Belong - an adopted by Hamilton fanfic [Hamilton]

87. To explore: 1.0

[A/N: Alright, big chapter in two parts coming your way. Let's go!🎉]

I was sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast with Vanessa, Lin and Sebastian.
"You excited for today?", Lin asked me, while reading The New York Times.
I looked up at him, confused.
"Why do you know what's happening today?", I asked him. He looked up at me.
"Because Dom checked it with us", he replied, with a smug look on his face.
"How come I don't?", I said, as I turned to Vanessa.
"Well isn't that the point of a surprise?", she said, raising her left eyebrow while laughing at me.
"I guess", I said, and looked down at my cereal, which I had just been moving around for the last fifteen minutes. It wasn't just soggy anymore. It had fully become a soup. "I don't like surprises"
Lin put the newspaper down and looked at me.
"He knows that. That's why he checked it with us", he told me, while caringly looking at me.
I continued to move my spoon around in my half-eaten cereal.
"You'll be okay. We wouldn't drop you off with Dom if we didn't think that", Vanessa said, as she took Sebastian out of his high chair and put him on the ground.
I shrugged my shoulders, still anxious about it.
"Hey, do you want something else? A bagel, maybe?", Lin asked me, noticing how little I'd eaten as he cleaned off his plate.
I shook my head.
"I'll make you one, anyway", he told me, and put half of a bagel in the toaster.
I instantly felt a need to defend myself.
"I'm fine, Lin", I told him, because the thought of eating a bagel made my heart race. He was listening, but he didn't actually listen to me; because he continued to take the cream cheese out of the fridge.
I looked down at my cereal that had disintegrated into the milk.
"I had half my cereal. I'm just not that hungry", I continued to explain, as I tapped my thigh and counted thoroughly.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
The toaster popped.
The thoughts were getting louder.
"You'll be hungry again in 30 minutes, Rue", Lin replied to my protests, as he quickly spread cream cheese on it. "Here you go", he told me, and put it on my plate, with a small smile on his face.
"I told you I didn't want it", I objected, just staring at it, feeling incapable of eating.
"You gotta eat, Niñita", Vanessa said, referring to the last conversation we had had around bagels.
"I don't want to. I'm not hungry", I said, repeating what I had already told them as my voice was getting louder to try to drown out the thoughts in my mind.
"Niñita, please. You have to eat", Lin said, sitting down next to me.
"But I do eat!", I loudly protested, feeling powerless as I looked up at them. They looked at each other with concern.
"We know, Rue. You're just not eating enough", Vanessa said from across the table.
"So you're gonna tell Dr Noma again?", I snapped. "It'll just make it w-worse! Last week, I... she made me eat a sandwich from the hospital café. I did it. And y-yesterday... yesterday I had to eat a chicken sandwich that was out of date. You know I don't... I can't eat chicken. And another doctor came in to weigh me. You don't know how humiliating that was!", I exclaimed, pushing my chair out from the table, ready to burst out.
"Rue, we understand that you feel blindsided but we're just worried about you-", Lin said, seemingly unfazed by my hostile behaviour.
"But I am eating!", I repeated, sounding desperate now as I stood by the kitchen table, feeling the tears build up inside.
"We know, we just think it might be a new routine forming-", Vanessa tried to explain, standing up to walk over.
"No! I am eating. Look!", I protested again, and without really thinking about, I took the bagel and took a bite, pressing it down while my eyes began to water. Everything inside me was telling me not to. "Satisfied?"
Vanessa looked down.
Lin didn't seem to know what to say.

I knew that would hurt them.
That's why I'd said it.

"Rue-", Lin said, but I just walked away.
"I'm going to see Dom. He should be outside", I said, grabbing my already packed tote bag by the door. I quickly wiped my tears and forced them back, scared to look like I had been crying in front of Dom.
"Niñita, please-", he continued, standing up to hurry after me, but I could hear Vanessa tell him something.
"Let her be, Lin. We'll talk about it later"
At that point I was already out the door.