Page 76 of Ravenous

“It’ll be okay, Sunshine. I’m here.” Clearing his throat, Finn got out of the car, giving Ollie’s dad a tight nod, and Ollie watched, detached, as if he wasn’t in his body. Nothing felt real, not the passenger door opening, the clasp of Finn’s hand, or the pavement underneath his shoes as he stood, finally facing his family.

As expected, his mother let out a little gasp, covering her mouth as tears welled in her eyes. His father crossed his arms, face stern. Tommy echoed him, and Sophie stared with pursed lips and a wrinkle in her brow that told Ollie she wasveryconcerned.

“Where’s Biz?” he croaked out automatically, not recognizing his own voice.

“Traffic, she’ll be here any minute.” Tommy gestured at the street.

“Nice job, keeping things to yourself by the way,” Ollie snapped, not knowing where the anger came from but all of a sudden he was pissed. He’d been having thebestday and was just about to hear Finn say those three magic words. Couldn’t they have waited until tomorrow to barge into his life? He loved them and he knew they were hurting but he wanted to fix his mistakes on his own, not have his shame paraded around and argued about.

“You know what, Ollie-” Tommy stepped forward but Ollie wasn’t having it.

“Idon’tknow what, Tommy, because I don’t care. I don’t want this intervention, or ambush, or whatever it is.” He flailed his hand around, embarrassed and furious. As his mother began to cry he added in a dose of guilt too.

“What happened to you, Oliver?” she whispered, the words tremulous. “What are you doing to yourself?” Turning away, she sobbed into a tissue, and his father put an arm around her.

Ollie sighed, rubbing his forehead. This was going about as well as he’d expected.

Large hands landed on his shoulders and he could feel Finn’s calm trying to seep in, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Ollie shook so hard that his teeth were chattering and he wanted to run away or throw things.

“How about we all go inside and talk about this?” To his credit, Finn tried to diffuse the situation but the last thing Ollie wanted was everyone hashing things out inhissanctuary; besides, Mason would not appreciate the crazy talk-show vibes this would bring to his living room. “Ollie has already been working to get better. He has a doctor’s appointment on Friday.”

“Good.” Sophie spoke for the first time. As the oldest, smartest, and most taciturn, whenever she said something, people listened. “This isn’t something trivial, Ollie. If you’re diagnosed with an eating disorder, it can kill you.”

“What?” Ollie had seen the statistics online but refused to believe them.

Sophie gave him a tight nod. “I work in the cardiac unit and I’ve seen a few ED patients come in who were way too young to be having heart attacks. Ollie, if you don’t get enough nutrition, your body eats your fat, but if there’s no fat to eat, it eats your muscles, including your cardiac muscle.”

“Please,” his father sounded desperate, helpless. “Please stop this…”

That was the key to dissolving Ollie’s anger but he still felt twisted, unstable, and it made him want to float away. He’d started running from the dread because he didn’t want anything to happen to his family, because he wasn’t ready to face tragedy, yet he’d brought disaster right to them, placing it at their feet. And then he had the audacity to get mad when they became concerned.

He knew that he had to fix things but his emotions were all over the place; too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours for him to keep his head on straight. Thankfully, he had Finn, his knight, his protector, and his safety net. Ollie couldn’t imagine trying to do this without him; he wouldn’t have any strength left.

Another car pulled up behind Finn’s and Ollie instantly recognized Biz’s pitch-black sedan; before he could take another breath, she flew out of the driver’s seat, looking him up and down.

“Holy fucking shit.” Mouth open, she turned to the rest of the family. “Itoldyou that he had an eating disorder but does anyone listen to me? No. And I-” She stopped, staring at Ollie again. No, behind Ollie. And Finn’s hands, which had been resting on his shoulders, slid off. “Finn?What areyoudoing here?”

Something was imminent, like a storm approaching, or a Sword of Damocles about to snap its hold, ready to descend straight into Ollie’s heart.

“Ellie?” Finn didn’t sound right. Wait, how did he know Biz’s not-name? As a child, his excitable sister had been called a busy little bee and ended up completely owning it, going first as Busy, which morphed into Bizzy and then Biz; however, to the world at large, she often used Elizabeth or Ellie.

Still shaken, Ollie’s brain couldn’t parse correctly so he turned, and his blood ran cold.

It was like Finn had seen a ghost. His skin had gone pasty and his eyes shifted between Biz and Ollie, growing wider with each passing second.

“What’s going on?” Ollie tilted his head, eyeing his sister. “How do you know each other?”

“We dated for a few months. How do you-” She froze like a statue. “Oh. Oh no. Ohfuck.” Worry, fear, and shame all washed across her features as she looked helplessly at Ollie; however, he’d tuned out after the first sentence. It rang in his head like a bell, shoving him offline and back onto the track in his mind. He’d been too cocky, too smug, too confident, thinking he could heal, that he could be in love. That if tragedy came, Finn could shield him from it. But he was losing Finn right now, and he needed to go back to protecting himself.

“Ollie…” Finn opened and closed his mouth, his hand out. “I…I had no idea. You call her Biz.”

“You dated her?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his parents grab Tommy by the jacket and slowly move away, to the other side of the property, Sophie a few steps ahead of them. Biz hovered nearby, looking like she was going to be sick. “Did you know about this?” he barked at her. The world was spinning; he could only take so much.Thiswas his punishment for trying to heal? That his boyfriend and his sister…

Ollie bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood, wishing that he could boil himself alive.

“I didn’t!” she exclaimed, hands in her turquoise hair. “Finn called me a few months ago for advice about-” Lowering her arms, she turned to Finn. “AboutOllie?”

He swallowed and nodded, refocusing on Ollie.

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