No, no, no.
What have I done?
The thought hits me like a scream inside my skull, pounding.
I don’t want to die.
I hear the soft ping of the beer tab hitting the tile beneath me just as I lurch forward, barely catching myself on the toilet as I flip the lid and crash to my knees. The impact sends a jolt through me. My eyes squeeze shut, but the tears come anyway, spilling over.
I shove my fingers down my throat. Desperate, gagging again and again, but nothing comes up. Nothing. Just that awful, hollow retching. Panic surges through me, sharp and consuming, my chest tightening as I gasp for air.
I can’t breathe.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the faint beeping of the security system, the sound cutting through the haze. My eyes go wide.
Someone’s here.
“Help.” My voice is barely more than a whisper, too small, too weak to carry beyond these walls. I swallow hard, forcing it out again, even though it hurts. “Help.”
I can’t stand, my legs useless beneath me, but I drag myself forward anyway, fingers scraping against the floor as I crawl toward the door. My hand fumbles for the handle, twisting it just enough to pull it open.
The door swings wide—and I hear footsteps on the stairs.
Not rushed. Not panicked.
Normal.
Calm.
“Honey, I got the mail, there’s something for you.”
My dad.
“DAD!” I try again, but it comes out broken, thin, barely there. The strength drains out of me all at once, and I fall backagainst the floor, the world tilting, blurring at the edges as tears slip down my temples.
“Johnnie! What the hell?—”
He’s beside me in an instant. I can’t see him clearly, just shapes and movement, but I feel him. His hands are cradling my head, something rough brushing against my face. A towel. Or maybe his shirt. I don’t know. He’s wiping at my cheeks, my nose, my mouth, trying to clean away the mess I’ve become.
“Johnnie, what happened? Are you sick? What’s happening? Say something.” His voice is tight, breaking, his hands gripping my shoulders as he shakes me.
“I took pills.” The words scrape out of my throat, barely audible.
“Pills? What pills?”
His face comes into focus for a second, his eyes wide, frantic, darting around the bathroom until they land on the bottle. He grabs it, scanning the label, and it only takes a heartbeat for everything in him to change.
The bottle slips from his hand, clattering to the tile.
I can’t help but wonder if it lands beside the beer tab, the two of them resting there together on the floor, keeping each other company.
“How many did you take?” he asks, his voice sharp with urgency as he hooks his arms under mine, hauling me up and dragging me back toward the toilet.
I don’t even get a chance to answer before his fingers are down my throat, nails scraping the roof of my mouth.
“Come on, get them out,” he yells over and over. “Come on.”
The intrusion is violent, overwhelming, and my body reacts instantly. Spasming as bile rises, spilling into the toilet. I choke, gasping between heaves, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps going, shoving his hand back down my throat again and again untileverything blurs together, until I lose count of how many times I’ve thrown up.
