Octavia
It’s terrifying, really, how calm I feel.
Not the peaceful type of calm. Not soft. Not gentle. This is a hollow kind of calm, the kind that creeps in after too much screaming, after too many nights spent bracing for impact. It settles into my bones like it belongs there, like it has been waiting patiently for its turn. My world is cracking open right in front of me, and instead of shattering with it, I am sitting here...watching.
The panic is still there. I can feel it hovering at the edges of my skin, prickling, trying to claw its way back in. My heart is pounding hard enough that I can hear it in my ears. But beneath it, under the fear and the shock and the metallic smell of this godforsaken motel room, there is something else.
Relief.
That’s the part that makes me sick.
I should feel guilty about the calm spreading through me, about the way my breathing has evened out while hers stutters and breaks. I should feel guilty that my tears have stopped. Minutes ago I was sobbing so hard I could barely see her face, my hands slipping against her sternum as I pushed down againand again, counting compressions like they showed us in school. Now my cheeks are dry. My eyes burn, but nothing falls.
I should feel downright sinful that I stopped pressing on her chest.
My arms gave out first. They were shaking so badly I thought they might snap. Thirty compressions. Tilt her head back. Try to force air into lungs that have been drowning in smoke and pills and cheap liquor for years. I did it over and over, my palms bruising against her ribs, listening to that wet, horrible sound in her throat. And then, at some point, I just… stopped.
Now I’m sitting back on my heels, watching her.
Her pupils are blown wide, swallowing the color of her eyes until they look almost black. They stare past me, unfocused, like she’s already looking at something I can’t see. Her mouth is open. Her lips are tinged blue at the edges. Every breath she drags in rattles, thick and desperate, like her body is fighting a battle her mind has already abandoned.
Her phone lies on the nightstand, screen cracked, lighting up the peeling wallpaper with a sickly glow. The 911 operator is still on the line. I can hear her voice faintly through the speaker, strained and sharp.
“Octavia? Stay with me. Are you still there? Is she breathing?”
I haven’t answered in minutes.
I imagine the woman on the other end running through scenarios in her head. A teenage girl in a motel room. An unconscious mother. Silence. She’s probably wondering if I collapsed too. If I took something. If my mother hurt me before she went down. If there’s someone else in here with us, someone dangerous.
But there’s no one else.
No dealer lurking in the bathroom. No boyfriend hiding in the shadows. No stranger at the door.
It’s just us.
It’s always just us.
My mother and me, trapped in the same cycle we’ve been spinning in since I was old enough to understand what a bottle was. Ambulances in the parking lot. Paramedics pushing past me like I’m furniture. Neighbors peeking through curtains. Her waking up hours later in a hospital bed, squeezing my hand, whispering apologies that never make it past sunrise.
She always promises it will be different.
It never is.
The room smells like mildew and old cigarettes. The carpet is damp under my knees. The air conditioner rattles uselessly in the window, pushing out lukewarm air that does nothing to cut through the heaviness pressing down on my chest. Somewhere outside, a car door slams. Life is still going on, just a few feet away from this room where mine feels like it’s folding in on itself.
Her breathing grows weaker. Each inhale is thinner than the last, stretching longer between them. I know what that means. I’ve seen it before, just not this bad. Not this final.
I could start compressions again.
I could lean forward and push down until my arms go numb. I could count out loud, force air into her lungs, beg her to stay. I could scream at the operator to send someone faster. I could try to be the daughter who never gives up.
But my body won’t move.
Because somewhere deep inside me, in a place I don’t want to look at too closely, I know that if she survives this, nothing changes. We’ll pack up whatever fits into trash bags and move on to the next motel, the next town. She’ll cry and swear she’s done. She’ll hold my face and tell me I’m all she has. And I’ll believe her, because I always do.
Then the pills will come back.
The bottles.
