The Old Promise of Passing Years, Sought No More

The day my anorexia was declared cured, Juliana Pruitt slipped a hotel key card into my hand.

Austin Vance, you're the one I spent three years nursing back.

Tonight, I want to really have you.

I went to meet her, full of hope.

I pushed the door open and was slammed to the floor by a woman who had to weigh two hundred pounds.

"Quit playing innocent. We talked online for three months. Didn't you say we'd sleep together the second we met in person?"

I fought her off with everything I had, groped for the ashtray at the corner of the table, and cracked it hard against her shoulder, staggering back to my feet.

The next second, the door swung open.

Juliana's childhood friend stood in the doorway, doubled over laughing.

"Austin, I used your photos and ran an online romance with her for three months. Called her sweetheart, called her babe, the whole thing. Do you know how much work it took to reel her in for you?"

I was shaking all over. I looked past him at Juliana.

She only said, careless as anything,

"Don't look at me like that."

"I just lost a bet. They wanted to see whether you'd actually show up."

"Nothing happened, did it? Don't be a sore loser, Austin."

And then I understood. This love I'd believed was my salvation had been filthy beyond words from the very start.

......

The woman scrambled up off the floor, rubbing her shoulder, cursing.

"Catfish! You disgusting man! You said you were tall and handsome and couldn't wait for it!"

Bob Young was laughing so hard his eyes were watering.

"Oh, the photos are handsome, all right."

"Juliana took every one of them."

He opened his phone and tapped into a dating app.

There on the screen were pictures of my life.

A photo of me cooking in the kitchen.

A photo of me curled up on the couch with the cat.

And one from when I was sick, my face pale, leaning against Juliana's shoulder.

Every single one, taken by Juliana.

She used to say she wanted to record me getting a little better each day.

But it turned out that every moment she captured, she'd turned around and handed straight to Bob.

I pointed at the phone, shaking.

"So you took my photos, ran an online romance with her, and lured me to a hotel?"

"That's right."

Bob admitted it without a flicker of hesitation.

"That was the bet, me and Juliana."

He glanced back at her, like he was showing off.

"I said, give me three months and I'll use your photos to reel someone in, and you'll get to watch her throw herself at you with your own eyes."

"See, Juliana? Didn't I win?"

The woman rounded on me, humiliation turning to fury.

"The chat logs, the pictures, they're all right here. You said yourself that once we met I could do whatever I"

"Shut up!"

I nearly screamed it.

"That wasn't me!"

But she didn't believe a word of it.

"Talking that dirty online and then playing pure in person. You make me sick!"

Listening to that filth, I went cold all over, like I'd dropped into a pit of ice.

I lurched to my feet and reached for my phone.

"I'm calling the police!"

But before my fingers touched it, Juliana had already picked it up first.

"Stop it. Calm down."

I looked at her, tears sliding down without end.

"I was almost assaulted, and you're telling me to calm down?"

Juliana leaned in close, her eyes going cold.

"Nothing actually happened, did it? Do you have to blow this out of proportion?"

"Or is it that you really want everyone to know how cheap you are?"

My breath stopped short.

She stared at my white face and kept going.

"The photos are yours. The account's yours. If you really go to the police, everyone's going to find out what you did."

"Your coworkers, your friends. And your father."

"Do you want them knowing that in private you're the kind of person who goes around soliciting people?"

I looked at her, and it felt like my heart was being crushed inch by inch.

She knew exactly how to hurt me.

She knew my father's health was bad.

And she knew what I feared most was people looking at me with that kind of filthy stare.

So every line she spoke was crueler than the last.

Cruel enough that I didn't even have the courage left to call for help.

I bit down hard on my lip until I tasted blood.

Bob came closer.

"Austin, Juliana's only doing this for your own good."

"If you don't call the police, at most everyone treats it as a joke."

"But the moment you do, you become the slut who solicits women and then backs out once they show up."

Every ounce of strength drained out of me.

I was the victim.

And they'd cornered me until I didn't dare cry for help.

What made it worse was that the woman who'd once held me at my lowest and whispered "don't be afraid" was now the one clamping her hand over my mouth, pressing every last plea back down my throat.

"Austin, Bob only chatted with her. It's not like he actually hurt you."

"It's already done. Why can't you be a little more gracious about it?"

I laughed, all at once.

"I'm the one whose photos were stolen, who got lured to a hotel, who was almost assaulted!"

Juliana's brow drew tight.

"You're too worked up right now."

"I spent three years treating you. Not so you could turn into some hysterical lunatic."

At the word lunatic, my vision went black for a moment.

Three years ago, everyone said I was fat, said I was disgusting, said I didn't deserve to be loved.

Juliana was the only one who stepped up and told me, "You're fine just as you are."

But now it was still the same person.

The same one shoving me back into the mud with her own hands, while sneering at how ugly I looked struggling in it.

I raised my hand and slapped Juliana hard across the face.

Before she could react, I whipped the back of my hand across Bob's.

"The two of you make me sick."

With that, I turned and ran out of the hotel.

My stomach heaved without warning.

I grabbed the trash can at the curb and threw up, shaking uncontrollably.

Everything in front of me blurred more and more.

The next second, I collapsed hard at the side of the road.

When I woke, the nurse had just finished changing my dressing. She warned me,

"You had acute stomach bleeding. You can't let yourself get too worked up."

My phone lit up.

A message from Juliana.

[Austin, I never meant to scare you.]

[I was right outside the door the whole time. If anything had gone wrong I'd have rushed in that second. Do you think I could ever bear to see you hurt?]

For three years, Juliana really had been good to me.

When I wouldn't eat, she'd sit at the table and feed me one bite at a time.

When I jerked awake in the middle of the night, she'd hold me and soothe me patiently. "Don't be scared. I'm here."

When I broke down sobbing over what my body had become, she'd pull me into her arms.

"Austin, you don't have to turn into anyone."

"Just staying alive is already brave enough."

She made me believe she was someone I could give my whole life to. She made me lay every fragile part of myself bare in front of her.

And now she was using that fragility as a chip in her bet with Bob.

Another message came in.

[Bob didn't do it on purpose either.]

[Just apologize to him, and this will all blow over.]

I stared at the screen, and the pain twisted in my stomach again.

Of course. Her apologies had never been about comforting me. They only ever existed to make me comfort Bob.

In the hospital corridor, someone pointed at me.

"That's him, right? The guy online who went looking to hook up with a woman."

"I heard he even faked having anorexia, fishing for sympathy."

I froze for a few seconds, then opened my phone right away.

A video was blowing up online.

In it, I was pinned to the floor by a woman, my clothes in disarray.

But the first half had been cut. All that was left was me scrambling up, slapping her, and finally running off.

The caption read: [Guy propositions a woman for a hookup, meets up, is disgusted by her looks, and beats her in a rage.]

The comments were nothing but filth.

I went into Bob's account. He'd just posted a long statement.

[I didn't want to say too much about a friend's private business. But seeing everyone attack the girl, I felt I had to say something fair on her behalf.]

Below it, he'd attached a chat log.

[Bob, can you set me up with a woman?]

[I want to try it. I'm tired of playing innocent.]

The messages really did carry my photo and my name, but I had never said any of it.

Bob replied in the comments,

[He's just been emotionally unstable since he got sick. Please don't come down too hard on him.]

[I'll stay with him through treatment.]

It looked like he was clearing my name. In reality, he was dumping every drop of the filth onto me.

A few minutes later, a voice message from Juliana came through.

"Just kneel and apologize to Bob and it'll all be over. He'll take the video down, and in a few days no one will remember anything online. You won't have to be afraid anymore."

I listened to it, then slowly closed my eyes.

She was still the same. Push me into the pit first, then stand at the edge and tell me not to be afraid.

That afternoon, Juliana and Bob came to the hospital together.

Juliana's voice was heavy.

"Austin, apologize to Bob, and I'll get someone to take the video down."

I looked up at her, and it struck me as absurd.

"Why should I?"

She frowned. "You slapped him. Isn't that enough?"

"And what about me?"

"You're fine, aren't you?!"

The instant those words landed, the last flicker of hope in me went out completely.

Bob walked to the side of the bed.

"Austin, I know you don't like me, but honestly, I think of you as family you're the guy who's with my sister."

As he spoke, his finger suddenly hooked out.

The IV stand crashed over, the needle raking across the back of my hand, blood welling up.

The pain made me suck in a sharp breath.

But Juliana went straight to Bob, steadying him, bending to check his hand.

"Bob, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just startled me a little."

She turned back, her brows knotting hard.

"Austin, can you not always be so aggressive?"

I looked at her and felt filthy all of a sudden. So filthy I didn't even want her concern anymore.

That night, my company suspended me. The reason given was a disorderly personal life.

My father saw the video online too, and it triggered a heart attack. They rushed him into the ICU.

By the time I reached the hospital, Juliana was standing at the billing window, having paid a sum for me.

When she saw me, she said flatly,

"Apologize to Bob, and I'll pull the video and clear your name."

"Your father's medical team, I can help arrange that too."

I stood there, cold all over.

"So you came here to force me to apologize?"

"No one's forcing you."

Bob's expression was all innocence. "You did something wrong. You should just face the consequences."

I stared at him.

"You faked the chat log, filmed me in secret, put the video online. So who exactly is the one who did something wrong?"

Juliana said in a low voice,

"Austin, do you really have to be this stubborn? Fine. Then let your father keep lying in there."

I tilted my head back, staring hard at the ceiling, forcing the tears back down bit by bit.

"I'll say it one more time. I'm not the one who's wrong, and I won't apologize."

I went back to pack my things, and the apartment was in the middle of a party.

The moment I pushed the door open, laughter spilled out from the living room.

"He actually thought Juliana liked him?"

"A sickly weakling who won't even eat. If it weren't for the bet, who'd waste three years playing along with him?"

My steps stopped dead.

"When Juliana first met him, she said he looked clean. Like a flower that had never touched dirt."

"So I made a bet with her. That I'd wreck him."

"So I paid people at school to spread it around that he was fat, that he was ugly, that he was disgusting."

"He was so easy to fool back then. A few people cursing at him, freezing him out, and he really did stop eating."

"What was our group chat called again? The Fattening Project? Juliana posted his weight in there every day. Watching him drop from one-twenty to seventy pounds, that was hilarious."

Every word out of Bob's mouth was a knife going into me.

Three years ago, the bullying at school gave me anorexia.

Back then everyone said I was fat, said I was ugly, said I didn't deserve to wear nice clothes.

Juliana was the only one who was willing to come near me.

She ate with me every day, went to the hospital with me, stood between me and all those vicious stares.

I treated her like the thing keeping me alive.

I never knew the rumors had started with Bob.

And Juliana was the one standing beside him, watching me sink.

Bob laughed and patted her on the chest.

"He's already getting torn apart by the whole internet, his anorexia's back too. Really rotted all the way down into the mud."

Juliana was quiet for a second, then said flatly,

"All right. It's your birthday. Stop talking about him."

Bob looked up and saw me standing in the doorway.

"Mr. Vance?"

The instant she saw me, Juliana's face shifted.

I didn't demand anything, didn't scream or cry. I just said quietly,

"So you really never loved me."

Something irritated surfaced in her eyes.

"Austin, these three years, don't you know in your own heart how you got through them?"

"I'm the one who fed you back to health. I'm the one who walked you out of the anorexia."

"Without me, you'd have"

"So I'm supposed to thank you?"

I cut her off, laughing until the tears came.

"Thank you for driving me into a sickbed, then playing my savior?"

Bob sneered from the side.

"What's the big deal? Aren't you cured now?"

"Since you're cured, that proves we didn't do anything wrong."

I looked at him, and my chest closed up.

"You forced a living person into being too afraid to eat, and you think you did nothing wrong?"

The smile on Bob's face went cold.

"So what do you want?"

Then he smiled again.

"Tell you what. You're the one so scared of food, right? Eat this piece of cake, and I'll take the video down."

He picked up a slice of cake from the table and held it out to me.

Juliana looked at me.

"Austin, it's Bob's birthday today. Don't make a scene."

I stared at the cream-covered cake, my stomach heaving.

Bob went on, "Just eat it, and I'll have Juliana get in touch with the best medical team."

"You're not going to leave your father lying in there for the sake of some so-called dignity, are you?"

Juliana came to my side, her voice dropping low.

"Austin, don't gamble with your father's life just to make a point."

"You don't eat it, and no doctor will dare take your father's surgery."

"Eat it, and this all ends."

In that moment I finally understood. They'd known my weak spot all along.

Trembling, I took the cake and ate, bite after bite.

The cream clogged my throat until I could barely breathe.

Bob clapped and laughed.

"See? It's not that hard. You're doing just fine."

I forced down the nausea and swallowed the last bite, tears dropping into the cream.

Juliana came over and wiped the cream from the corner of my mouth.

"That's more like it."

Her tone was as gentle as it used to be.

But all I felt was cold. I pushed her hand away and turned to leave.

That night, back in the rented apartment, I threw up until I could barely breathe.

On my phone was a message from Juliana.

Austin, I've taken the video down, and I've cleared your name too. Stop tearing yourself apart.

I looked at the box cutter on the edge of the sink, picked it up, and my whole body was shaking.

I didn't want to die.

But in that moment I was just so tired.

Too tired to know how I was supposed to keep living.

Right then, the door slammed open.

Juliana rushed in and tore the blade out of my hand.

Austin! Have you lost your mind?

Her eyes were full of terror.

Isn't this what you wanted? For me to get worse, crazier, more pathetic, so your bet would count as a win.

Her face went pale, and she gripped my shoulders tight.

That's not what I want.

Let's get married. I'll give you the grandest wedding there is.

From now on, I'll love you properly.

I looked at how earnest her eyes were, and suddenly I remembered the way she'd held me three years ago.

Back then I was thin as a sheet of paper.

She said, Austin, don't be afraid.

But only now did I understand: some people pull you out of the mud.

Not to save you, only so that one day you'll fall even deeper.

Her eyes reddened.

Austin, trust me just once, all right? Just once.

I looked into her eyes and couldn't tell whether the sincerity there was real or not.

I said nothing, and moved my gaze off her face.

She pulled me into her arms and said she'd never let me get hurt again.

That night, while she was asleep, I picked up her phone.

I opened the chat history and scrolled through it, line by line.

On the wedding day, when the big screen lights up, you think he'll cry himself unconscious right there?

Juliana, are you really going to reveal at the wedding how he got played?

Of course. Last step of the bet. He has to break down completely.

I stared at those lines, and my tears dropped onto the screen, one after another.

So even this wedding was a con.

Her so-called compensation was nothing but a way to march me onto one last stage to be judged.

I bit my lip and copied all the chat logs and the full video onto my own phone.

On the wedding day, the seats below were packed with guests.

The officiant asked with a smile,:

Mr. Vance, do you take Miss Pruitt to be your wife?

Juliana held out her hand to me, her eyes certain of victory.

Austin, answer me.

I looked at the hand she was holding out and said calmly,:

No, I don't.

The whole room erupted.

The smile on Juliana's face froze in an instant.

Austin, what are you saying?

Since today's a wedding, let's let everyone see exactly how we got to this point.

I pressed the remote, and the big screen lit up.

Juliana stared at the screen, the color draining from her face bit by bit.