Barely Breathing

Chapter Five - Alternative Ending

        "Hey, I need you to come pick me up." I speak into the receiver. I'm in the center's lobby and my doctors, Eugene and Kelly, are standing right beside me. They're making sure I make the call as I'm supposed to and don't lose my shit. Again.
"You got released?" My mom asks, obviously.
"Kind of, but not really. I actually got kicked out."
"What?"
"I need you to come pick me up because I got kicked out of the center. If you need to, you can talk to one of my doctors and they can tell you."
She decides to do that so I give the phone to Eugene. Kelly follows me as I walk to the chairs. I sit there and watch the friends I've made play chess and other games. They're not too happy with me either. I was doing good for the first week I was here, then I decided I didn't care anymore. It's been three months of them trying to work with me to get me out of this slump, but it's not just a slip up. I don't care to get better. There doesn't seem to be a problem. Besides, I'm really seeing much of a point in getting better if I'm just going to end up feeling like this again. I don't really deserve to recover from my issues if they're just going to come back. I think that I deserve this anyway. It's like a punishment of sorts for all the bad shit I've done before in my life. I deserve to feel pain. To hurt. I don't deserve to be happy. It's not like it really changes much anyway. Wes will love me anyway. My family will love me anyway. As will my friends. They might be mad, but they'll get over it. That's good enough. Besides, I really miss Brooklyn and the guys. My other friends are cool too, but not as cool as though three.
It doesn't take long for Eugene to explain what happened. Soon enough, Nurse Kelly is off doing other work and he's sitting with me. He's back to trying to convince me that this isn't what it has to be. That there's still hope for me. I disagree, and I tell him that. He tells me that he, and everybody else, believes in me. I call bullshit. He stops because he knows I'm getting upset. Then my mom walks in and I leave with her and my father. I message Wes and let him know I'm out. I send the same message to Brooklyn and the guys. They invite me out with them. I tell them that it depends on whether or not Wes decides to come over. They understand. He sees my message and responds with the same hope-filled excitement my mom did. I feel a twinge of pain having to disappoint him with the reality.
The trip back home seems to go pretty quick, but only because I ended up falling asleep. I take my bag to my room and unpack it. Then I take another nap.

When I wake up, the sun is down. I check my phone and see that it's only eight at night. Wes has messaged me a few times to tell me about his day, what's going on as it's happening, and says that he's going to be coming over. He just sent that one within the last hour. I respond happily before placing my phone back down and going to the bathroom. I get right back on it when I step into the room. Even though it's only been around forty minutes, things have already changed and he can't come over. His friends have been harassing him to go out with them. I'm distraught by this, but I respond as nonchalantly as I possibly can. He doesn't know that I'm upset, which is what I love. I exit the conversation and slide into the groupchat with my three favourite friends. We decide to meet at the spot by the train tracks.
I grab a jacket and take off out of the house. I throw the jacket over my arms as I walk down the outside steps. I head down the street, going as fast as I can. Brooklyn lives right by the tracks, so of course I want to get there quickly. I don't want her waiting for long. I almost get hit by a few cars, but I don't really care and honestly neither do the drivers. As I near up on the meeting spot, I see everybody there and run to catch up. Greetings are shared and we walk on some more to Brooklyn's house. We head down to the basement and pop open some bottles.
The night bleeds into day as we drink carelessly. I end up passing out again as the sun is rising. I don't wake up until sometime after noon. The others are still asleep, so I grab a bag and as many full bottles as I can and take off.
I lock myself inside my bedroom and start partying by myself. Eventually, the seconds bleed into the minutes and the minutes into hours and the hours into days. Wes starts calling me every night to make sure I'm okay because I don't respond to most of his messages anymore and when I do, most of what I type is badly misspelled. Out of the gang, Niles is the only one who checks up on me. He feeds information back to the other two on me. Although, after some time, I stop responding to all messages that aren't from Wes. I stop eating again. I spend most of my time in the bathroom; either on or next to the bowl or in the bathtub sleeping with a bottle. I finally decide after a while to turn on my radio to some random station in my bedroom, then lock the bathroom door to seal myself off from the world completely. All I have is a mini fridge and a cell phone to be my only friends. Wes seems to be becoming increasingly worried and angry at me, but I still can't tell if it's just my anxiety, so I laugh it off a lot of the time and tell him there's nothing to worry about. He keeps asking if I'm sure and I say of course. I can't think of any reason it wouldn't be true. I've felt better before, sure, but I still feel pretty damn good now. So I say I'm fine and he let's it go.
The thought that this has gone too far for too long dances across my mind. I decide to do something about it later, although later never seems to arrive. I always feel too in control for it to seem like I should really reach out. So I keep pushing it back and I wait until it's too bad. Until it's a real problem. Until I can't take care of myself anymore. Until I lose control. Until I'm sick.
But that time never comes.
It starts with a dizzy feeling that I ignore because I'm usually dizzy. Then I get a headache and my body goes numb. It becomes increasingly difficult to breathe. There's a crushing feeling inside my body; like my ribs are piercing through my organs and my heart is collapsing. I can feel the beat change from regular to problematic. I try to get to my phone, to call Eugene, but my eyesight fazes out. I try to shout, but I can't hear anything past the ringing. I don't feel my voice working. I can't breathe. I panic, then I see Katie's face. It's comforting for a second, then I remember that she's dead. I realise that I'm dead now too. I waited too long and now there's no hope for me. I gave myself up. I let the disorder own me.
And I just know that my cause of death will read the same as Katie's: Heart failure from starvation. Maybe with some liver damage.
Damn. Just twelve days after I got removed from the clinic.