Touch: Awakening

Part Twelve

Whoever came up with step-down therapy as a method for mitigating withdrawal symptoms should be quarantined. The first day was fine. I skipped a pill in the evening, repeating it the following day. By the morning of the third day, discomfort set in. It grew and grew with each passing day, and now my discomfort has reached epic proportions.

I'm probably exaggerating. I am exaggerating. I can work through it. There's always a fine sheen of sweat on my skin, there's not enough water in the world to keep my mouth wet, and nausea's become my constant companion. The worst part is it's only been a week. I have at least two weeks of this left.

I stare at the bowl. It's empty this time of day, my discarded pills lined up like dominos next to it. Finals are over. I've gotten a good start on grading, and I turned in a request to change the topic of my paper. I'm waiting on the approval, and I'm waiting for word from George on my waiver application. There's no reason I can't stop all together, and get the sweats and the nausea over in one go.

Snick. The evening dosage pops up, and I fish it out, ready to swallow them both. One more day of three pills, and then I eliminate the evening dose. Step by step by step, all careful-like.

Screw careful.

I add both pills to the row and go back to my reading. I can handle a few days of being uncomfortable.

###

I shoot up in bed, sheets sticking to me, sweat dripping down my spine, pooling under my breasts, unsure why I'm awake.

A wrenching pain cramps my stomach, and I curl over, trying to breathe through it and get to a place where it doesn't hurt so much. Instead, it gets worse, and I fumble with the sheets as bile rises. Swallowing convulsively, I kick free and fall out of bed, unable to gain my feet and forced to crawl across the floor to the bathroom.

I barely make it to the toilet before my stomach revolts, and once it's empty I don't have the energy to go back to bed. The cold tile's not so bad. Feels pretty good on my skin, actually, drawing the heat from it.

When I start to shiver, though, I think I probably ought to make another effort to return to bed, with its blankets and soaked sheets. My stomach clenches once, twice, and I give up the idea of bed in favor of hunching over the toilet again.

I'm already empty, throat raw, so it's dry heaves wrenching my body. Once I'm certain they're over with, I pull myself into the shower to warm up and get clean. It's a tedious process, one that ends with me huddled on the shower floor a few times, pleading with my body for a little more time and strength, but I manage to scrub down, suds swirling down the drain at my feet. I give myself a few wipes with the towel and tuck it around me. It'll be good protection from the nasty sheets I don't have the energy to change.

I drain the water glass on my bedside table and call for a new pitcher just before the creeping black sweeps me under.

Time bleeds together in a sludge of fevered dreams and painful cramps, broken up by moments of lucidity where I'm disgusted by the constant dampness of the sheets and I'm too weak to do anything about it. I manage to keep every other glass of water down and spend a lot of time getting acquainted with my bathroom floor, shivering through the chills and pressing myself into the tile as heat washes over me. Showering becomes pointless after the first one. My skin is disgustingly sticky and my hair is matted into thick, sweat-damp hanks.

Half-awake, skin crawling and body shuddering as it struggles to hold on to heat, I barely hear the crack heralding Drew's arrival as my blood thunders in my ears, threatening to deafen me.