Darkness Drops Again by Melissa E Manning

Author:Melissa E Manning [Manning, Melissa E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

It’s as if I’m swimming thousands of miles below the ocean’s surface. I hear voices, but the words come to me muffled and distorted as though from a great distance. I’m aware of bright lights above me, but my eyes are closed and I’m unable to open them. I’m also unable to turn away from them, my body no longer responding to my brain’s requests. I try to remember how I got here. Snippets of events flash before my eyes. I’m looking through a crack in the door to my parents’ bedroom. They are slewing vitriol at one another. My father lands a verbal blow and my mother spits in his face. He slaps her and she falls back on their bed. Then I’m in my own bedroom. I’m writing a letter at my desk. “I can’t live like this any longer. The hurt is too deep to bear.” A bottle of my mom’s Percocet sits across from me. The last thing I remember is lying on my bed to sleep, the pill bottle now empty in my hands.

I can feel a woman take my head and reposition it toward her. She brushes my hair away from my face and opens my mouth. I hear the words “gastric lavage.” A few moments later I feel a plastic tube being inserted into my throat. It scrapes my esophagus raw as it descends. I gag, but am helpless to stop it. My eyes are watering and I feel like I’m going to retch. Then something cool, like water, hits my stomach. But that same water is immediately sucked back out. This process continues over and over for what seems like an hour. Water hits my stomach and is then sucked back out again. I want to die. Finally, the tube is yanked from my stomach. My throat is on fire. Those same hands lift my head up and press a plastic cup to my mouth. I take a sip of what tastes like a bitter slushie and immediately begin to vomit. I keep vomiting and vomiting until it feels like there is nothing left inside of me. I’m just an empty vessel. Then I slip into darkness.

The next time I wake up, I’m in a hospital bed wearing the traditional gown. A white blanket covers my legs. An IV is inserted into my right arm and is connected to what looks like a saline bag. I hear the soothing beeps of the heart rate monitor next to it. I look around for my parents, but no one else is in the room. On the wall across from me is a white board. Across the top border it reads Ascension St Vincent’s Carmel. In the middle of the white board in red erasable marker, a nurse has written, “I’m Angie. How can I help?” Angie’s offer may be a bit late, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m searching for the call button when my parents enter the room carrying matching Starbucks cups. They freeze as our eyes meet.

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