The paranoia of starting anew (660 views)

“Ahaha. Well, I have to regulate my diet, too. I am a model… so I have to watch my figure. So I can only have one serving a meal, and I can’t just… eat the entire bag of 28 chicken nuggets in one sitting… and fries… I miss fries…”

He sighed out, taking a few steps back, towards the guys’ bathrooms.

“If you want, uhm, I can show you campus later. Or you can explore on your own, if you’d rather… I just know the place, I guess. Anyway, I’ll probably cook dinner for around 5 or 6, so…”

He wiped his eye again, hoping that his injured one wasn’t swelling too badly.

Todd laughed, shaking his head. He heard that a lot! He honestly knew quite a few girls—and guys, of course—who chose to go by those diets. It wasn’t that they were necessarily bad… although they certainly weren’t that good for you… but Todd could never live that way!

“Actually, some people do use those diets. But I don’t. I mean… everything is fine, in moderation, to eat. So as long as I have decent portions, I’ll keep my weight in check. If I eat three square meals a day, that keeps my metabolism working faster, which means I burn off more calories. I also work out, so I feel better having a solid meal in my stomach when I go to the gym… besides, I hate salads… sorry for rambling, you probably didn’t want to know that much!”

He just started to talk, and he couldn’t shut himself up until he finished! Complain as he might about his diet, Todd took it seriously, and knew exactly how to maintain his weight.

“And I offered! So I don’t mind… I’ll take you around. It’s no big deal, and I have nothing to do, anyway! It sounds fun to get out”

“Thank you! Yeah, a lot of models tend to look unhealthy…” He sighed. “Especially the girls… I feel so bad for them, sometimes. Do you know what editors do? A lot of times, editors will take pictures of the models and Photoshop them, make them skinnier, emphasize their bones more, add more curves, sharpen their makeup. It may look decent in the magazines, and some edits are flattering, but when the actual girls see the severe tweaking… well, it’s hard. It’s like a slap in the face, sometimes, depending on what they edit. They do it to guys too, but not half as much.”

He smiled in response, though.

“Yeah! After dinner sounds great! I’ll check out my eye… if I need to, I can wear sunglasses… even if they make me look like a jerk…”

He always thought he looked really jerky in sunglasses—mostly because they were a gift from Gavin, an actual designer brand. They highlighted his face in a jerky way, too.

“Yeah… it’s hard to be a model, sometimes. If I were a girl, I don’t know if I could keep up with it…” He sighed out. He really liked being in pictures and posing for them, but in this business, it was a dog-eat-dog world. Despite having many rivals and acquaintances in the business, Gavin was honestly his only friend.

“The sunglasses just hide my face, and it makes me look really shady… you’ll see!” Todd said. “Now, I’ll, uh, leave you to get settled, and I’ll check out my eye, then cook. Okay?”

Todd waved to her with his hand not covering his eye. "You’ll see!” he said, turning completely around to use the bathroom.

Once he was in the boys bathroom, Todd took a deep breath and took off his hand. Not so bad… there was swelling, but nothing was bleeding. Todd saw dried tear tracks on his cheek and underneath his eye, but he wiped them away. However as he did so, it stung very sharply, causing Todd to hiss in pain and recoil. The skin was sensitive, he figured.

Todd slowly peeled his eye open. It hurt a lot to try to open it, so he took awhile, slowly opening it inch by inch each time. His vision in that eye was very blurry, and he could hardly see out of it. But his other eye, which saw clear as day, surveyed the wound.

It was swollen all round his eye, and bright red. His eye was bloodshot and hurt to keep open. Ice was definitely a good idea.

He washed out his eye with cool water first, making sure to cry just a bit to get any sand or dirt out of there. Once the eye could remain open for an extended period of time, Todd stood up and observed the eye again. Now it was damp and swollen, but otherwise OK. It was still blurry, but he could see.

Todd glared in the direction of Matt’s door. How rude! This was all his fault…

Todd sighed and turned back towards his door, and entered it. He grabbed the expensive sunglasses from his drawer and placed them on his head. He then went downstairs, blinking frequently due to annoyance and the constant feeling something was in his eye.

He placed the glasses on the table, and then started to make the nuggets. It didn’t take very long at all—they were prepackaged, 4 per serving things. He also had some fries he was cooking, two servings worth since no one else seemed to be here.

As he cooked and the steam rose up to his eye, it hurt. So Todd stepped away from the cooking food to grab some frozen peas from the freezer. He put them over his eye and it helped the pain immensity.

Time passed, and eventually it was dinnertime. Todd finished cooking the chicken and pulled two paper plates out of the drawer. He put two equal servings of both fries and chicken on both, then he placed them at the table. He didn’t know what Cristina preferred to drink, but he got himself some sprite.

Todd approached the stairs and looked up.

“Uhm, Cristina, dinner’s ready!” He called, still holding the frozen peas to his eye. He’d definitely have to change his shirt after this—the ice on the package was falling onto and drenching his shoulder.

When Christina arrived downstairs, Todd pressed the peas further into his eye with a small shrug.

“It’ll be fine, don’t worry. It’s just really swollen…” He removed the frozen peas, revealing his eye. It was, as he said, swollen, but he was smiling. “I can still see out of it… and, uh, it should heal up soon. It’s stopped stinging since I put on the ice.”

He took a seat at the table, grabbing the ketchup with one hand and holding the ice to his eye with the other. “I’ll leave the peas here when we go… I’ll also need to change my shirt…”

“Yeah! My last injury looked just like this. It’ll be fine after a few days, I’m sure!” Todd helped himself to a nugget, and dipped it in the ketchup. He ate it, savoring the flavor of chicken. He wished he could pig out on these, he really did! It was a pain to use silver wear with one hand, so Todd was glad nuggets could be eaten with his fingers.

“The cups are… up, top cabinet, bottom shelf.” Todd informed Cristina. “And for drinks, we have… soda… and water, and I think there’s apple juice in there too. Help yourself to anything.”

Todd didn’t think anything was wrong, at first. He was focused on his food. But when Cristina slammed the door, he jumped a bit, turning towards her nervously helping herself to some water with a wide blue eye.

He quickly turned back around when she looked at him, not wanting to be a weirdo or a jerk or make her feel uncomfortable. She wasn’t extremely self-conscious, was she? But why would she have slammed the door so loud, or refused to look in the fridge for a drink? Maybe she didn’t like anything they had?

When she sat down, he looked her over. She was focusing on her plate, not on him when she spoke. He didn’t mind that, not really, but he couldn’t help but think she was extremely bothered by something.

“Er… n—no problem.” He said, looking at his own plate. But would be weird to ask her if something was wrong, wouldn’t it? He had asked her before… so if there was something seriously wrong, she’d mention it, right?

“You don’t have an allergy, do you? Like nuts or something? Because, uh, I think we have peanut butter in the fridge.”

Was that why she was nervous? Maybe…

He quickly ate another chicken nugget, also avoiding eye contact with her. He shouldn’t have asked that—she’d think he thought her reaction to getting water was weird! He wanted to hit himself.

“Oh, really? That’s good.” Todd said, eating another chicken nugget. He was running out of chicken to eat! He’d have to slow down on eating things… “I mean, it’s important to know if anyone has an allergy… I figure. I mean, some people react badly to peanuts and fish and spices…”

Sometimes he wished he was allergic to peanuts so he wouldn’t be tempted by peanut butter. It was very fattening, according to Gavin, and he should avoid it whenever possible. The problem was that when Todd ate one bit of peanut butter… well, he soon found himself eating half of the can.

“I don’t think Max is allergic to anything… she never said anything, so… and I don’t know about that guy, but…”

When he mentioned Matt, Todd frowned slightly at the stinging that followed from his eye.