframe. “Maxine, I will not allow you to hurt yourself like this. And if I didn’t give a fuck, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “Stop giving a fuck,” she said, then caught herself in shame for cursing. Her mother swore like a sailor, and she’d always tried to curtail her words. That was one thing about Judy that rather embarrassed Maxine. Now she was turning into her mother. “Just stop and…and go! Leave me alone…”

  “I will not,” he continued on, his voice booming throughout the small room. And then he had nothing else he could say or do but clamp his lips upon hers and kiss her until she fell weak in his arms. Together, mouths seeking, they slipped to the floor.

  Kissing her, he soothed away her hurt for one fleeting moment.

  “I will not leave you like this,” he said, tearing his mouth from hers. “You're going to start from the beginning and tell me everything. And then we're going to find a doctor and a support network. And you will fucking go to every appointment if I have to carry you there my damn self.”

  Now she was crying. As the tears fell like waterfalls from her eyes, his lips caught every single one, caressing her face until it was dry.

  “Tell me how it started, little one…”

  She knew the roots of her evils all too well, but she still wasn’t certain where to begin.

  “I hate my…self,” she wailed. “I’m so…ugly.”

  “Right there, we need to stop,” his voice carried softly between them as his hands smoothed over her shoulders. “You are fucking gorgeous, and I don’t know where the hell this low self-esteem comes from.”

  “You saw that picture of Fat Maxine on my dresser,” she reminded him. “That was far from gorgeous.”

  “You looked the same, little one, with just a little meat on your bones,” his voice gentled her. “Honestly, I would love to see that now. You’re too thin. Exquisite, but still too thin.”

  “You wouldn’t have paid attention to Fat Maxine…and you didn’t!”

  “I didn’t pay attention because she was a very young woman standing at the stage door, asking for my autograph!” he said. “Maxine, I walk out there, put on a face and run for my fucking car, cursing Lou if he’s not parked close enough to the theater. I smile. I sign. But that’s it. Sounds crass, but it’s just a part of the job.”

  “So you didn’t mean it when you thanked me profusely for telling you that I thought you were the most underrated talent on Broadway?”

  “Oh, God…Maxine…let’s just forget that. We were playing roles—you the fan, myself the actor.”

  “Role play,” she said. “I read about that last night…”

  “Yeah, we’ll discuss that in depth later, but right now, you owe me an explanation for a few other things, and you’re dodging the subject with this nonsense,” he spat. “I told you a bit about myself yesterday, now it’s your turn…”

  By way of exchange, he made this conversation sound fair, leveling the playing field to a place where they could both confide in each other.

  “Is it anorexia or bulimia? Please…tell me…”

  Closing her eyes, she lifted her chin toward the ceiling, calling upon her mother for strength. “It’s sort of…hic…damn…both…if that makes…sense. I tend to limit…hic…my calories…hic…”

  Those fucking hiccups had returned!

  “Sit. Don’t move…” Within seconds, he handed her a cup from the bathroom and held it to her lips. “Drink slowly…good girl…now…breathe…”

  He sat with Maxine on that floor for what seemed like an eternity, just waiting, coaching her and minding her until she settled. Rasputin McKenzie did it again. Taking one more breath to steady herself, she returned the porcelain cup to his hands so that it didn't slip from her shaking fingers and shatter. And then she touched her forehead to his. “You made them go away…”

  “All better?”

  Folding her lips together, she nodded. “Mmmhmm.”

  “Back to the beginning…”

  “Grade school…there was this horrible girl. She said I was fat. Called me ‘Maxie Pad.’ Picked at me relentlessly. Every single day.”

  “She sounds like a worthless piece of shit,” he noted. “And what’s she doing right now?”

  “Camp counselor because she couldn’t find a job in her major,” Maxine said. “But summer’s over. And according to Facebook, she’s stuck in retail.”

  “So fuck her stupid ass. Who’s having the last laugh here?”

  “Sometimes you make sense, Crazy Sir…”

  “Ah, crazy but kind…” He hoped. “But now, Maxine, I want to hear it all…”

  He’d already figured out the story behind the skeleton she'd buried in her closet. At that point, she had nothing else to lose—except Drew himself…forever.

  “Happened when my mother died…or…while she was dying,” she began. “I just got so sick that first day at the hospital…seeing her in that bed…with all the drips and needles…and I had to throw up.”
r />   “And then you took it to the extreme…”

  “I was too upset to eat, started losing weight…one thing led to the next, but for once, I liked the way I looked,” she went on, punctuating every word with a short breath. “After her death that June, it just escalated over the summer. And once the semester started, it got worse. I only ate when I had to—when Ben wanted to grab lunch or when Dad wasn't working late and decided we should go out for a bite. Otherwise, I lied. I always had meals planned out in my head—just to tell them that I'd eaten. Meanwhile, I was hoarding plastic bags in my bedroom so that I could throw up in them without having to use the bathroom in the hallway. Didn't want my father to hear. I ate salads and washed them down with bottles of water. Easier to…to vomit up. I would swallow laxatives like M & M's, a handful at a time. People started talking, but I thought I looked good…”

  Closing his eyes, Drew shook his head in shock. “Jesus, this is all so methodical…”

  She shrugged. To Maxine, this had simply become her life. “Tricks of the trade…”

  “So this is bulimia that you’re suffering with?” he asked.

  “Mostly…” The only two people she'd ever discussed this with outside the hospital staff was her father and Ben. “I do have some anorexic tendencies, too. I'll go through phases when I…”

  “When you refuse to eat…”

  “And if I do eat, I’ll throw it up.”

  Squeezing her tighter, he questioned himself, worrying that he just might break her fragile bones if he held her too close. “Oh, little one…I’m trying to make sense of this—wrap my head around it,” he said. “Certainly, Ben had to know something was wrong?”

  “He did,” she nodded. “But he could only do so much, and he wanted me to get involved in a Motherless Daughters group on campus. I had so many problems going at once, and he thought that my grief was the root—so we had to take care of that first. But my dad started to worry…and he called Ben.”

  “You’re so very lucky to have people who care about you so much, little one,” he said and gave her hand a quick pump. “So you saw a specialist?”

  “I saw several,” she admitted. “That was over Christmas break. They set me up with some psychiatrist who thought my non-existent sex life was of more importance than the fact that my mother just died and that I had eating disorders. But he put me on anti-depressants, and I started to level off a bit after classes started back up. But it was my last semester. I had so much going on, and sometimes I’d forget to take them. Or maybe I just didn’t like the idea of having to be medicated…”

  “Maxine, everyone takes some sort of mood enhancer in New York at some point,” he said. “There’s no stigma to that…”

  Pulling back just slightly, she placed her hands on his shoulders. “Even you?”

  “Yeah, Maxine…sometimes…even me.”

  “But…you …”

  “So you stopped taking your medication?” he cut her off and pushed her to continue. “Is that what happened?”

  “Pretty much…and by the time graduation rolled around, I was back to my old habits. My hair started thinning...then falling out. My periods came when they felt like it, if at all. I developed this cough, which was actually a symptom of acid reflux that was brought on by my vomiting.”

  The words fell almost seamlessly from her lips, and she surprised herself with this first breakthrough. Drew had asked for, if not demanded, her trust. Now she sat in the lap of, essentially, a stranger, revealing her most guarded secrets. However, seeing her pain reflecting back from the mirror of his blue eyes that changed colors with his every mood, she found a hint of comfort.

  They were both suffering. Perhaps they could find some solace in each other.

  “And you just kept doing this…”

  “I know this won’t make sense to you, but the high that I got from throwing up was so amazing. It was like a drug. I…it’s almost like a feeling of pride. I did it again. I purged X-amount of calories. I emptied my stomach.”

  Pleasure in her own pain. The irony filled him with a bit of self-loathing, and he began to wonder if perhaps his designs on kinky romance might be too much for her.

  “As soon as we’d celebrated graduation, and before Ben returned to New York, he staged a bit of an intervention,” she said. “He and my father sat me down one morning, then hauled me off to a treatment center in Pittsburgh. In-patient. And I had six weeks of intensive therapy.”

  “And what happened? What went wrong from there?” he wondered out loud. “That was only a few months ago.”

  “I became stronger. I followed the advice of my therapists. I concentrated on forcing myself to stay out of the bathroom after meals. And I even gained a bit of my weight back.”

  “But…?” he prompted.

  “But then I got an e-mail from Jillian, and while I was thrilled over the job offer, I was scared out of my mind. Afraid of leaving my dad. Terrified I would screw this up somehow. Frightened over whether I was making the right decision. And before I knew it, I had started this whole pattern of behavior all over again.”

  “Well, you won’t be without help here,” he assured her. “You need to see a doctor. We’ll find the right psychiatrist for you. And you’ve got to take your medication, Maxine. That I will enforce. With physical punishment, if necessary…”

  So he was planning into their immediate future already, making doctors’ appointments and seeing to it that she sought the help she so desperately needed. Maxine could only hope that he would stick around long enough to see her through. Otherwise, she feared she’d land right back in her spot at square one.

  “You’re going to be OK, little one. You’re stronger than this. I can see it.”

  “Drew, I…” Damn him for being so sweet and nurturing. “I hope so.”

  “Looks like I have some homework to do tonight, too,” he said and touched his nose to hers. “While you read The Story of O.”

  “You don’t hate me?” she asked softly.

  “Maxine, how could I hate you? I want to be able to help you. This is a horrible thing, but you can control it. We can control it—together.”

  “We can…?”

  “We can,” he said. “Are we finished arguing for today?”

  Anger dissipating, she attempted to relax, fearing all the while that she’d fail miserably. “Maybe we should just take a day, and start over,” she suggested.

  “Only if you promise you'll spill a drink on me again,” he teased.

  Even through her embarrassment, Maxine’s smile was unavoidable. “Only if you'll take me back to that spare room at your place...”

  Nostrils flared with the quick intake of a breath, he retorted, “We're not playing games this afternoon, need I remind you, Maxine?”

  “No games…”

  “Listen, I still have some time here. Why don’t we make some lunch? I know there’s food out there…”

  “On one condition, Drew?”

  “Yes, little one?”

  “Will you let me cook?” she asked. “I’m no chef, but Ben said you made a mess of the toast the other day…”

  “I’ll let you do anything in that kitchen as long as you eat…”

  Then her smile turned from shy to scintillating. “Anything?”

  “Anything that doesn’t involve sex, Maxine,” he said. “Patience…”

  With a wink, he helped her from their spot on the floor and continued to hold her close as she led the way to the kitchen. Side by side, they hovered near the stove while Maxine strived to make the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever. So lame, she thought and laughed at herself.

  When at last she was satisfied with her two masterpieces in the frying pan, she plated them on Ben’s grandmother’s old dinnerware that was likely quite expensive in its day, then served them both at the tiny café table next to the window. Knowing not what else to do, she folded two napkins into paper hats and placed them on top of their sandwiches, then turned to Drew and giggled again. He’d extra
cted so much out of her that afternoon, draining her of what little energy she had left after her harrowing morning, but just being near him alleviated some of the pain she revisited.

  “So…” Maxine said as she sat down beside him. “We do still have one little issue to discuss here…”

  “I shall discuss nothing with you until you dig into that sandwich,” he said, dripping melted cheese all over himself as he lifted his own to his lips. She overcompensated, but he found her efforts in the culinary arts, while sloppy and difficult to eat, much more entertaining than his own.

  Even though his eyes never left her as he waited for her to take her first bite, she took her sweet time and cut into her sandwich with a butter knife. That was all a part of the game, too—stretching out the meal to give the appearance that she was eating. In hindsight, he realized she'd done that the other night at the diner, too.

  “Half the sandwich, and then you may address your issue with me.”

  “Bossy Sir…” she muttered as she chewed.

  “I’m sure Judy didn’t teach you to talk with your mouth full…”

  Swallowing hard, she reached for her glass of water, but he caught her hand. “No.”

  “But I’m thirst—”

  “You won’t get dehydrated, Maxine,” he told her. “Now…what’s your problem with me?”

  “Drew, I understand that you came to my rescue today with Jeffrey,” she said. “However…you promised me that you wouldn’t interfere with my career.”

  “Well, if you think I’d just sit back and let my own best friend fire you, you are sorely mistaken, little one.”

  “Again…if you think I’ll just sit back and allow you to steamroll over my little world…”

  “Already did, Maxine—try again!”

  “You know, you are impossible to—”

  “Hey, Cap!” Ben's voice rang out suddenly from the foyer. Eyes darting to the clock on the microwave, Maxine realized that it was after three already. Of course, he was home! “I picked up a few extra copies of the Post with you and Broadway Boy. Thought maybe you’d want to show your dad how you spent your first weekend in…” Face flushing in varying hues of red, Ben pivoted on his feet the second he spotted Drew at their table and made his move to leave the room. “Fuck…”