I hear the sound of her cocking the gun and suddenly I realize this is it and I’m Edie, I can’t remember if I’m Edie anymore and maybe it’s 2009 now and I’ve become her and this is the end and there’s pressure in my right hand and she’s folding it, molding my fingers carefully like it’s Claymation, like I’m in her stop-action film and right now she wants me to be—
The music hits a new hysterical triple-fortissimo as she slides my pointer finger into place and I don’t think because I don’t have time to. With every little atom of stardust left in me, I squeeze. Someone screams, Tessa or me or the music or Edie or inside my head, and there’s pain and hot sticky on my arm, and then—
Chapter 18
Someone’s saying something, but I’m so tired that before I can listen I need to close my eyes and let myself back into the cool deep pool, the deep end, just for a minute, maybe Lloyd will be there and he’ll do pull-ups on the diving board, if I can just
* * *
There’s something over my mouth, maybe I’m scuba diving in the deep black sea, but when I look around it’s not dark, it’s so bright it hurts, and there’s a man in white holding the mask over my mouth and I’m on my back on a table and my spine hurts and we’re moving and
* * *
I’m erupting. I’m on my left side and it’s bright and there are tubes shoved down my nose and someone’s turned a torch on in my stomach. I retch and try to scream and I rip away at whatever’s coming out of my face, but someone grabs my hand and starts saying something and it floats by, meaningless, a few times before I catch it: “You’re okay, just relax, you’re okay, keep your head down, that’s it, you’re safe, keep your head just like that, you’re fine.”
I keep erupting, my insides rushing out, a violent gush inward and then a big suck out, ocean waves swelling up my belly. Tears are pouring freely from my eyes. I try to ask what’s happening, but there’s something in my throat, something they need to remove, something keeping me from talking.
Someone reaches for my hand and I squeeze it. I breathe, my lungs struggling like I’ve just had the wind knocked out of me, and the voice keeps talking as I fight the mushrooming panic: “You’re okay, you’re fine, it’s gonna be okay.”
Finally the ocean stops and whatever’s stuck inside of me starts to move, pain in my nose and throat and entrails as it slithers upward, I retch and retch and try to yell out but I can’t, what’s in there, what’s in me? The hand around mine clasps tighter and someone touches my cheek tenderly, and then it’s not to be nice, it’s to grab the end of whatever’s coming out, the bottom scratching me as it curves out my nostril.
“It’s over, it’s over, you’re okay,” the voice finishes, and the panic doesn’t stop but it at least holds still as I gag and cough and roll farther onto my stomach. I look around and for the first time the shapes around me take on meaning: I’m in a hospital room, spotlit under bluish lights, with people in scrubs around me, busily doing things.
“What happened?” I ask, but it comes out like a croak. They’ve taken away my voice, I think wildly.
“You just had your stomach pumped. It’s gonna be hard to talk.” It’s the same voice, a woman’s, and I turn my head to look at her, pain grabbing my neck and torso. Someone’s helping me to sit up and then the bed is moving under me, hinging up into a chair.
“Here. We need you to drink this.” Someone else hands me a cup of something thick and black. It looks like the insides of a monster, whatever spits out when you cut its head off. I don’t move.
“It’s that or we put another tube down your throat,” the man says, waggling it, and I take it. “It’s activated charcoal. It’s going to help your body get rid of the last of the imipramine.”
Two fat tears roll down my cheeks. I nod and pull the cup up to my lips. The first sip tastes like cement, and I gag again. The rest I knock back in one long slug, chug chug chug. It