Do Not Resuscitate

Gag. Choke. Cough up air and nothingness. Hurts like a bitch. Brush away tears. Try again. Knuckles against teeth. Desperate pain, stinging, metallic blood. Scratching insides that were never meant to be touched let alone abused. Tears. Gag. More gagging. Pathetic, wheezy cough. Gag. Come on. Come up, damn it. Retching echoes against the porcelain of the toilet. Please—

Bitter, disgusting, thick fluid.

Up my throat, against my tongue, touches my teeth, all over my hand, on my sweater sleeve, into the bowl, splattering toilet water up onto my cheek. It’s a quick rush. It leaves a gross aftertaste. It’s yellow. Bile.

Again. I have to do it again. I need to get it up. I need to get it out. All of it. Everything. Again. Again.

I’m gagging and retching and crying in the most pitiful, half-assed way, tears struggling out of my eyes with each agonizing scratch at the back of my throat, and coughing up slimy bile and gagging more at the aftertaste. Gross. So fucking gross.

More. I need to throw up. Need it. Now. Have to. Can’t.

Oh my god. It hurts. Raw. Sore. Stabbing. Sensations digging into my throat and stomach and behind my eyes and every joint and bone in my body. Seeping deeper than the cold, that the exhaustion. My heart is pounding against my chest. I can hear it in my ears. I hurt. I’m crying.

Can’t stop. I can’t. I’m not done.

It’s a mess. It’s getting everywhere. On the bowl and my hands and my sweater and my face. The smell is stuck in my nose. Putrid bile and nothing else. Nothing. Because I have nothing but the remnants of Diet Coke in my system

I’m swollen, pudgy, expanding, fat.

I have to throw up.

I can’t stop.

I need to get it out.

Again. Again. Again. Again. Pausing to gulp down air. Again. Again. Mindless. Repetitive. Impulse. A heady rush of adrenaline hits me hard. Yes.

Yes.

“Sissy?”

Ice shoots through my veins. I’m out of the toilet before I can think. Too fast. The world goes black for a moment, two, three, then spins in fluorescent colors. I clutch the rim of the toilet bowl, will the world to stop, try to hear past the buzzing between my ears, hope Brooklyn leaves.

The doorknob jiggles. Locked, it’s locked. That’s not against Dad’s rules. Not that he cares. Not that he implements them. I’m safe. She can’t get in.

So she knocks on the door. Slaps it, really. Flat palm against wood because that covers more surface area and she thinks she’ll be heard better and the object of her childish affection won’t keep her locked out. The sound is jarring. It makes my teeth grind together.

Stop. Brooklyn, stop.

“You sick?”

Of myself. Of life.

Heavy silence. Brooklyn is waiting, staring at the closed door, willing it open so she can come in and play with her incompetent big sister. Bile is dripping from my sleeve onto the immaculate floor. I swipe at my face, try to wipe away the drying, disgusting vomit-slash-toilet-water mix. It spreads. It’s too slimy. It won’t come off. The smell, Jesus, the smell. And it’s going to get in my hair, in my clothes, in my skin. I’ll be a walking tub of vomit-smelling lard.

I am disgusting.

I’m not coming out.

“Oh.”

And she leaves on that dejected note. She takes off, her little feet padding against the carpet until I can’t hear anything except the high-pitched buzzing and the discordant sound of Brooklyn’s voice bouncing around my skull. Oh… Oh… Oh… Oh…

Do you know what this is going to do to her? Do you know what you’re doing to your sister?

I’m ruining her childhood. I’m tainting what should be happy memories of growing up in a loving home, surrounded by parents who think the world of her and a never-ending supply of “uncles” spoiling her. I am the terrible influence we can all blame should she ever…

Turn out like me.

I need to throw up.

Again. Yes.

I’m sluggish. My body doesn’t feel quite like mine. I’m on the outside, but inside at the same time, and I don’t understand. Movement strange, limbs heavy, world swirling, stomach engorged. I’m huddled over the toilet. I’m not sure how. Back in place. Fingers down my throat. Gagging. Retching. Vomiting. Tasting bile and blood.

The shaking is making my brain rattle. My jaw is locked. Wide. Not wide enough. My knuckles are digging against my teeth to reach. Blood spots the yellow goop in the bowl. Tears blur the world, but it doesn’t stop moving. I’m tilting. This way. That way. Back. Forth. Subtle. Barley. Off-center. Unsteady and I’m stationary over the toilet. I can’t feel anything. Except pressure pounding against me, pulsing in my joints and head, tingling in my fingers and skin and throat.

Numb. Gloriously numb.

What just hit my foot?

I pull my head out of the toilet, let my hand fall out of my mouth and onto the rim. In a puddle of vomit. Gooey. Warm. Vomit. Seeping into skin already soaked in fresh bile. Disrupted puddle dripping to the vomit splattered floor. Mess on top of mess on top of mess.

I don’t care.

Careful turn. Head only. Slow. Heavy. Sluggish. Slight upper body. Rocking. Dizzy. Fuzzy. Overheating in a too big sweater filled with too much cottony warmness. Keep moving just enough. So I can see… Paper.

I moved, exerted calories I don’t have to fuel my body, moved, heaved myself out of the vomit cocoon, moved, risked passing out and drowning in a pool of my own regurgitated mess, moved for a sheet of paper.

Covered in crayon.

Brooklyn.

I grab for the crayon-covered paper with my relatively clean hand, the only remotely close to not vomit covered thing on my body, stretch, hold the rim as tightly as I can to keep some semblance of balance. Miss. Hit my knuckles on the tiled floor. The solid rap echoes. My hand tingles. I try again. Almost fall. Cautious, clumsy reaching. The world won’t stop moving. Try. Try. For Brooklyn.

Success.

I hold the paper close to my face. My vision is off, blurry. A minute of staring and focusing on one crayon image and the blur of the world lifts. Gradually. Under the fuzzy buzzing between my ears, hallow banging bounces around in the spot where my brain used to fill, muted, muffled. I’m underwater. Someone’s saying my name. Repeating it. Through the foggy bubble.

Danny? Sweetie, are you okay?

A giant red heart, slightly to the left of the page. The kind children are taught to make, not the anatomically correct muscle. One hump is lower than the other. The red crayon is slightly outside the self-imposed lines. Splotches of white peak through the, what would be solid, filling. Quick, messy coloring to get the image to me before I zone out on the bed, become impenetrable to Brooklyn’s gifts.

Rattling doorknob. I need you to open the door.

Two stick figure people under the heart. Both have weird green-brown, splotchy dots for eyes. Both are smiling. One, the shorter one, gets brown hair sticking around its shoulders and a pretty pink triangle skirt and rectangular shirt set. The other has black sticks clumped in a ponytail and black boxy sweats. Their hands are clasped. Brooklyn and me.

Danny! Distorted banging to match the distorted, muffled, bubbled yelling. Danny! Come on.

In barely legible handwriting, the words “Love U” taking up one corner. More little hearts and butterflies. Like polka dots. Kiddie decorations. Dotted in glitter on glue that hasn’t quite dried yet.

Dannilynn, please open the door.

And in the other corner, handwriting still a scraggly mess, word misspelled: Sory.

Shit.

I can hear her, voice grating into my eardrums, unsure chirp, teary: Sory.

Whatever strength I had left drains. My knees give out. My hand slips. My shoulder hits the edge of the toilet. My tailbone slams into the floor. I can’t feel. Numb.

Eyes glistening because of what she thinks she done wrong, deep pout on her little lips: Sory.

Something clenches around my throat. The bottom drops out of my stomach. Heat surges up my face, my cheeks, my nose, my eyes. Tears. There are tears in my eyes. I can’t blink them away.

Brooklyn: Sory.

I need to throw up, I need to take razors to my arms, my legs, my stomach, my skin, anything, I need to dig my nails into whatever I can reach, I need to rip the mulberry scabs off my lips, I need to drop to the ground and do crunches until I’m coughing up blood from the exertion on my heart, I need to bleed, I need to hurt, fucking freak—

“Okay,” said in Dad’s deep rumbly sigh, “she’s okay.”

And his shoes are in front of me.

When did the door open?

The world is moving in snapshot frames I can’t process. Dad is kneeling. Next to me. Close to me. His face in my face. He’s frowning, then he’s smiling a wobbly smile, then he’s tucking a strand of hair behind my head, then Val is over his shoulder, speaking, reassuring, then she’s taking a coat hanger away, hook bent weird to fit in the failsafe unlocking system on the outside of the door which really does just involve picking at an easy lock.

I reek. I’m covered in bile. Dad can smell it. I know he can. He’s so close, and he won’t move. He won’t shift away from the disgusting smell even though I know it’s driving him crazy and I know he doesn’t want to be next to me and I know he’d rather just be without the uglystupiduselesslosergrossdefective child sitting in a pool of her own vomit.

I have to move, get away, make it better. I sag against the toilet. Draw one knee up to my chest. The other knee. Keep the picture clutched in one hand. I won’t let go. Eyes against knees. Hard. Too hard. A shivering ball. Press to the toilet. Small. Insignificant. Attempting to disappear.

But I’m still here.

I’m still sitting in, covered in, steeping in puke.

I’m still alive.

“Sissy?”

A pathetic, itty-bitty, high-pitched squeak. Fearful but concerned. For me. For my well-being. For the hot mess of a sister covered from head to toe in goopy fluid and scrunched up against the toilet being the certifiable lunatic she is.

Brooklyn.

Giant heart. Crayon. Smiling. Holding hands. Scraggly handwriting. Misspelled word. Sory. Sory. Sory. Sory. Sory.

No.

My head is up, my eyes are off my knees, snapped up quickly, the dizziness is overwhelming. I’m wavering, blinking away the blaring color and the blackness on the edge of my vision. But I can see her. Brooklyn. Peaking over Dad’s shoulder. Hazel saucers for eyes. Lips an abnormal lax pout.

She shouldn’t be seeing this.

She shouldn’t be in here.

But she is… she is.

Do you know what this is going to do to her? Do you know what you’re doing to your sister?

Stop.

I open my mouth, close it, open it. Again. Again. There’s popping in my jaw. Sharp clicking radiating to my ears. No sound from my throat. Raw. Abused. Refusing to squeeze out even the barest hint of sound.

Brooklyn… Brooklyn… Brooklyn…

What am I trying to say?

Dad’s murmuring something at her in his Pied Piper voice, and Val’s gently grabbing her arm in an attempt to bring her out of the bathroom to someplace less scarring, and Brooklyn stays glued in place. Ignoring Dad. Pulling her arm out of Val’s hold. Staring at me. Watching me work my mouth. Struggling to understand the unraveling in front of her.

And the brightest smile I’ve ever seen lights up her face.

She rips out of Val’s ten billionth attempt to grab her, jets around Dad, and—

Shit.

She slams into me, a fucking tot football player going in for the tackle, all untamed and misplaced enthusiasm, so hard I slam into the toilet with a thud that makes my teeth clatter and one leg fall from the tight ball that was me and forces her to raise on her tiptoes. Her little arms are tight around me. A death grip. Squeezing me. The smell is wrapping around us. Vomit is transferring from my clothing to hers. Gross. Still, she holds on.

She just hugs me.

Unconditionally loving on me. Genuinely happy I’ve attempted to communicate. Satisfied holding me, covered in vomit, to express her affection. Despite everything I’m doing to her, the childhood I’m taking away, the attention I’m monopolizing, the emotional scars I’m leaving her with.

She just hugs me.

It’s… nice.

I’m crying.

What am I doing? Hurling openly in my own bathroom, bleeding everywhere for the sake of temporary comfort, starving to death, literally starving to death, a zombie sister leaving lasting awful memories for Brooklyn when I could be…

Nothing.

I have nothing. I am nothing. My future is blank and no amount of embraces can change that. I’m so fucking stupid. Idiot. Useless. Ugly. Freak.

“Lub you,” Brooklyn hums and sighs contentedly.

My heart melts.

I’m working my jaw again, pressuring my throat to function properly for a second, making a weird whining sound. I can’t stop it. I have to keep moving my mouth. I have to keep making noise. I have to. For Brooklyn.

And out comes a mangled, scratchy, gurgled, painful “Love… you.”

For Brooklyn.