Bones
Sixteen
Jamie eats, for the first time in – well, he’s stopped counting, it could be days or weeks or hours or minutes, who knows in this continual time slip that is Jamie’s Sad, Sad Life. Jamie eats cheeseburgers and cheese fries and chocolate and ice cream and mayonnaise sandwiches and two whole bags potato chips. This isn’t planned, not at all. There’s no preparation to this in any way. It just happens, in that odd way that awful things sometimes do. Jamie shovels cakes and yogurt and marshmallows down his throat, chew chew chew chew chew swallow chew chew chew chew swallow swallow chew chew swallow swallow swallow. Normally, in times that he’s alone like this - when Nicky’s out of the house - there would be a spit in there somewhere, but not this time. This one wasn’t meticulously planned, there was no anxiety waiting for his brother to leave so that he could pretend he ate half the kitchen and put on the I’m In Recovery Show; there was no satisfaction as Jamie dumped the disgusting lumps of chewed and spit food into the toilet and flushed until the bowl was off white again.
All that lives here is Shame and Hunger, fucking each other like rabbits.
Jamie doesn’t know how much he really eats or how much time passes during his epic binge, but it ends in the bathroom like his days alone always do. The door’s not locked, it never is anymore. There’s no running water in the faucet or in the shower, like he used to do when he would pretend to take three or four showers a day. There’s no running water here, just the sound of a silly boy gagging on his fingers and choking on tears that taste like grease.
- It won’t come up, it won’t come up, oh God please.
This, Jamie knows, is God’s way of punishing him. He doesn’t know why he ever even pleads with the deity anymore, It’s obviously just out to fuck him like everything else in his life is.
His fingers push down farther and farther, trying to find the button in his throat, but it’s gone. It’s not there anymore, or if it is Jamie’s too delusional and upset to find it.
Finally, he gives up and crawls in the bathtub. He turns the water on, hot only until it’s steaming and the bits of skin he can see are bright lobster red and burning. He cries and cries and cries, his eyes becoming as swollen and bloated as his stomach. Beneath the water Jamie digs what’s left of his nails into his cuticles, tearing them apart. When there’s nothing left but blood, he moves on to his hands, scratch scratch scratching the burning skin away until the scalding water stings away the pain into the numbess Jamie is so fond of.
When Nick comes home three hours later, he finds his brother in a bathtub full of cold water, fully clothed, and sleeping, his pruned fingers freshly scabbed.
All that lives here is Shame and Hunger, fucking each other like rabbits.
Jamie doesn’t know how much he really eats or how much time passes during his epic binge, but it ends in the bathroom like his days alone always do. The door’s not locked, it never is anymore. There’s no running water in the faucet or in the shower, like he used to do when he would pretend to take three or four showers a day. There’s no running water here, just the sound of a silly boy gagging on his fingers and choking on tears that taste like grease.
- It won’t come up, it won’t come up, oh God please.
This, Jamie knows, is God’s way of punishing him. He doesn’t know why he ever even pleads with the deity anymore, It’s obviously just out to fuck him like everything else in his life is.
His fingers push down farther and farther, trying to find the button in his throat, but it’s gone. It’s not there anymore, or if it is Jamie’s too delusional and upset to find it.
Finally, he gives up and crawls in the bathtub. He turns the water on, hot only until it’s steaming and the bits of skin he can see are bright lobster red and burning. He cries and cries and cries, his eyes becoming as swollen and bloated as his stomach. Beneath the water Jamie digs what’s left of his nails into his cuticles, tearing them apart. When there’s nothing left but blood, he moves on to his hands, scratch scratch scratching the burning skin away until the scalding water stings away the pain into the numbess Jamie is so fond of.
When Nick comes home three hours later, he finds his brother in a bathtub full of cold water, fully clothed, and sleeping, his pruned fingers freshly scabbed.