Chapter Text
Shane had always been “difficult” about food.
That’s what they called it when he was a kid—difficult, picky, stubborn. He’d sit at the table long after everyone else had finished, pushing peas into neat little piles, separating textures like it mattered. It did, to him. The way something felt in his mouth could ruin him for hours. Mushy, slimy, unpredictable—he couldn’t stand it. So he narrowed things down. Safe foods. Dry foods. Things he could control.
He learned early that control looked like discipline from the outside.
By the time he was a teenager, it wasn’t about texture anymore. Or maybe it still was, just buried under something louder. Mirrors became unavoidable. Locker rooms, reflections in windows, the sharp awareness of other boys—bigger boys, broader, effortless in a way Shane never felt. He noticed everything. Shoulders. Arms. The way shirts sat against skin.
And then he noticed himself noticing. That was when it shifted. Control stopped being about comfort and started being about correction.
He downloaded workout plans before he knew what half the exercises meant. He woke up earlier, stayed up later, carved time out of nothing. At first it was simple—push-ups in his room, sit-ups until his spine ached against the floor. Then it became structured. Intentional. Obsessive.
He told himself he just wanted to be stronger. What he meant was: smaller in the wrong places, bigger in the right ones. Less soft. Less obvious.
Food became math. Numbers, portions, timing. He ate, and then he earned it back. Four-mile runs through quiet streets, lungs burning, legs shaking, the rhythm of his feet against pavement drowning out everything else. If he ran far enough, hard enough, fast enough—he could undo it. Undo the panic that came with eating. Undo the guilt that crawled under his skin.
He got good at it. People noticed that too.
“Dedicated.”
“Disciplined.”
“Man, I wish I had your motivation.”
Shane learned to nod, to shrug it off like it was nothing. Like waking up with his heart already racing was normal. Like calculating every meal before it touched his plate didn’t take up half his thoughts. Like he didn’t feel a spike of panic if something unexpected showed up—oil, butter, anything he hadn’t accounted for.
He built himself carefully. Muscle layered over anxiety, routine over fear. Because muscle meant safety. Muscle meant no one asked questions.
Muscle meant he didn’t have to explain why his eyes lingered too long in locker rooms, why admiration felt too close to something dangerous. If he looked like them—if he was them, solid and controlled and undeniably masculine—then maybe no one would look closer. Maybe he wouldn’t have to, either.
It was easier to count calories than to unpack that. Easier to run than to sit still with it. Now it felt like survival. And Shane was very, very good at surviving.
He got good at hiding it, too.
Years slipped by without anything dramatic enough to force attention. No sudden collapse, no breaking point—just a steady narrowing of his world that no one quite caught in time. He graduated high school, smiled for photos, let people hug him and comment on how “fit” he looked. He got a job, saved just enough, moved forward the way he was supposed to.
On paper, it all looked right.
He had a girlfriend. Rose. She was kind in a way that made something in his chest ache if he thought about it too long. Gentle, patient, always reaching for his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. He told himself that was enough. That it should be enough.
University made everything easier.
Being broke meant skipping meals wasn’t suspicious—it was practical. Normal, even. Coffee instead of breakfast. Water instead of lunch. Maybe something small at night if he could tolerate it. No one questioned it. Everyone was struggling, everyone was busy, everyone was tired.
And his parents were four hours away.
Distance made it simple. Phone calls filled with half-truths and reassurance, carefully constructed. Yeah, I’m eating. Yeah, I’m just stressed. It’s school, you know how it is. He learned how to laugh at the right moments, how to deflect just enough to keep them from looking too closely.
It was easy to pretend. Too easy. Rose noticed, though. She always noticed.
By the time she realized something was seriously wrong, Shane had already convinced himself it wasn’t. He was healthy. He was strong. He was in control.
He ignored the way his body trembled when he stood up too fast. The way exhaustion settled into his bones no matter how much he slept. The way meals felt less like nourishment and more like negotiations.
It started small—her nudging a plate closer to him, her voice soft when she asked if he was going to eat more than that. Then it became quiet pleading, concern slipping through the cracks no matter how gently she tried to hold it back.
“Shane… you can’t just run on nothing.”
“I’m fine,” he’d say, already standing, already reaching for his shoes. “I’m just not hungry.”
Or, “I’ve got a lot going on. It’s just nerves.”
Excuses came naturally. They always had. Because how was he supposed to explain it?
How was he supposed to tell her that sometimes the thought of food made his throat close, that every bite felt like something he had to earn back later? That control had twisted so tight around him he didn’t know where it ended and he began?
And worse—how was he supposed to tell her that the distance between them wasn’t just stress?
That when she touched him, something in him went still instead of warm. That he kept waiting for it to click, for something real to spark, and it just… didn’t.
He didn’t hate her. That almost made it worse.
So he stayed. He smiled. He kissed her like he meant it and hoped one day he would.
Normality wasn’t supposed to feel like something you had to force into place, but he kept trying anyway.
It unraveled quietly.
Rose noticed first. Shane wasn’t even sure when it happened, just that suddenly she was looking at him differently—too closely, like she figured something out Shane hadn’t said out loud. And then suddenly Hayden knew.
Hayden, who had been there through everything. Who knew Shane better than anyone. Who didn’t push at first, just watched, waiting.
And then JJ knew too.
Somewhere along the line, concern stopped being quiet.
They talked. Compared notes. Filled in the gaps Shane had worked so carefully to keep separate. The skipped meals, the constant workouts, the way he brushed everything off with a laugh that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
And then they told his parents.
Shane didn’t know any of this when Hayden asked him to go for a run.
It wasn’t unusual. If anything, it was one of the few things that still felt steady—predictable. Safe. The rhythm of their feet against the pavement, the cold air in his lungs, the familiar burn in his muscles. For a little while, everything else went quiet.
He didn’t notice anything was wrong. Not until they got back. The door opened, and the world tilted.
Rose was there. Eyes red, face crumpled like she’d been crying for hours. His father stood stiffly beside her, shoulders tight, his expression trying and failing to stay composed. And his mother—
His mother looked like she was breaking apart.
“Shane—” her voice cracked on his name, and something in his chest seized.
The room felt too small. Too loud. Too full. Voices overlapped, blurred together. Concern, fear, desperation—all of it pressing in on him at once.
Rose was crying. His father’s eyes were glassy, jaw clenched like he was holding something back. His mother stepped forward, hands shaking so badly she could barely reach for him.
“I can’t watch my baby die,” she pleaded, her voice unraveling completely. “Please, Shane, please—just let us help you.”
The words hit somewhere deep, somewhere he didn’t let people touch.
He froze. It was like his body stopped responding, like everything inside him had gone rigid and locked in place. His eyes burned, but he couldn’t focus on anything. Faces blurred. Voices warped, stretched thin and distant.
Betrayal cut through it all, sharp and immediate. They told them. They all had betrayed him.
“You can’t do this,” he whispered, his voice barely there, like it had been scraped raw on the way out. “You can’t send me away.”
His throat tightened, chest heaving too fast, too shallow. This wasn’t control. This wasn’t something he could fix with a run or a plan or a promise to do better. This was something else entirely.
Arms wrapped around him before he could step back—Hayden, solid and warm, holding on like he thought Shane might disappear if he let go.
“We just want you happy,” Hayden murmured, voice low, steady, like he was trying to anchor him to something real.
Shane didn’t respond. Because somewhere under the fear, under the anger, under the overwhelming, suffocating weight of being seen—
There was a quiet, terrifying thought he couldn’t shake. He didn’t know who he was without this. Yet they were asking him to give it up anyway.
The place was called Rivière du Nord Men’s Recovery Centre.
It sat tucked into the northern stretch of Quebec, far enough from anything familiar that the silence felt intentional. A narrow river cut behind the property—slow-moving, dark, bordered by dense trees that seemed to swallow sound whole. The buildings were low and modern, all pale wood and wide windows, designed to look calming.
Four days after the intervention, he stood at the edge of it, hollowed out and raw. To Shane, it felt like a cage dressed up as peace.
His mother had talked the entire drive. About the program, the staff, the success rates—her voice bright in a way that felt forced, like if she stopped speaking everything would collapse in on itself. His father had driven in silence, hands tight on the wheel. Rose sat beside Shane, close but not touching, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to anymore.
“They’re a top of the line facility,” his mom said, her voice trembling just slightly as they followed a nurse down a quiet hallway. “They specialize in this kind of treatment. You’re going to get the best care possible.”
Shane’s eyes burned. This kind of treatment. She said it so easily. Like it was clinical. Like it was something that had a name, a box, a solution. Like he was something that needed to be fixed. Something broken.
His stomach twisted violently at the thought of it—being watched, monitored, evaluated. No more slipping through cracks, no more careful deflections. Every move dissected. Every meal observed. No escape. He wanted to scream.
Instead, he stood in the doorway of his assigned room, unmoving, as the nurse—kind, soft-spoken,chatted with his parents just behind him. He couldn’t even remember his name. It slid off him, unimportant compared to the roar in his ears.
The room was plain. Shane inspected it as if it was a prison cell.
Two twin beds on opposite sides. Two dressers. Two desks. Two nightstands. Everything symmetrical, neutral, beige. Like they’d stripped personality out of it on purpose.
“You’ll have the room to yourself for now,” the nurse had said earlier, something gentle in his tone.
Shane hadn’t responded. His body felt like it was burning from the inside out. Not heat—something sharper. Something restless and violent, clawing under his skin.
The one thing he’d had—control over himself, over his body, over every careful decision—ripped away and handed over to strangers in soft voices and structured schedules. Packaged up and dropped into a room that didn’t belong to him, a life that didn’t belong to him.
His parents said their goodbyes like they were afraid he might disappear if they let go too quickly. His mother clung to him, shaking, pressing her face into his shoulder as she cried. His father hugged him tighter than he ever had before, silent tears catching in the corners of his eyes.
“We’ll visit,” his mom promised, pulling back just enough to cup his face. “We’ll write. You’re not alone in this, okay?”
Shane didn’t answer.
Rose stepped forward last. She was already crying—quietly at first, then breaking the moment she wrapped her arms around him. She held on like she always did, like he was something fragile she needed to protect.
Shane stared past her. He couldn’t look at her. The hurt sat too deep, too sharp. A betrayal he couldn’t soften, couldn’t rationalize. She had told them. She had taken everything he kept hidden and handed it over like it was hers to give.
When they finally pulled away, when the goodbyes ran out and the hallway fell quiet, Shane didn’t move. He stood in the center of the room, staring blankly out the window. The trees swayed faintly in the distance, the river just barely visible through the branches. It should’ve been calming.
He didn’t need to turn around to know they were still there, lingering in the doorway. Watching him. Waiting.
All he could think about was how badly he wanted them to feel what he did, betrayal and hurt.
The words came out cold, sharp, cutting through the silence without hesitation.
“Congratulations on locking up your only son.”
His voice was bitter, hollow in a way that made it echo. There was a sharp inhale behind him. His mother again, probably. Or Rose.
“Shane—” someone started.
He didn’t let them finish.
“Maybe group therapy will turn me straight.” The words dropped heavy, jagged.
Rose made a small, broken sound. “Shane, that’s not funny.”
He turned then, slowly. The smile on his face wasn’t right. It didn’t reach his eyes—those were glassy, rimmed red, something fractured sitting just beneath the surface.
“Maybe I wasn’t using working out as the distraction,” he said, voice quieter now but no less cutting.
He looked directly at her.
And for the first time, there was no avoidance. No pretending.
“Maybe it was you.”
The silence that followed felt suffocating.
And for a split second—just one—something flickered across his expression. Regret. But it was buried just as quickly as it came.
Because hurting them was the only thing he had left control over, and he wasn’t ready to lose that too.
Shane settled the only way he knew how—by building a routine out of whatever he was given.
It wasn’t the structure that bothered him. He had always needed structure. Craved it, even. Something predictable, something he could map out and follow without thinking too hard.
It was the contents of it that made his skin crawl. Two weeks passed like that. Fourteen days of silence.
He ignored every call from his parents. Let them ring out until the sound itself made something sharp twist in his chest. The two letters they sent sat unopened on his desk, edges still crisp, like if he didn’t touch them they didn’t exist.
He ignored everyone else, too. Patients. Nurses. Staff. Shane hadn’t spoken a word since he got there.
His last words—to Rose—still felt like they were sitting on his tongue, scorched into it. Every time he thought about them, something tight pulled in his chest, something he refused to examine too closely. So he found it easier not to speak. He didn’t have anything to say anyways.
Every day blurred into the next, a loop so repetitive it stopped feeling like time was passing at all.
He woke up at six.
Not because anyone told him to—because his body refused not to. Like it had been trained too well, wired into something he couldn’t undo. He’d slide out of bed quietly, the room still dim, and drop to the floor without hesitation. One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. Counted in his head, steady, controlled. Ignoring the burn, chasing it, needing it.
After, he’d lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling too fast, waiting for his body to settle before the day officially started. Then he would pretend to sleep. Seven o’clock, the nurses came. Doors unlocked with soft clicks up and down the hall. A quiet signal that the performance had to shift.
Shane moved with everyone else, slipping into the dining hall without looking at anyone. There were maybe six other patients, scattered across tables, voices low, some too loud, some nonexistent. He didn’t meet a single pair of eyes.
Breakfast was the same every day in a way that felt almost intentional. Balanced. Monitored. Measured. Shane cut everything into small pieces.
Meticulous. Precise. Like if he made it small enough, it wouldn’t count as much. He’d take three bites—always three, no more—and then push his chair back with a quiet scrape.
Back to his room. Change clothes. Avoid mirrors, then outside. The courtyard was enclosed but open to the sky, the river just beyond the fencing, trees looming like silent witnesses. It should’ve felt freeing. It didn’t.
Shane ran. Lap after lap after lap, feet pounding into gravel, breath tearing through his chest. He didn’t pace himself—he pushed. Harder, faster, until the ache in his stomach twisted into something sharp and punishing. Until it felt like he’d erased what little he’d eaten.
He’d double over near the edge of the yard, shoulders shaking, forcing up whatever he could. Quick. Controlled. Hidden as best as possible. Then he’d wipe his mouth, straighten up, and keep moving like nothing had happened.
When they were called back inside, Shane disappeared. Doors were technically open during the day, but he’d learned the rhythm of the place. Learned how often nurses checked in, how long he had between footsteps in the hall.He used it, studied it. He could do four sets of push ups, undetected.
Then he’d sit on the bed, a book open in his hands, eyes scanning words he didn’t actually read. Breathing controlled, posture relaxed—perfectly timed for when someone peeked in.
“Doing okay, Shane?” A nod. Maybe. Nothing more. Then repeat until group therapy.
He sat in a circle with strangers and listened to them unravel. Drug use. Relapse. Depression. Suicide attempts. Words spilled out of people like they had nowhere else to go.
Shane felt sick listening to it. Not because he didn’t understand—but because he did. Because pieces of it echoed too closely, too loudly, in places he kept locked down tight.
Lunch came. Same routine. Eat as little as possible without drawing attention. Small bites. Careful pacing. Just enough to avoid confrontation.Then outside again. More running. More pushing. More burning.
Afternoons blurred into evenings. He’d sneak in reps when he could, hide in plain sight, then drift to the small library and sit with a book he didn’t absorb.
Dinner repeated the same quiet battle. Then meds. Shower. Bed by eight. Every single day. Over and over and over again. A routine carved so tightly it felt suffocating.
Shane lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, body aching, mind buzzing in a way that never quite shut off. He felt like a caged animal. Not because of the walls. But because even here—even now, with everything stripped away—
He couldn’t stop.