Status: FYI: two chapters posted March 20; COMPLETED

Do Not Resuscitate

Chapter 10

I am lost.

Completely and totally lost in my own head. Stuck in my confusion. Trapped by rapid cycles of thoughts. The same thoughts. Over and over and over. Beating into me. Words that sum up my existence. And laced throughout it all, the thought that something has changed in this house’s dynamic. Because of me.

I can’t place it. I don’t know what it is. Something is different. Something isn’t right. Something is putting me on edge. It’s building up inside of me. I’m going to explode. I’m going to burst into stripes of erratically colored confetti.

The day is a blur of hunger and bouts of sleep and trying not to crack under the stress of Dad’s gaze and the stress of locked up razors and the stress of living. The scenes play in Technicolor. Not quite right. Not quite solid. Not quite there.

I watch. Disconnected. Outside of my body. In a body that’s not my own. Chaotic. Confused. A bystander watching a train wreck. But I’m not a bystander and there is no train wreck. There’s just me and my family. Constantly.

Brooklyn obsesses over my health and food and sticking to my side. Sissy needs food. It’s her damn anthem, and she makes the declaration dramatically, with tears on her thick eyelashes and a slight wobble to her lower lip, so dramatically Val jumps up to make food. Every. Time. Burgers and chips and cookies and brownies and spaghetti and sliced fruit and smoothies and Here’s some a mine, Sissy, yummy, yummy in tummy. I clean each plate.

By feeding Bella and Shadow.

Terrible sister. Bad influence. Cunt. The hazy words repeat in the back of my mind. She’ll pick up on my habits. She’ll become what I am. She’ll die, and it’ll be my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault. Everything is my fault.

Valary is in cheerleader mode. Encouraging, putting on the thick enthusiasm when I breathe right, eager to get me anything, everything, something at any given moment. Extreme. Fake. Brooklyn plays around with Val’s makeup, and I get caught in the color explosion. Val tries to reassure me it’s not all bad and my pale skin and black hair make the blood red lipstick pop out like some kind of modern Snow White and Red’s your color, Dannilynn.

Ugly. In the mirror, I am an ugly clown. Hallow cheeks, yellow-tinted skin, sunken and puffy hazel eyes, breakouts threatening to become an angry, red, swollen mess, black circles, visible tendons in my neck. Fucking hideous. I don’t want to look at me. I don’t want anyone to look at me.

Dad—oh, Dad—he hovers. All damn day. When I go to the bathroom, he’s outside the door. When I try to go back to my room, he’s there, leading me back to the living room. When I pretend to sleep through dinner, he gets Val and Brooklyn to eat around the coffee table. He’s always around. He won’t leave me alone. He goes so far as to plan the day’s family activities around the couch. Around where I am stuck laying because he won’t let me leave.

He’s driving me crazy.

They buzz around me, do the same thing repeatedly, playing their roles, a circle of nerve-playing mind games. Brooklyn getting me food, Val cheering me on, Dad hovering, and me. Watching. Waiting. Hazy. Unsure. Laying on the couch. Unable to move. A useless lump. Periodically sleeping. Dozing off without even realizing it until I wake in a disoriented stupor. Ruining everyone’s day by existing. On display in the couch nest. I’m going to scream.

I feel worse. Physically and emotionally ill. Because they won’t leave me alone and they’re wasting their time with me and I can’t eat and I hurt and all I can do is sleep and they make me feel guilty for taking up space in their house and I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I don’t know.

I’m not okay.

I haven’t been okay for a long time.

The whole day is the same thing until Brooklyn is put to bed and Dad and Val are settling in on the recliners and I’m still laying the couch. Why am I down here? Why won’t they let me go upstairs? I want to sleep in my bed.

The cloud of a queen-sized bed waiting for me upstairs with promises of pseudo-privacy.

I want my bed. I don’t want to be here.

“So,” Dad says, cracking open his beer and breaking the moment of calm silence, “I called school to get your makeup work.”

I definitely don’t want to be here. Nothing good comes from these conversations.

He tries to pin me with a look, but I’m not meeting his eyes so his efforts fail. Like they’ve failed all day. Mom is better at giving me the look. She’s committed. She’ll crouch down to eyelevel to make sure I see her disappointment.

I would prefer she didn’t do that, but what I want doesn’t matter.

“Your principal and I had a very long talk.”

I’m sure it was enlightening.

“Turns out your farther behind than I thought.”

You have no idea, Dad.

“I don’t…” he sighs. I’m pretty sure he’s shaking his head. “I don’t know how you got this far behind, Danny.”

I stopped doing work. I stopped caring. School stopped mattering. Everything stopped inside me, but the world kept moving.

“He doesn’t think there’s a point in giving you the makeup work. He said you wouldn’t do it. He said you wouldn’t be able to do it. He said you haven’t done anything in months, and even if he let you makeup everything, he doesn’t think you’ll be able to catch up.”

Principal Hard Ass is right. I’m not doing anything. Why should I? I’m too stupid to do it, and I’m not wasting my limited time feeling even more like an idiot because my teachers don’t realize how pointless their classes are to my life. Fuck them.

Fuck this conversation.

“Danny—”

“We’re worried, Dannilynn,” Val cuts in, the voice of sweet reason.

Shame. Dad sounded like he was about to flip. Let him crack, Val, I can handle it. I won’t cry until I get upstairs.

“No one’s blaming you for anything.”

Yes, they are, Val. Don’t sugarcoat this. I haven’t done my work. I’m an idiot. This is my fault.

“Right,” Dad says. He’s rubbing his face with his hands, I know. “We’re worried.”

Repetition. An artistic art form. Great in his songs. Terrible in this conversation.

“I want to make sure you get through school. I—Danny, can you look at me. This is important.”

He snapped at me.

He actually snapped at me.

You want to be upset now, Dad? You haven’t been around, you haven’t cared about a damn thing I’ve done, and you think you have a right to be upset that I haven’t been doing my work? You don’t.

Dad waits, but I don’t look at him.

“Danny, please.”

I’m so done with this.

I heft myself up out of the warmth of the nest and off the couch. The spots are quick to blind me, but I don’t care. I shuffle in the right direction. To the hallway to get to the stairs to get away.

“Sit down.”

I don’t think I will.

The spots disappear, and I’m left with vision that’s too bright on the edges and Jell-O legs and an overheated body. I need to sit down. I won’t, though. Not until I get upstairs. Away.

“Damn it.”

I’m barely get to the hallway when Dad stops me. By grabbing my elbow. His grip is firm, too tight for me. He’s fingers are pressing against the joint, on the nerves and veins and crap that isn’t protected by the padding of fat. Uncomfortable.

“We need to talk about this. It’s your future, Danny.”

He’s pleading. Trying to convince me this conversation is important when it’s not. He wants his word in, wants to be able to say he tried to convince me to go to school but I wouldn’t listen, wants to absolve himself of fault. My future doesn’t involve school. My future involves a cramped, cold box, dirt, and maggots.

“You can’t throw it away because you don’t want to do the work.”

Except I can.

“But,” I jump at the sound of Val’s voice to my left. I didn’t hear her get up, “we understand things have been difficult.”

She’s desperate to make the sting of disappointment and failure hurt less. Nothing makes it hurt less. No amount of kind words. No amount of hugs and kisses. No amount of food.

“No, we don’t understand,” Dad says.

Speak the truth, Dad.

“You don’t talk to me, Danny. You never tell me anything, and now, you’re on this ridiculous silent treatment kick. How do you expect me to understand?”

His voice is progressively getting louder and frantic and strained the more he talks at me. I broke him. I’ve officially broken Dad’s patience in a matter of days. I’d be proud of myself if it didn’t hurt so much.

Everyone has their limits.

“Has something happened at school? Is it me or your Mom? Did someone do something to you? Tell me. I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me.”

“Matt,” Val jumps in, the hard edge of steel in her voice. “You’re not helping.”

“I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what to do. Valary,” his voice cracks, his hold slacks, his body deflates, “she’s not going to school, she’s not doing her work, she’s hurting herself. I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“She’s hurting. She doesn’t need to be interrogated. She needs her dad. She needs you on her side.”

I’m right here.

“I am on her side.”

“Then, stop it.”

“Stop what? Val, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Do they need me here for this? Because I’d like to disappear. Preferably melt into the ground or fall into a sudden gaping hole.

“You can’t make her talk.”

“But—”

“No. You can’t.”

He releases me completely to throw his arms wide in frustration. Because of me. Because I’m difficult. Because I’m ruining his perfect relationship with his perfect wife and destroying his perfect, little family. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m fixing this. If you would stop trying to get involved, this would be okay.

“Then what do I do?” Dad asks.

Val wraps her arms around my shoulders and cranes her neck to meet my eyes. She holds my gaze with her tender one. Tears rapidly fill my eyes. Slip down my cheeks. Get brushed away by my rough fists.

“Dannilynn,” her voice is soft, welcoming, nice, “come on.”

She leads me back to the couch. I let her, stumble with her and lean against her. She makes me sit on the couch with her, and Dad plops down on my other side. Val rubs my arm. Dad takes my hand. The tears fall faster. I don’t want their comforting words and gestures.

But I do.

I desperately, embarrassingly do.

“Honey, I promise this will all be okay,” Val murmurs.

No, it won’t.

“We want you to talk to us, but we understand that you don’t want to. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell people what’s wrong, especially your parents. We get it. Right, Matt?”

I turn watery eyes to Dad, hoping. For what I don’t know, but hoping nonetheless. He smiles, sad, slow. He wipes tears from my cheeks.

“Yeah, yeah we do,” he says.

I… I don’t know.

“School is important,” Val continues and I drop my eyes to my lap, away from Dad’s kicked puppy expression, “That’s all. Your mom and dad and I want you to graduate. We want to see you walk across the stage and take videos and pictures and yell so much it embarrasses you and brag when you get into college. We’re parents. It’s what we do. And sometimes, we don’t understand when, maybe, you don’t want the things we want.”

Val, please stop.

“We’ve been talking. There are other ways to get your diploma, and you don’t have to decide immediately, just think about them.”

What is she getting at?

“You’re really far behind, and you’re suffering. We think it would be best to go an alternate route. At least until we get you settled.”

You mean, until you give up on the ridiculous attempt to fix me, Val.

“Homeschooling. We can pull you out of school and work through this year with you. Matt isn’t recording for a few more months. I’ll be here. Brooklyn will be here. We can spend time catching you up, get you the help you need, and when you’re ready, if you’re ready, you can go back to school.” She pauses to let the option settle in—it doesn’t under the white noise of activity in my head—then continues. “Or you could drop out and get your GED.”

All activity screeches to a halt. Drop out. They’re acknowledging that I’m stupid, that I can’t excel at school. They’re tired of wasting money on the fancy private school they send me to. They don’t want to deal with a kid who doesn’t give even the smallest amount of effort anymore. I don’t blame them.

Failure. Dropout. Failure. Disappointment. Failure. Disaster. Failure. Shitty sister. Failure. Ugly. Failure. Stupid. Failure. My fault. Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure. Stop.

I can do something right. Put an end to the circular thoughts and the stress I’m causing. Permanently. Forever. Don’t worry, Val. Don’t worry, Dad. You’ll be proud of me. I can keep my promises.