It Gets Worse Read online

  As she finished her text she looked up at me and put her hand on my shoulder.

  YOUTUBE GIRL: Shane. I love you. I really do. But I love you like a brother.

  And there it was. The phrase I had heard from pretty much every girl I had ever been friends with. Always a brother, never a lover. As the plane landed my eyes filled with tears. She hugged me tight to make sure I knew that she cared, but it didn’t help. I felt terrible and all I wanted to do was run home and have my grandma wipe my ass. You know, home-style comfort.

  We got in the car and we sat in silence the whole way home. After I dropped her off I went back to my place and relived the entire friendship over and over again in my head. I couldn’t believe I had let myself believe there was actually a chance with this beautiful girl. How stupid could I be? Girls like this don’t go for guys like me. They go for guys with calf tattoos and credit card debt.

  In the middle of the night I got a text. I was expecting an apology or maybe even a love letter, but instead I got something alarming. It wasn’t a text from her. It was a text from her mother.

  TEXT FROM YOUTUBE GIRL’S MOM: Shane, are you by any chance at my daughter’s house?? She’s not answering her phone, and I’m very worried about her. She was supposed to text me when she got home safe.

  I knew there was something wrong. She was not the type to ignore her mother. I put on my clothes and drove over to her house as fast as I could.

  BANG BANG BANG. After hitting on the door as hard as I could, it slowly opened and there was my sweet little pony covered in blankets looking like a train hit her.

  ME: Oh my God! What’s wrong?

  YOUTUBE GIRL: I don’t feel good.

  She started to cry and fell into my arms. I called her family right away and found out that she had a history of really intense panic attacks. They asked me to stay with her for the night, so I did. Even though I was upset, I couldn’t let my friend down.

  ME: I’m gonna stay here, ok? You go back to bed. If you need me, just let me know.

  YOUTUBE GIRL: Are you sure?

  ME: Hey, I’m not gonna leave you. I promise.

  As I helped her into her bed I heard a beeping sound from downstairs. I walked into the living room and saw her phone flashing. I assumed it was her mother, but when I looked at it, the name was unfamiliar. It was a guy’s name, and there was a heart emoji next to it. Now I felt like I was starting to have a panic attack. I didn’t know what do to. Part of me wanted to ignore it and just get through the night, but another part of me wanted to know who she had been texting throughout our whole friendship. Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to open the message. I scrolled up to the top, and it looked like the conversation had started around the time she and I started hanging out every night. I wish I had never looked.

  GUY: Hey, you still hanging out with that guy that’s in love with you or something?

  YOUTUBE GIRL: LOL don’t say that. He’s nice.

  GUY: Ya, but nice doesn’t get the panties off does it haha

  YOUTUBE GIRL: You are so lame haha

  GUY: What you guys doing?

  YOUTUBE GIRL: Just hanging out in my room. Wish you were here.

  GUY: With him there?

  YOUTUBE GIRL: No. lol just me and you. ;)

  I shut the messages. I couldn’t read anymore. My heart was crushed. This whole time I had thought maybe she was into me. Maybe I had a chance. It turns out I had just been playing a game of truth or dare with myself. The dare had been to fall in love with a girl who was way out of my league, but the truth was that she would never love me back.

  YOUTUBE GIRL: Shane. Can you bring me some water?

  As I heard her call me from the other room, I knew I had a choice to make. Was I going to leave and be angry at her, or was I going to forget about all the petty bullshit and help out a friend. I decided to do the latter. I grabbed her a glass of water and went to her room, where she was lying with a blanket over her head.

  ME: Here you go.

  YOUTUBE GIRL: Thanks. I don’t know what I would do without you, Shane.

  The harsh reality was that I wasn’t sure we could still be friends. I still had so many feelings for her and I couldn’t imagine just hanging out with her and watching TV anymore. I wanted to spend time with a girl who wanted more from me than just a shopping buddy. I wanted someone to kiss me, hold me, and maybe give me a blow job. And not out of pity.

  That night, after she started feeling better, I gave her a hug and headed home. I didn’t see her much after that and she knew why. As much as I wanted her to have feelings for me, the truth was she didn’t and that was ok. I’d spent so much time being mad at her when in reality she just wanted a friend, and I was the asshole who wanted more.

  Years later, I ran into her again and we had a nice long talk about everything that went down. I’m not going to lie; when I saw her again, a lot of feelings came back up. She was just as beautiful as I remembered. Unfortunately I was just as terrible with women as I remembered.

  ME: So how you been?

  YOUTUBE GIRL: Oh, you know, just working so hard my feet are gonna fall off.

  ME: Hey! If they do, give them to me so I can sell them for glue!

  Ya. Some guys never learn.

  Word Vomit

  About the Artist

  KENZIE RUTLEDGE is twenty-one years old and comes from a town with a population of about three hundred cows . . . Artesia, New Mexico. She has always had an interest in art, so after graduating from high school she decided to take things further by attending Santa Fe University of Art and Design for two years. She is now living in El Paso, Texas, getting her cosmetology license, but she is always keeping her artistic side alive by doing various commissioned work, henna tattoos, and custom paintings. Someone she really looks up to and who has been her greatest inspiration is Timothy Trentham. You can contact her by email at [email protected], or, to see more of her work, you can follow her on Instagram @kenziekins_.

  It was a cold winter night in 2012, and I was standing outside on Hollywood Boulevard in my very unflattering underwear, covered in my own vomit. I know what you’re thinking: “Wow, Shane! I didn’t know you were such a party animal!” I’m not. I’m the opposite of a party animal. I’m a funeral person. I would much rather be surrounded by people crying while a dead person slowly decays in front of them than by a bunch of drunk people constantly asking me if I’m trans. I appreciate the compliment, but no, unfortunately God gave these hips to a man.

  Covered in puke and blending in with the homeless people, I looked up at the sky and prayed that the Mayans were right. There’s nothing I would have enjoyed more at that moment than to have been hit by a massive tidal wave and killed on impact. But before I go any further with this awesome image, let’s go back to 2007, so I can really set the mood.

  I was hanging out with my friend Kate, and we were trying to decide what to get for dinner one Friday night. I had been on a pretty intense diet for the last year and lost 150 pounds, so all I ever had a craving for was a baker’s dozen of donuts and a horse trough filled with mac and cheese. You know, something sensible. Well, because I didn’t want to die of a heart attack and because Kate’s not a horse, we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant down the street from my house. After about three bowls of salsa I started feeling a little sick to my stomach. Obviously, three bowls of salsa isn’t healthy for anyone, but my stomach was typically pretty indestructible. When you’re raised by a woman whose specialty is “Lashotdogna” you develop a pretty strong gut.

  When we got back to my house I knew there was something for sure wrong with me. I started to sweat and see double, which was terrible, considering we were watching a straight-to-DVD Hilary Duff movie and I could barely take watching it with single vision. Kate started to notice I was acting funny and not just reacting to the terrible performances.

  KATE: Hey are you ok?

  ME: I don’t think so. Do you see two Hilary Duffs?

  KATE: No, just her and h
er sister. But if you think they look alike, you might be having a stroke.

  ME: Can you get my mom? I think there’s something wrong.

  My mom rushed into my room and immediately went into nurse mode. She’s not a trained nurse, but she’d taken me to the ER enough times to know how to fake it. I could never convince her that I wasn’t dying, I just LOOKED like I was dying. There’s a difference.

  MOM: Shaney Bird, what’s wrong?! What can Momma do?! Do you need an ambulance?! Should I call 911?!

  ME: No, please don’t. The neighbors already hate us. The last thing I want to do is give them the satisfaction of thinking I’m dead.

  MOM: Well, what’s wrong? Is it your butt or your head?

  She definitely hadn’t ever heard that in the ER. She must have been going rogue.

  ME: No, it’s—

  BARRRFFFFFFFFFFF. As I tried to finish my sentence I was interrupted by projectile puke SO chunky and fast moving it looked like someone had hooked up a hose to a bucket of spaghetti sauce. (I’m gagging as I write this. Sorry, I’m just way too good at describing gross stuff. You should hear me describe my poop. I’ll give you a hint: I use LOTS of the same adjectives that would be used to describe a seven-layer cake. THICK.) As I set free my three bowls of salsa, Kate jumped in front of me to catch it so it didn’t go on my computer desk. That’s the sign of a true friend. Well, that and someone who will watch a straight-to-DVD Hilary Duff movie with you without judgment.

  MOM: Honey, what did you eat?!

  I couldn’t answer because my mouth was still filled with thick, juicy, hot, garlicky . . . You know what? I’ll stop.

  KATE: We went to the Mexican restaurant down the street.

  MOM: The one with a C rating??

  ME: I thought that was an A in Spanish!

  MOM: That makes no sense.

  ME: And “Lashotdogna” does??

  The next day I woke up with the smell of a C-rated restaurant in my mouth and the look of death on my face. As I made my way to the bathroom I stepped on my scale because that was part of my morning routine. Wake up, tuck my boner into my underwear in case my mom walks in, check my MySpace messages to see if Lori Beth Dinberg ever wrote me back, and then weigh myself to see if I’d maintained. To my shock and excitement, I had lost three pounds! Granted it was three pounds of vomit, but still! I hadn’t lost three pounds overnight since my mom made tuna Casseralph, which was basically a casserole made from all the clearance items at Ralphs. I’ll let you in on a little secret: tuna plus Cheerios is NOT GOOD.

  Anyways, the rush I got from losing that much weight in one night was intoxicating. I was already not in a great place when it came to my health. I had lost so much weight so quickly by essentially starving myself . . . I hadn’t eaten delicious food in a long time. I was bound to slip up and binge, so the only way to get rid of the guilt was to throw it up. Up until this point I hadn’t forced myself to purge, but after that three-pound weight loss I decided that it was something I should try.

  That night I decided to go out by myself and have a full-on eat-a-thon. I even wore my sweatpants to make sure I had plenty of room to fill up. Similar to how you get Hefty trash bags when you have a party so you have somewhere to put all the beer cans and red cups. Except my pants were the trash bag, and my body was the party. Luckily I was the only one invited, so I didn’t have to shower.

  I drove through my favorite fast-food joint, which I hadn’t been to in a year. I could smell the fries from my car even before I got in line. I watched a family of six order one hundred dollars’ worth of food and get six bags in return from the cashier, and I thought to myself: “Pussies. I’m gonna destroy them.”

  DRIVE-THRU LADY: What would you like?

  ME: You might want to get a chair and a snack, ma’am. It’s gonna be a while.

  I laughed at my clever joke. She didn’t. It was nine p.m. on a Saturday, and she was working at a fast-food restaurant where homeless people go to pee. Her humor was a little jaded.

  ME: Ok, first I will get a number one with extra sauce.

  DRIVE-THRU LADY: Ok, would you like that extra large?

  ME: Do you have a glass guard to keep homeless people from stabbing you?

  I laughed. She didn’t.

  ME: I will also have a number four, five, nine, ten, three, and an apple pie.

  DRIVE-THRU LADY: Are you having a party?

  I looked down at my stretchy pants and gave them a good snap.

  ME: Oh ya.

  The next stop on my chemical-filled fake-food rave was a park by my house. I stayed in the car, opened up the food bags, and let the smell take over and the heat fog my windows. People walking by probably thought there was a couple in the car having hot, steamy sex. Little did they know it was just me passionately devouring an order of nuggets and a fish sandwich.

  As I finished the first bag of food I started to feel sick, but I didn’t want to give up. These were not the pants of a quitter! Well, actually they were, considering every person over the age of eight who wears sweatpants in public has obviously given up on life.

  After the second bag, I looked in the mirror and saw that I was dripping with sweat. I hadn’t ingested food like this in more than a year, and I wasn’t reacting well. If my body had been a movie theater playing a Rob Schneider movie and the food was the audience, they were about to walk out. This was Deuce Bigalow 2 bad. I could feel my stomach bubbling, and I reached for an empty bag as fast as I could. Without going into detail again, let me just say the audience didn’t walk out, they ran. And they were VERY angry and VERY offended at what they saw. After the first “walkout” I could tell that there were still a few moviegoers in the handicapped section that needed help getting out. I had never tried to make myself throw up before, and I was terrified. As I stuck my finger down my throat my heart started to race. I felt like a criminal. I started to cry, and I couldn’t stop. The reality of the situation hit me. I was becoming . . . bulimic. Something I never thought would happen to me. I wasn’t a supermodel; I was a guy who shopped at Target and played UNO on Friday nights. The only things I’d ever purged were people from my friends list when they start posting about their new baby cousins they’d just met. We get it, you’re single and can’t find someone to have your own baby with so you have to shove someone else in my face. DELETE.

  This is when I realized that bulimia wasn’t just a disease for supermodels. It was a disease that didn’t have a dress code. No matter what you looked like or who you were, you could have it and get trapped in its ugly claws. And now that I was there, it was frightening. After forcing myself to throw up I wiped away the tears and drove home faster than I ever had before. I stopped at a Dumpster and threw away the evidence, hoping I would never have to go through this again. I walked into my house and my mom asked me where I had been. I lied to her. I hadn’t lied to her in years.

  ME: I was at Target. Just looking around.

  MOM: Oh, that sounds fun.

  ME: No. It wasn’t. It was horrible.

  I started to cry and ran to my room. My mom must have known something was up because I LOVE Target and it has never let me down. Not even when they decided not to sell my last book, I Hate Myselfie, but I AIN’T BITTER! I went into the bathroom and looked at my reflection. I was covered in sweat. My mouth was outlined red from all the acid. My face looked puffy and full. I made a promise to myself that I would never do that again. I’d worked so hard to get my weight off and I didn’t want to do anything that could hurt my body. The promise was genuine, and I felt 100 percent confident.

  Until the next morning when I woke up and saw that I’d lost another two pounds. I instantly forgot all the events of the night before and felt a rush from seeing the number on the scale drop again. This marked the beginning of a five-year struggle with bulimia and never letting anyone in my life know about it. My mom must have thought I was going broke from all my trips to Target. Little did she know that “Target” was code for fast food and “a big sale” was code for
LOTS of vomit.

  Over the next five years I would binge and purge at least three times a week, and every time I had the same guilty feeling, and I would cry over the sink while looking at myself in the mirror. I would have the same conversation with myself.

  ME: I promise I’m never ever doing this again. This is the last time. I’m done.

  And then the next night I would drive by 7-Eleven and see they were having a sale on supersize pizza sticks, and all promises would be broken. The number of times I purged while all my friends were over at my house was insane. I would run to the bathroom and pretend I had diarrhea and none of them ever questioned it. Looking back, I feel like someone should have at least said, “Damn, Shane, is your ass ok?!”

  When my ex-girlfriend Lisa and I started going out I was worried that she would suspect something, but she never did, despite some very close calls. One of which brings me back to the cold night in 2012 when I was wearing my underwear on Hollywood Boulevard, covered in my own puke.

  It was the first time I was going to spend the night at Lisa’s place, and I was terrified. What if I snore? What if I fart? What if I sleepwalk and try to choke her to death? Hey, you never know.

  That night we had a big meal. Feeling like a failure, I planned to binge as much food as I could inhale, throw it all up, and pretend like it had never happened. This tactic, of course, made no sense because (1) you never get rid of all the food, (2) your body keeps 70 percent of the calories even if you puke it up instantly, and (3) bulimia actually makes you gain weight in certain circumstances, because your body is in a constant state of survival mode, so anything you eat and don’t throw up your body takes and stores instantly.

  The weight loss I had experienced five years prior had stopped shortly after I became bulimic, but I couldn’t stop. It was like a drug. The high I got from bingeing and purging was pure ecstasy. Of course, just like drugs, with the highs came the lows, and man, were they low. Covered-in-vomit-on-a-street-corner low.