Do Not Resuscitate

Fifteen minutes: nothing.

Sorting through the pile of blankets works my nonexistent muscles to the point of pain.

Thirty minutes: nothing.

The cloud has abandoned my mattress. My bones are digging into solid rock.

An hour: nothing.

Bloating. Bloating. Bloating. I am a balloon of carbonated helium.

An hour and thirty minutes: nothing.

Where is Dad?

Two hours: nothing.

… I’d like some water… a Band-Aid for my cheek… and medicine… please…

Two hours and thirty minutes: nothing.

Inpatient program.

Three hours: nothing

I’m biting my fist. It hurts. Tears and blood should not be mixed.

Three hours and thirty minutes: nothing.

I’m fat. I’m fat. I’m fat. I’m fat. I’m fat. I’m fat. Imfat. Imfat. Fat. Imfat. I’m fat. I’m fat. I’m fat. Fat. I’m fat. ImfatImfatImfat. Fat. I’m fat. ImfatImfatImfat. I’m. Fat. Imfat. Imfat. I’m. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. I’m fat. I’m fat. Fat. I—

The doorknob jiggled. I saw it. I swear I did. But the door doesn’t swing open, and a minute passes, then two, and the knob stays lifeless. No one’s coming. Nothing happens. I’m alone. I’m crazy.

I’m fat.

My stomach is pudgy. Progressively expanding. It’s pressing against the waistband of my sweats. I’m holding it, clutching it, trying to push the flabby mass back, but it’s getting everywhere. Grows outward, grows inward. Plants in my throat, blocks my windpipe, compresses my lungs, threatens to dribble out my mouth. I’m choking on myself. There’s too much of me. Rough fabric rubs against my excess skin. I’m going to combust.

The doorknob jiggles again, this time twists—my whole body tenses, prepped and ready for another battle with Dad—and the door swings open.

Val.

Val, not Dad, walks in, balancing a tray laden with plates and bowls and cups. She’s smiling. Pleasant. An unshaken robot.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says, closing the door with her hip.

And the scent of food is trapped in my bedroom. It’s instant. One second the room is only faintly scented of whatever is on that tray, and the next I get a nose full of warm bread and butter and a spaghetti sauce and bacon, and when she approaches, almost in slow motion, the smell seeps into my veins, plumps me up, a feeding tube full of smell. It’s everywhere. Surrounding me. Tightened chains. A vice grip.

Open the door, Val. Vent the room. Take the food away. Please. For the love of all that is holy, I’m getting bigger. Fatter. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat.

But she doesn’t see. She can’t see the way I’m swelling up just by inhaling the scent of the food-based offering she’s brought in. No, she places the tray on my bedside table, unaware of what she’s doing, blinded by the eating disorder diagnosis, like Dad, like Mom, like Dr. Psychologist Barbie, convinced I need to eat. She puts it so close I can imagine the spread sliding down my throat. The warm roll glistening with butter. The salad. The thick, white dressing on the side. The cottage cheese. The apples and peanut butter. The cookie, chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin, I can’t tell. The… is that SpaghettiOs with bacon bits? A childhood classic. The ultimate comfort food. A grotesque combination I somehow enjoyed. Dad’s favorite “keep Danny busy during band practice so she doesn’t get in the way, doesn’t destroy the equipment, doesn’t ruin the creative process with her talk of adding unicorns to songs, because she’ll eat it ring by stupid little ring, then eat the bacon bits and drink the sauce, she’ll be busy for hours” food.

He doesn’t have one of those for Brooklyn.

I need air.

Val’s talking. Her lips are moving. A steady stream of distorted sound, words drifting through a funnel, tumbles from her mouth. I don’t understand. I can’t focus. I’m dizzy. The world is tilting and swirling, and the only thing anchoring me down is my swelling stomach.

Fat. So fucking fat. Brooklyn decided to help… Threatening to explode like a candy-filled piñata. Re-measured everything… stopped her from… one serving size, exact. I suck it in. I push it. I dig my nails into it. I can’t stop it. Twinkie casserole… silly… Oh my god. Make it stop. Make it stop. Please. It’s too big. I can’t breathe. Couldn’t keep her from… chocolate chip cookie… sorry… you don’t have to… Help. Michelle’s downstairs... The flab is creasing, folding, a perforated line to cut off. Brought smoothies. Tingling spreads to the tips of my fingers and the balls of my feet. She’d like to see you. Noises are lodged in my throat. Okay? I can’t do this. Dannilynn… Val, please.

She sits.

She fucking sits on the edge of my bed.

She has to twist to face me. The corners of her mouth are barely pulled up, barely a smile. More a resigned expression of empathy. I don’t like it. She watches me. Takes in the distending caused by the smell of food she had the nerve to close me in with. My fingers twitch. My skin crawls. My face heats up.

Stop looking at me, Val.

“Dad and I had a little talk earlier. He told me what happened.”

Air. I need air.

“He didn’t mean to yell at you.”

Convulsions, spasms, tighten my throat. The contractions threaten to trigger my gag reflex. I dig my fingers into my palm. So I don’t crawl to the bathroom and shove my head in a toilet.

I need to throw up.

“He’s having a tough time. We all are. This is hard on everyone. Honey… You’re not eating.”

Throw up. Throw up. Throw up. I need to throw up.

“We don’t know how to help you. We don’t know how to get you to eat. We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re trying everything we can think of. We’re bending over backwards here, Dannilynn.”

I’m ruining your happy family, your perfect marriage, your life, and I’m not even your child. I’m not what you signed up for when you married Dad. I’m a parasite living in your house, the one you have to deal with because you’re associated with its father. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

I need to throw up.

“And you won’t tell us what you need.”

I’m trying to fix it. Let me fix it.

“What can we do, honey? What would make you happy?”

Spend time with your daughter. Spend time with your husband. Spend time being the family you were before I showed up and started wasting your time. That’s what you can do.

Val doesn’t have Dad’s freaky mindreading abilities. She doesn’t leave. She waits and watches and searches for the answer to my problems. I don’t have the answer she wants to hear. I can’t be fixed. I’m defective. Company policy: return and destroy.

She sighs, light and delicate, wispy. “I shouldn’t expect you to open up to me, I know… I just can’t help wishing you would.”

Her eyes drop. She tucks blankets around my knee. I recoil. Unintentionally. A kneejerk reaction. I can’t help it. She doesn’t react to the flinch. Doesn’t comment

“I keep thinking that, maybe, if we talked more, if I made a better effort, you’d have come over more, your stays would have been longer, you’d feel like you’re a part of this family, you’d be closer to your dad, you wouldn’t be… dealing with this.”

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

“I’m sorry your parents split up. Divorce, parents separating, it can really screw a child up. It’s not easy, and you were so young…”

Because of me. They stayed in a dead-end relationship for too long, they split on awful terms, they have to keep in contact instead of letting their relationship die, they can’t move on and forget, they’re unhappy. Because of me.

Don’t throw up.

“You never did take it well. You cried a lot. You acted out, threw tantrums. You wanted your parents back together. I don’t think you fully understood what was happening when I started dating your Dad.”

Stop it, please.

“But, Dannilynn.” Val’s eyes meet mine again, full of sincerity, making my weak heart twist hard, painfully. “I’m not sorry for marrying your dad.”

I can’t breathe. I’m sucking in my bloated stomach too hard. I’m pushing the flabby mess in as discreetly as I can. But it’s getting bigger. Fatter. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

“I can’t be.” Val keeps talking, oblivious. “I love him. He makes me incredibly happy. I can’t regret the life I have with your dad. I can’t regret getting married to him. I can’t regret having Brooklyn. I can’t, Dannilynn.”

Fat is going to spew out of my throat.

“Maybe we should have waited longer. You were too young. You were having a tough time. We weren’t thinking about that. I’m sorry for what that may have done to you. But that’s in the past. What’s done is done. We can’t go back and change it.”

Changing things won’t make a fucking difference, Valary. I’ll always be the useless, stupid, fat mess of a child I’ve always been. No one can change that.

No, I can change that.

By aborting myself.

“And you’re my child now.”

I… What?

“I’m not your biological mother, I didn’t carry you for nine months, I didn’t breastfeed you, I’m not the one who taught you how to walk or talk or any of those milestones, but I love you like you’re mine.”

That’s not how this works, Val.

“I can’t help it. You had me the minute you took my lipstick to draw ducks on the wall. I knew… I just knew.”

Shut up.

“I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I can’t let you keep doing this. It’s a coping mechanism, I get it, but, Dannilynn, honey… no.”

And what good would stopping me do, Val? Enlighten me.

“If we have to send you to treatment… I don’t want to. I want you here, with your family… If it comes down to it, if you aren’t making progress, we’ll have to send you to inpatient. I don’t want to scare you, or maybe I do, I don’t know…”

No.

“We’ll do anything for you. You can tell us anything. Anything, Dannilynn, anything. Please?”

She waits, all pleading, teary eyes and red-stained cheeks, her words ringing in the air. Anything for you… Please…

She keeps waiting, my stomach inflating with each ticking second, the smell lodging itself in my brain, her words a fuzzy mess. Treatment… Inpatient… Anything for you…

She waits some more. And waits. And waits.

And heaves a deep breath.

She reaches over, plucks pills off the tray, grabs the glass of water, and holds them in my direction. Her eyes are on the spot just over my shoulder. Her body is slouched, defeated.

“Here.” Her voice wavers. I’ve upset her. “You need to take these.”

I’m sorry.