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The image of her unconscious body on the floor and the pills that scattered around it is painfully vivid every time I close my eyes. For the first time I noticed how truly unwell she looked: How drained of all colour her skin was, how hollow her cheeks had become, and how sunken her eyes seemed to be in the artificial light of the bathroom.

How she was just the skeleton of a girl I'd met during the summer.

I thought I could handle myself in stressful situations with at least some dignity, but the way I sank to my knees when I saw her is embarrassing. The way I grabbed her cold hand through my tears, already bracing myself for the worst. The way I couldn't even dial 911 myself. I had my brother do it, who had previously been standing in the doorway in shock.

And the ride in the back of the ambulance was the longest few minutes of my life.

This was never supposed to happen. I was supposed to help this girl, have a happy life with her, protect her. I want to throw this stupid plastic waiting room chair across the room, but instead I sit with my elbows resting on my knees, my face buried in my hands.

I feel Mikey's hand on my shoulder and it takes an incredible amount of self control not to swat it off. "Gee..." he says.

"What?" My words are muffled.

"Should we call Frank and Ray?"

"I don't know."

Just like that, we fall back into the deafening silence of the waiting room, empty other than Mikey and I as it's somewhere around 3, nearing 4AM. The only sound that can be heard is the bustling of nurses and doctors in the hallways. And, if you listen very closely, the distant beeping and whirring of machines.

The passing of time always seems distorted in such places. Deserted parking lots, highways in the middle of nowhere, empty swimming pools, hospital waiting rooms at night... All places that make you feel slightly uneasy and out of place, like you're just not supposed to be there. The hour we've spent sitting here could easily have been days.

Realization hits me when I finally look up from the palms of my hands to see the cheap decorations adorning the room. "Mikes, did I even ask her what she wants for Christmas?"

He doesn't get to answer, though, because a woman's voice pipes up from the entrance. "Mr. Way?"

I hop up out of my seat and practically run toward her, Mikey only two steps behind me. "Can I see her? Can I see Eve now?" I ask, basically begging to see my daughter. It was crushing when we first arrived and I was told that I couldn't stay with her after she was taken out of the ambulance. I've never been more eager to see anyone than I am now.

"Yes, Mr. Way, she's awake. We're just trying to get her to eat something." At the blank expression on my face, she goes on. "She didn't ingest any pills, but she collapsed due to dangerously low blood pressure. Her body is in a state of starvation, she seems to have been depriving herself of food for a while now."

"What? No, no she—" I shake my head in disbelief, covering my mouth with one hand.

"She'll have to see a psychologist for an official diagnosis, but I don't hesitate in saying that Evelyn has an eating disorder." Her voice is laced with a practiced sympathy only someone used to delivering bad news could muster.

"Just tell me what room she's in," I say.

Mikey and I are lead down a hallway past other rooms. I try not to pay attention to the crying that can be heard coming from some of them. The doctor stops outside a door and gives my brother a questioning look before he awkwardly says, "I'm her uncle." Then she steps aside to let us both in.

She somehow looks worse than she did before, attached to wires connected to a machine who's softly beeping along to the slow rhythm of her heartbeat. She's wrapped up in blankets, but she's visibly shivering, and a nurse is sitting near her feet with a tray with orange slices set between them. Neither of them noticed Mikey and I come in.

"Hun, you need to eat," the nurse says, all too sweetly.

Eve shakes her head, her lips shut tightly. She's staring at the rough-looking white sheets of the hospital bed.

"See that?" the nurse points at the heart monitor, "41 beats per minute. Your heart's working real hard right now to keep you alive, you need to help it out a bit and the only way to do that is to have a bite."

Still, she shakes her head then mumbles, "No, I don't. I don't want to help it out."

I glance up at Mikey and we make eye contact, his face somber. We're both wondering the same thing: How the girl we'd have Star Wars marathons with while eating Chinese takeout got here.

The nurse smiles sadly at her. "I'm sorry, Hun, but we talked about what would happen if you couldn't do it." Then stands up to leave. When she sees me and Mikey standing by the door she tries to sound positive as she exclaims, "Oh, look who's here Evelyn!"

Eve looks up long enough for me to see the tears fill her eyes before she turns her face away again.

As the nurse walks by me swiftly I hear her whisper, "Just try and get her to eat those oranges, she needs it."

I approach Eve's bed and sit down cautiously while Mikey takes a seat in the only chair in the room a few feet away. It's the same kind of uncomfortable chair from the waiting room, but I'm honestly not too worried about that right now, and more so about my daughter who started crying harder as soon as I sat down.

"Eve," I say carefully. "I'm so glad you're... awake." I couldn't say "okay" or even "alright" because that would be a lie. She's so obviously not okay.

Through her sobs she mutters something that sounds like, "I'm not glad."

"You don't mean that, Evie." My voice breaks. When she doesn't say anything I slide the tray of fruit over closer to her. "How about you try having some of this?"

She shakes her head. I could've guessed it.

"C'mon, it's good for you." It feels almost silly, like I'm speaking to a picky toddler, or something. But this is my fourteen year old daughter who's spiraled into a pit of self destruction so deep she can't even bring herself to eat a couple pieces of fruit. And all under my nose. I'll never forgive myself for not noticing.

"I- I don't need it."

"Evie, please, I know it's hard, but you do need it. You- you could've died, I really thought you'd—"

"That was the fucking point!" She cries out suddenly as hot tears run down her face. "Can't you see I don't want to be here anymore!?"

I take a deep breath so as to not break down on the spot. I need to keep calm for her sake. "Evie, I know it's hard—" I sound like a broken record, "—and I know you've gone through a lot of shit no kid should ever go through, but nothing is worth hurting yourself like this over."

"You- you don't kn-know the half of it." She finally looks up at me with her bloodshot eyes, obscured by her hair which she let hang in tangles in front of her sallow, tear-streaked face. "Y-You don't know- you don't know what I've had to p-put up with."

"I've seen it all in your record, Eve," I admit. "And it's fucked up, but—"

"I'm not talking about my fucking record!" She raises her voice again and although I know the real Evelyn is in there somewhere, she seems to be slipping further away with every pain-filled word. "The abuse doesn't fucking end just because it's not going on anymore! My- my m-mind is always... always screaming at me, always telling me what I c-can't do, how- how weak I am, how w-worthless, stupid, fucked up... I'm a waste of space... I- I—"

"It's wrong, alright? You can tell your brain that I personally told it to fuck off and leave you alone." I know how ridiculous that sounds, though.

So does Eve because she chokes out what's supposed to be an unamused laugh.

My eyes flit back up to the monitor and, as much as it pains me, I change the subject back to the most pressing task at hand. "So please, Eve, it can only get better if you take a bite of this."

She immediately resumes her silence and shakes her head no.

No amount of coaxing I did for the next few minutes did any good. Nothing about how she needed it for vitamins mattered.

She didn't care about vitamins.

Her bones needed nutrients, but she didn't care.

Her muscles, her organs, her heart that might just give up on her any minute needed it but she didn't care. My daughter is wasting away and I'm powerless to stop it.

And she doesn't care.

"How about this: For as long as you don't eat, I won't eat either, okay? You're torturing yourself, so I'll do it too."

"N-no! You can't do that... that's a stupid idea."

"It finally got you to talk," I mutter.

What happened next was horrifying to witness, so more horrifying for the girl who had to endure it. A couple nurses, one of which I recognized from just earlier, and a doctor, also the same one from before, came back into the room.

"N-no please! I'll eat, I'll eat! I promise I'll eat just—"

"You just have to calm down, Hun, it'll be over soon."

"I can't fucking calm down!" Eve cried and screamed harder than I've ever seen a kid do before. "Don't- don't do th-this! Gerard, don't let them do it! Gerard, p-please! DAD, PLEASE!"

Without recounting exactly what happened, all I could do was watch in horror (or look away and hold back tears) as they held her down and inserted the feeding tube.

Mikey was still sitting in that fucking plastic waiting room chair.