Rachel Eos (runrachelrun) wrote in darker_london, @ 2018-04-18 20:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | rachel eos |
Like endless rain into a paper cup (Rachel)
The days were okay because she had a plan, because she had Danny and Zoe and Cai to look forward to, because Lee visited and she put on some more slow TV and curled up on the couch and half-slept, because she made it through.
They were okay. They weren’t great. The pills made her stomach hurt and cramp when she ate, nauseated when she didn’t. Made her sleepy to the point of frustration. She just wanted to wake up. Almost didn’t care that waking fully might be awful. She was so so sick of her body being half asleep. But lying on Danny helped. It was harder to be frustrated when you had Danny for a pillow. She pillowed her head on Danny’s lap and lay her feet over Zoe’s and listened to Cai, who was on the arm of the chair near Zoe but very much not touching Zoe.
The nights were bad though. Nothing about them was okay. She had nightmares for the first time she could remember, shapeless things that woke her suddenly covered in sweat. There was no real story or character to them, they were more like screamers. Absolutely terrifying for the moment it took her to wake up, and then so stupid afterwards. In one, a door slammed in her face and she woke up screaming, petrified, and the feeling lingered in her blood, but it was so stupid? How could a person be scared of a door? At least when she'd stopped drinking water there was some logic to the fear behind it? Yeah she knew it was crazy but... at least back then she hadn't been scared of going to sleep because she might dream a loud noise.
As tired as she was Rachel didn’t want to sleep at night.
Rachel looked at the pills in her hand and thought about nightmares and cold sweat and stomach cramps and wanting to be awake, and such a pain went through her she felt like screaming. She didn’t scream. She was in the same position she'd spent much of the week since she'd been discharged, curled in the corner of the couch under a patchwork blanket that Nonnie had sent her as a get well present. It was soft and full of different textures her hands had spent hours busying themselves by playing with as she watched TV but it was thin enough that if she screamed as loud as she desperately felt like screaming the blanket would muffle none of it. She pictured screaming so hard she ripped right through the stitches.
She put the pills in her mouth and took a mouthful of milk and gulped loudly, then took another mouthful and gagged, spluttered a little. “Milks off,” she said, in a croaky milk voice, and kicked off the blanket.
“Fuck,” said Harley, who had been enraptured in whatever he was doing on his phone. He'd had hungry eyes Rachel didn't want to think too deeply about. She couldn't bear to think he was texting Imogene with that look on his face. Gross. “Sorry. Let me,” he started to get up but Rachel shook her head – she was already out from under the blanket and standing. She tipped the milk, which was fine, down the sink and when she was sure Harley was looking at his phone again she swiped the pills out of her mouth too and they joined the milk down the drain. She just needed a break. For a night. Needed not to wake up from nightmares. Needed not to half sleep through a whole nother day.
Harley never drank milk so he’d never know, and milk went off all the time in their house. It was like it knew something was rotten here. Rachel poured the rest of the milk down the sink in case he tried to sniff it anyway, then went to bed.
She still had nightmares, and woke up in a cold sweat. She still woke up with nausea that cramped into a hard stomach full of pain after breakfast. She lied to Lee when he asked if she’d taken her pills and she lied to Danny when she met him for lunch near the university and because she’d spent the day lying, when it was time to take the pills again at night she already felt so guilty and terrible that one more lie wasn’t going to make her feel worse so she pretended to take them again and lied to her dad too.
That night she did not wake up from nightmares but her stomach still cramped in the morning. It felt a little like progress. It felt enough like she was finding a way to make herself feel better that the guilt didn’t tear her up completely. She knew this was wrong. She knew not taking the pills was bad. She knew she was wrong and bad and yet. And yet she felt a little better. Rachel didn't think she knew better than Abby or Danny or anyone. But watching them disappear down the drain made her feel better. Just a tiny bit.
She still cried for an hour in the shower after Harley left for work, though, so maybe she didn’t really know anything.