Check, Please?

Chapter 24

My body and mind both ached from the emotional hurricane that I had gone through the last few days.  I stepped carefully over broken glass from shattered bottles and grimaced at stains on the carpets – whether it was from beer or vomit, I couldn’t yet tell.  The whole apartment reeked with a stench that made me gag, especially as I walked past the kitchen full of dirty dishes and more beer bottles.  I held my nose and peeked into the bathroom even though the lights were off.  Seeing nothing and no one unusual, I continued down the hall slowly, almost scared as to what I might find either in mine or Harry’s room. 

“Haz?” I called softly, balancing on my toes before I looked into his room.  I stabilized myself with the wall and pulled myself forward, craning my neck around his doorframe and peeking into his room.  The sheets were everywhere and an assortment of his clothes were mixed into the mess.  I took a cautious step into the room but froze as I heard a squish beneath my feet.  I could smell it before I even looked down at it: a small pile of colorful vomit.  I swallowed back a gag and stepped back out of the room, balancing again on one foot as I slipped off my messy shoe.  I took the other shoe off and laid them both down in the hall before carefully stretching my legs across the hallway into my room.

“Haz?” I called again, watchfully scanning the floor to make sure I didn’t step in any more vomit, especially now since my feet were bare.  When I had a little bit of open floor to stand on, I stood up straight and looked around my room.  The bed was bare, causing me to panic slightly before I remembered that I had taken my spread and pillow to the studio.  A few of my clothes were thrown about, which I didn’t remember doing, and mixed with the overall stench of the apartment was a heavy scent of my perfume.  I frowned and made my way to my makeup dresser where I found my favorite perfume bottle, nearly empty.

Confused, I spun slowly and observed the space.  That was when I noticed a limp foot sticking out of the opposite side of my bed.  I gasped and rushed over to the body.

“Harry?” I shook him and flipped him onto his back on the floor.  He was tangled up in an old blanket and only had on his boxers aside from that.  I gagged again as his body odor, mixed with beer, rose up and burned into my nostrils.  I grimaced and tried to slide Harry away from the puddle of vomit-mixed saliva that accumulated under his mouth where he had been laying.

“Harry?” I nearly shouted at him, shaking him harder and slapping his pale cheeks roughly.  I pulled one of his eyes open and let the light from the window shine into his pupil, but it didn’t dilate.  I stuck my finger beneath his nostrils and held my breath, trying to feel or hear his own breathing.  Not sensing any, I panicked and slammed my fist into his chest.  “Harry! Come on Harry-“  I straddled his hips and forced all of my weight onto his stomach.  I put the bottom of my hands just below his ribcage and shoved downward as hard as I could, over and over.  I bounced on his stomach and slapped his face some more, unsure of what else to do.  Of course I had learned about the Heimlich Maneuver and all of that, but now that I actually needed to attempt to do it correctly, my mind went blank.

I remembered a few times where this happened before.  Some party.  Some house.  Strangers.  Dancing.  Drinking.  Harry blacked out a few times.  I was drunk and giggled and pumped his stomach playfully until he vomited, in which case he sat up again, fully conscious, picked up another drink and began to fill his stomach again with more alcohol.  It was almost like a roller coaster for us - the drinking and blacking out.  Somehow, we trained ourselves to black out and recover for more, like when you go over a huge drop on a roller coaster and black out, but then come back just in time for the next drop.  Harry was much better about coming back for that second drop than I was, though.  We hadn’t done it in so long that when I found him in my room on this day, I was worried he might have already been dead.