Vanilla

Pills

(TRIGGER WARNING)

Where are they? Where the hell are they?! This can't be happening.

My hands damp and shaky, I catapult all of my pillows and blankets onto the floor and off of the bed so I can check my mattress more thoroughly. There are no lumps in the lining. Frantically, I run my hands around the entire mattress, under it and on top of it, but there is nothing there.

I want to scream and thrash, to break everything in my house. But since all the energy has been drained from every crevice in my body, I can't. So I collapse on the floor. And I sob.

It doesn't take too long for the withdrawal to kick in, for the empty hole in my chest to widen and encompass every piece of me. I am absolutely nothing again. Just something taking up space in this room; worthless.

Why do I even try?

I don't know how long I lay there, in a ball, my gaze plastered on the wall. I can't bring myself to move one muscle, or even formulate any thoughts beside ones regarding my deep self-hatred.

But eventually, the silence and thickness in the air is broken by the creak of my bedroom door opening. Since I can't turn to face it, I wait for someone to speak.

"Jackie?"

It's a female voice, and it cracks after the last syllable. I hear feet running towards me, I feel arms around me, cradling me. I taste tears landing upon my face. It must be Krista, because nobody else would cry over me.

"Jackie, what happened?"

I look up at my sister, and can imagine by seeing the worry in her own eyes how dead mine must look. "They're gone," I whisper.

"What? What's-" Then Krista registers the rest of the scene. I sense the knowledge she acquires after seeing my bedding thrown about in the way her muscles tighten. "You mean the drugs," she says lightly.

I nod, and then nod again. My head continues to bob as tears stream out of my face again.

Krista cries with me, but I know she's not missing the pills like I am. Her tears are daughters of pity; of worry. Of shame. She's ashamed of me and the fact that I depend upon substances to keep me calm, the fact that I'm not strong like her and cannot deflect pain with tough skin like hers.

But she's not wrong. I am a disappointment.