The current is so strong, sofierce, that my body does nothing but thrash. The ache in my arm lingers, getting worse by the millisecond before it appears in my head after it comes in contact with something hard. I try to take in what’s around me, to keep my eyes open so I can gauge how far down I am, but the sea only spits out bubbles around me, blocking me from seeing more than an inch or two in front of my body. My Sony floats in the space, twisted around as it remains attached to my neck.
I don’t know what to do, say, or think as moments of my life flash before my eyes.
People, memories, and all the things I’ve been through that made me who I am filters in.
My parents, and the way they rarely tucked me into bed at night. Their retreating forms as they leave me, high and dry, to care more about themselves.The first moment I ever set my eyesand hands on a camera. How snapping that initial picture felt like coming home after a long vacation.
Lance, my fiancé and the person I considered my best friend for so long stands there with my parents, his perfect bone structure and green eyes calling to me, until they turn a shade of dulling black—the same color that enraptures my heart whenever I think about our future. About the lightness it lacks and the questions that follow. The ones that make me wonder if I’m choosing the right person to spend the rest of my life with.
My hands go limp, drifting higher than my head as fear grips me. As it ties a noose around my neck and tightens. As my words and thoughts cut off, burned by the flame that singes the back of my throat and chest from not being able to pull in air.
My leg muscles weaken, my bones filling with cement as my body drops like an anchor and an intense pressure fills my head. Fills my soul.
A million polaroids appear with his face on every single one, long-standing memories from three years of life spent together. He forms behind them, collects the lot, and burns them in a barrel, his face twisting into a grimace as he burns with them.
And then my heart lurches in my chest, my heartbeats sounding off in my head like a screeching drumroll that transcends into a quiet crescendo of nothingness.
Because I’m dying.
1
EMORY
My lungs fill with air, my body silently gasping in that way it does when I dip my head underwater for a few seconds too long and come up for air. Only, I don’t really feel it throughout my body. It’s more of a subconscious sensation that wraps around my brain until a painful heaviness pushes through. It covers me in a blanket of discomfort, of unease, of confusion.
I don’t knowwhyI’m feeling this way, only that Iam.
I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids are terribly heavy. It takes a constant stream of thought to get them to crack open, my eyelashes branch-like strands that scratch against the sensitive skin they rest on.
I attempt moving my arm, but a maddening agony sweeps over it. It travels up, sliding over my elbow and toward my shoulder in a way that sparks an anxiousness inside of me that I can’t say I’ve ever felt before.
What is happening, and why do I feel like this?
A new wave of nerves floods my system, and I try to swallow, but I can’t. My throat is disgustingly dry, my spit not near enough to coat it. I clear it next, trying my damnedest not to spiral, but I feel it—the fear of not knowing what’s going on—climbing up my body until it sits itself on my diaphragm and presses down, making itself comfortable.
I drag in deeper, quicker breaths, noting that there’s a large, jaw-dropping pinch that crackles through my chest when I do. It forces my breathing to shallow, which only makes me panic more. Because I need oxygen. I need to give my lungs air, but I can’t.
I can’t.
Oh, god.
My eyes finally open to a blurry room. I try to make sense of my surroundings, but I… I’m not at home in the comfort of my own bed with Lance, pictures of us perfectly poised on top of the dresser that sits across from it. There are no wispy curtains tucked to the sides of three wide, chunky windows. The walls aren’t decorated with abstract wallpaper.
And it makes my stomach coil into a ball, much like how I would like to physically be. My body doesn’t allow it, though. My mind-body connection is somehow frayed, disturbed and unwilling to accept any commands as I lie on this stiff hospital mattress.
A sweatiness coats my skin, my hands turning clammy from the sensory overload. My ears tune in next. They pick up on the discomforting melody of a beeping that I’ve only really heard on medical TV shows—mainly Grey’s Anatomy.
Beep, beep, beep.
The sickness that flickers to life in my stomach twists into an aggravated fury, and the unavoidable pressure of vomiting swarms the back of my throat. My heart races in my ribcage, my head suddenly hurting in a delirious kind of way.
Everything hurts. Somebody make it stop.
I go to speak, to say, “Hello?” but what comes out is the strangled sound of a lonely H. It triggers me into swallowing, which sends me into a coughing fit.
Pain ricochets around inside of me, having a grand ol’ time. I silence my coughs a few too early because of it.
I don’t know what to do. How to stop it and make it go away. It clings to me, absorbing deep into my tissues and organs. I don’t dare move, afraid that if I do, I’ll streamline a new set of sensations I might not be ready for.
