Getting up, I slip my fingers between the blinds and peek at Nosy Nellie’s for the hundredth time, fluffing my shirt to dry the sweat as I do. My bedroom window looks out to her front porch, as opposed to the living room looking out at her side windows. It’s still dark in her house, and my stomach turns.
Are all her things just going to sit there… untouched? What about the food in her fridge? Is it going to spoil? Did she have clothes in the washing machine? Are they mildewing?
She would be alive if it wasn’t for Jax. He may not have pulled the trigger, but he sure as fuck brought the man with the gun. I can’t allow myself to think he can handle anything. That detective is going to come back. I just know it. I need to—
A sharp pain shoots under my left breast. A cluster of thumbtacks impales me and takes my breath away, forcing me tolet go of the blinds to clutch at it.Fuck. I stifle a yelp and hunch over.
Did I take my medication?
Steeling myself, I shuffle into the kitchen and try to suck in air around the increasing tightness. The lineup of orange bottles on the counter swims in my vision, and an actual bead of sweat drips into my eye.
What in the fuck?
Temporarily blinded, I grit my teeth against the stinging and force myself to blink as another shooting pain almost takes me to my knees.
“Please,” I whimper, panic finding me.
There’s no way I’m going back to the hospital. I can’t. Whatever is happening needs to stop. Now.
I scramble for any bottle I can, hands shaking, and dump it out. Tiny ovals scatter as I desperately try to pin one down. Catching one, I toss it onto my tongue and dump another bottle. I do it four more times until my mouth is full, and then I dry swallow—or I try to.
The pills stick in my throat.
In a haste, I flip on the tap and put my lips under, suckling like a hamster before I choke to death. The water tastes like the metal and mold of city pipes, and I gag halfway through but force it down, clawing at my throat like it’ll help shove the meds into my system faster.
I don’t even know if I’m supposed to take all of them together like this, but something is happening, and itcannothappen.
My spine smacks the fridge as I stumble back, chest pulsing in uneven bursts. My legs are suddenly weak, and I have to push off to grab the counter top with a sweaty palm, nails scraping the laminate.
Don’t black out. Don’t black out. Don’t black out.
The room tilts. The floor’s too far away and way too close at the same time. A buzzing fills my ears, and my heart punches faster. This isn’t normal. Something’s wrong.
“Come on, come on,” I hiss as if I can get the medication to work faster.
I press my cheek against the cool counter, and my warped reflection stares back at me from the toaster. Sweat shines on my forehead, and my lips are white. Why are they white?!
“No. No. No,” I whisper to myself. “Get it together.”
I slam my fist into the counter just to feel something—pain, control, anything to anchor me, but it’s barely a tap. My vision hiccups in patches of static. The toaster warps again, doubling like a funhouse mirror.
My body’s too hot and too cold, twitching in weird pulses like I’m being electrocuted from the inside. My knees hit the floor, but I barely feel it.
This is it. This is how I die—suffocating on my own fucking heartbeat on the kitchen floor. How pathetic.
But, maybe… maybe it’s better than prison…
Karma taking me out sounds better than justice. At least it would be swift—no slow decay behind bars while Nix visits me every week, wrapped in her university sweatshirt, trying to act like things are normal.
Nix.
She’ll find me in the morning, and then she’ll be on her own. Will she manage to hold herself together long enough to graduate? Or will the weight I’ve been carrying all these years finally collapse onto her shoulders?
The image of her picking up a night shift at Bell’s, forced into that degrading crop top they make us wear, nearly undoes me.
Will it break her like it broke me?
I force myself to crawl to the fridge. I can’t die. I can’t leave her. Yanking open the door, cool air hits me with relief. Curlinginto it, I put a thigh against the crisper and my face against a shelf ledge. I try to keep my eyes open, but I’m suddenly drowsy.
