Status: FYI: two chapters posted March 20; COMPLETED

Do Not Resuscitate

Chapter 25

I’m not okay.

“And he ated all the tings!”

I don’t think I’ve ever been okay.

“You see the tings, Sissy?”

I don’t even know what okay is. I don’t understand. I don’t get it. I…

“Issa cake and ice cream.” Giggling. “Catepittars don’t eat ice cream. Silly catepittar.”

I’m not okay.

“The pickles, bleck. That’s gross. Cheese.” Pause. “I don’t know what that is.”

I’m not okay.

“And dere’s a lollipop and pie and sausage and cuppy cakes and watermelon.”

… I’m not okay.

“So many tings.”

When did this happen?

Turning the cardboard page. “And the hungry catepittar gets a tummy ache. ‘Cause he ated too many tings.”

How did it happen?

“Does your tummy feel better?”

Did I make a wrong turn somewhere? Instead of choosing x, I chose y and that’s it? We can all point to that moment, that detrimental decision in my childhood, and say “This is why Danny is such a fuck up.” Or…

Brooklyn closes the book on a tiny thumb to mark the page. Twists but stays cradled in the nook of my curled body, leaning against my knees, balancing on the couch even though the space is limited thanks to all the blankets. Pats my side.

“Vomiting is yucky. I know. It’ll go ‘way.”

Was I really just born this way?

“It’ll be ‘kay.”

… I’m not okay.

I don’t want to be me anymore.

“Hi, Sissy’s mom!”

Oh, fuck me.

The responding cheery greeting is lost on me. The frequency is too high for my teen brain to catch, in that voice adults use when they talk to adorable children who aren’t their own, but I know Mom is spouting one of those meaningless compliments adults give to children: Look at how big you’ve gotten, You keep getting prettier and prettier, You’re hair is so long, I love that dress. Awkward, awkward, awkward, and more awkward.

And Mom’s kneeling in front of me, pinning me with her pretty blue eyes, all made up to be the presentable, in control CEO of a budding fashion house, not the frazzled mother of a dying teenager. But no amount of makeup and nice clothing can hide it. The hesitant uncertainty and useless hope are etched into her skin, her face, her eyes, her posture, her being.

I can’t do this today.

“Hi, honey.” Her voice is delicate, soft, a kind of whisper. The tone she thinks is appropriate in addressing her daughter’s delicate mental state. “How are you doing?”

I don’t know what you think you’re tiptoeing around with that voice. There’s nothing left of me to break. I’m already gone. I’ve been gone. I was never here.

I’m dying.

And I’m not okay.

“Sissy’s tummy hurts,” Brooklyn says with the authority only three year olds can manage, and Mom’s eyes shoot to the adorable child talking, away from the sullen teenager being a ridiculous, overdramatic, silent lump on the couch. “She threw up ebrywhere yester night. But I’m takin’ care ob her. We readin’.”

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Brooklyn isn’t supposed to be taking care of me, comforting me, seeing me destroy myself in a desperate attempt to find, I don’t know, peace, happiness, something that I can’t attain no matter how hard I try. I’m the big sister. I’m supposed to take care of her. I’m supposed to comfort her when she gets an ouchie. I’m supposed to set the positive example so she doesn’t destroy herself. This isn’t okay.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” Mom reads.

She turns her sad, worn-out gaze on me again, gives me this look. Like your sister is trying to tell you something, Danny, she sees you hurting, Danny, she knows and she’s not happy, Danny, she wants you to eat, Danny, we want you to eat, Danny, please fucking eat, Danny.

I want to explode. I want to burst. I want to tell her. I can’t eat, Mom. I can’t do it. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Stop holding onto hope that I’ll “get better.”

I can’t fix me.

And I can’t tell you.

“It’s my favorite,” Brooklyn says. “Mommy reads it ta me when I have tummy aches. So I read it ta Sissy.”

Fuck.

“Katharine.”

Dad.

“Matthew.”

I’m forgotten. Just like that. Mom’s eyes are on Dad, and Dad’s eyes are on Mom, and Val is standing at Dad’s side, smiling and pretending Mom and Dad aren’t ready to kill each other, and Brooklyn’s head whips back and forth between our dad and my mom. It’s an invisible tennis match of unprovoked anger. I don’t exist anymore, and yet my existence is at fault.

The seconds tick, tick, tick, and no one says anything. The stare down won’t end. Mom and Dad are bombs ready to go off. One push and they’ll explode in Technicolor language reminiscent of my childhood.

They should have never had me.

“Dannilynn,” Val says, a little too loudly, a little too brightly, a little too excitedly, attempting to defuse the tension. “We brought you something to snack on.”

Don’t do this, Val. Not now. Everyone is here. Everyone is staring. Everyone is watching. I’m not eating.

I blink and Val has somehow managed to teleport to the space next to Mom, kneeling, plate in hands, lips moving to form muted words, listing foods—apples, cottage cheese, wheat toast, turkey dogs, some mustard just in case, you know, gross—and when her lips stop, her eyebrows draw and eyes from all directions bore into me. Waiting to see if something will stick, to see if they accidentally stumbled on the right food combination.

Nothing’s right.

I can’t eat any of this.

“Why you neber make Sissy nuffin she likes?” Brooklyn asks.

It’s a simple question, an innocent question, really, with an answer Brooklyn thinks is as simple and innocent and easy: Sissy is picky and the adults don’t understand and if someone could explain to them what Sissy likes, then Sissy would eat something. Except it’s not that simple, and the sound of her voice is enough to jolt our parents back into reality, into realizing there’s a young, impressionable child observing, absorbing, subconsciously learning, and they need to brush the mess under the rug before she makes the detrimental decision I must have made at her age that will leave her as fucked up as me.

I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be around her. I shouldn’t be alive.

“Princess,” Dad says, dragging the pet name out—or maybe the world is moving in slow motion to match the tilting—and he’s kneeling, completing the cute little line of parents. “These are Sissy’s favorite foods.”

“No, they not.”

“But they are.”

He’s got that scratchy, low, soothing tone to his voice and his dimpled smile out, attempting to convince Brooklyn he is right and she is wrong, but she isn’t having it. She scowls, puts a hand on my side, raises onto her knees, prepared for a battle she thinks she’ll win even though Dad has it set in his mind that the anorexics on the internet are right in telling him the basics of what is safe to eat and all he has to do is find the right combination.

I don’t have an eating disorder.

“Sissy don’t like that.”

The doctors are wrong.

“But she does. She told me so.”

I’m just…

“Daddy. Make her. Somefing. Else.”

I’m not okay.

“Princess—”

“I don’t want her to be sick no more!”

Oh.

Dad falls silent, stops his attempts at arguing, drops his dimpled smile, the impassioned exclamation shocking the fight out of him, out of the three of them, but Brooklyn keeps scowling. A glossy wetness fills her eyes. Her lower lip is trembling. She sniffles once loudly. She’s going to cry. Over me. Again.

What am I doing to her?

“I think,” Dad pauses, glances at Val and Mom and me, then looks back at Brooklyn. “I think we need to have a talk, honey.”

“Why?”

It’s weepy, weakly petulant. A tear falls. Another. She scrubs them away with her tiny fist. And she keeps scowling, puffs up her chest, and rests her hand on my arm again. She won’t back down. Because she thinks she’s helping me, protecting me, saving me in a way the adults can’t seem to manage.

Brooklyn… I…

“Sissy isn’t sick. Not exactly,” Dad says, “She, um, she has, uh, um.” He takes a deep breath. He shakes his head. He tries to smile. “Sissy has… problems with eating properly.”

No.

Blood rushes to my ears, roaring in my skull, pounding at my temples, painful, loud. Dad’s talking. His Pied Piper voice is in full effect and his words are a slow stuttering to lessen the shock or help him get through it, I’m not sure which. Eating disorder… He shouldn’t have to do this… Food makes her uncomfortable and upset… He shouldn’t need to explain eating disorders to his three-year-old daughter… doesn’t eat enough… I’m sorry… throws up

I’m sorry.

And Val cuts in, honey sweet calmness to Dad’s stuttering Pied Piper. Confusing and scary… It’s terrifying… Working with doctors… For Dad and Val and Mom… help Sissy get healthy again… For Brooklyn… You don’t need to do anything… For me… grownups are handling it

I’m scared.

Mom is looking at me with her pretty yet worn-out eyes when she adds her two cents to a conversation about me, her child, her baby, her “once was a happy three-year-old and now look at her” teenage daughter, and I can’t look away. It’s not her fault… It is my fault… isn’t choosing this… Everything is my fault… And it’s not your fault… It’s always my fault… want to ask us anything?

I’m not okay.

I’m tired of feeling this way. I’m tired of hating myself. I’m tired of being alive. I’m tired of hurting for a glimpse of some kind of normality. I’m tired of dying. I can’t do this anymore. But I can’t stop. I can’t.

What is wrong with me?

How did this happen?

Why am I so fucked up?

“Sissy.” Brooklyn presses hard on my arm, leans over, and shoves herself in my line of vision. Tear streaks line her cheeks. Her eyes are still glossy, and her lashes are wet. “The hungry catepittar turns into a budderfly in the end… You be a budderfly, too.”

I…

I cry.

Stupid ugly sobs that make my body shake harder than it already does. And Brooklyn is hugging me. And Mom and Dad and Val are trying to console me. And the crying and coughing and shaking and rocking and weird wheezing sounds won’t stop. I’m not okay. I’ve never been okay. I’ll never be okay. I’m not okay.

… I think I need help…