We All Fall Down by Nic Sheff

Author:Nic Sheff [SHEFF, NIC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316175890
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2011-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Ch.22

It’s barely even light out yet when I convulse awake from a vivid, anxious sleep. Sweat that has soaked into the sheets makes me shiver uncontrollably, and my heart beats fast and panicked. The gray morning fills the room, shining through the slatted blinds, bleeding all color out pale and muted. My eyes are pinned back wide open. My fingers clutch at nothing. My stomach crawls up through my throat and out my mouth as I bolt for the bathroom.

I vomit red, yellow liquid projectile into the porcelain toilet. My brain swells. My skull cracks from the pressure. The vomit comes again—gagging—my face a mess of snot and tears, with veins standing out all over.

The smell’s enough to make me pass out right there. I hit the cool white-tiled floor, my burning-up cheek pressing helplessly against it. There’s nothing to do but lie here shivering, my knees pulled up tight against my chest.

I try to slow my breathing down.

I try to hold it together.

I try to blink the world back into focus.

As the gray light filters in.

And a fat spider with long, coarse-looking hairs crawls cautiously up the side of the toilet toward the stench there. It disappears behind the dirty rim, and I quickly reach up to flush it away, along with all the vomit—or, well, some of it, anyway.

I pull myself along the floor out into the kitchen, managing to stand, but still really shaky.

What I need is a drink.

I mean, I swear, it’s not that I want to or anything, but I’ve got no choice. It’s the only way I can possibly get through this day. And, besides, I have to go crabbing with Russell. So I need this drink.

First, though, I gotta make sure Sue Ellen’s really asleep, ’cause she’ll freak the fuck out if she sees me drinking at, like, seven in the morning. Already she’s been gettin’ on my back a whole lot about how much I’m drinking. And she’s only aware of maybe half of what I’m actually consuming. So I go sneak back into the bedroom and see that she’s definitely still passed out, with the blanket pulled up so that only a mass of tangled black hair is visible against her pillow. Despite getting so sick, whenever I get drunk at night, I’m always jolted awake at six or seven. It’s been that way as long as I can remember, even back in high school at parties and things. My friends would sleep all morning, but I’d be up at dawn, thoughts racing, consumed by anxiety, unable to sit still—ending up having to take a walk or something while I waited for everyone else. But what I know now that I didn’t know back then is that there is a cure. All I’ve got to do is take a couple shots and I calm down immediately.

So, uh, yeah, that’s the way I play it this morning. I finish off the rest of the vodka in the freezer, and immediately warmth and tranquility fill my mind and body, like I’ve swallowed the sun down inside me.

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