annihilated. /mcr fanfic (pt. 2 of resurrected, completed)

chapter eight

there I sat, in group therapy, with a belly full of rice crispies and my own real clothes from home. rob must have dropped them off without asking to see me. it doesn't matter, he packed my favorite sweatshirt, the black one with "love will tear us apart" in white letters across the front. despite the layers of clothes, I felt cold still. ever since I took a dip in the river, the cold has made a home in my bones. they shiver and rattle beneath my skin.

an older woman says that today, her goal is to stay positive. she hopes to talk to the psychiatrist today about her dosage of cymbalta. she misses her children, but understands that she needs to put on her oxygen mask before she can help the passenger. I look around the circle of one, two, eleven people, not including myself. one, two, seven women, four men. there's three older women, four women approximately my age, give or take a few years. the men are all approximately my age as well. the woman leading the group sits with a clipboard and pen rested on her knee. she's nice and young, perhaps right out of college. see, she's qualified to ask us what our goals are today. she went to college to sort through our mess.

the young man next to me says that today, his goal is to go home. he is warned that this is the fifth day in a row of the same goal. he shrugs and says that's his goal. he is asked how he will come to reach this goal. he is silent for a moment, then looks the group leader in the eye and says, "I just will." the group leader attempts to talk him out of shutting down, but after a few calm suggestions, he just gets up and leaves the room. I don't think this is helping him go home any sooner.

now it's my turn. I'm introduced as new to the herd, my name is Annie. Mikey, from across the room, reassures me with a small closed-lipped smile. I say that today, my goal is to make it through meal times without hurting anybody. the group leader absorbs this information, nodding slowly.

"okay, I suppose that is... a goal," she says, still kind of unsure.

she asks what I will do to successfully reach my goal and I think for a moment.

"hmm... I suppose I'll take my time and communicate how I'm feeling," I said with some confusion, answering as if I was asking a question.

she nods, welcomes me to the group, then moves on to my purple-haired room mate.

Rachel taps her fingers on her small denim-covered knee. she calmly states that her goal is to work through some difficult feelings about going home in a few days. she decides that she will journal and talk to the one-on-one therapist about it.

the person besides Rachel is shaking her leg nervously, shaking her whole body with every bounce. she describes her goal of staying clean, which feels like a silly thing to say, being that we're in an extremely controlled environment. after looking at her long enough, i realized she was referring to self harm, not drug use. she had scars and scabs and open wounds all up and down her arms. there was a big unhealed, picked-at wound on her forehead. she tried to cover the spot with her hair, which was chopped up in a messy impromptu fashion.

I feel nauseas as all hell. im digging my fingernails into my arms, which are hugging each other through the sleeves of my sweatshirt. the brick of Rice Krispies was churning like broken glass in my stomach. I tried calming my breath, but I could feel it slipping out of control. as Mikey was beginning to speak, I darted out of the room, heading for the bathroom in my room.

didn't quite make it, though. a nurse in the hall yelled at me for running, and I tripped over my feet, landing on my hands and knees. after I fell, a horrible mess of wet cereal and stomach acid leapt from my belly onto the once-sterile linoleum.

when I was lying in bed, trying to sleep off the post-vomit fatigue, Mikey came into my room with Rachel. he sat at the edge of my bed where my feet were. Rachel sat on her bed with a pen and journal.

"how are you holding up?" he said quietly, looking over his shoulder at me.

I shrugged. "Tired."

he nodded. "I should leave you to get some sleep," he said as he stood back on his feet.

I turned to him. "wait," I sat up and he turned towards me. Rachel glanced up as well. "does Gerard think about me?"

he paused, taking a moment to formulate. he crossed his arms. "I'm sure he does."

ouch.

that night, I ate dinner with just Mikey. Rachel was planning her outpatient resources and services with the outpatient coordinator. Mikey was eating the grilled cheese and tomato soup like a real champ. I watched him with deflated lungs and a feeling of defeat after a long day bobbing like a buoy in a sea of nausea.

"Start out like this. two bites, pause to breathe for a full minute. do it again and again until its 3/4 gone. then knock it out all at once," he suggested with his hand hovering in front of his chewing mouth. "you get better at it, it's like building a muscle. it gets easier."

I had sipped down a couple of spoonfuls of the bland, lumpy soup. the typically solemn faces in the room are much happier with foods in their mouths. Claire, the resident joker, makes Sarah spew tomato soup from her nose. the room erupts in laughter.

my cold hands pinch the greasy bread between two fingers. the stench reminds me of childhood, of sitting next to Andy on the stoop of our mothers apartment, chalk on our knees, shoveling down dinner so we can go back to playing with the neighbors. brighter, more carefree times, when the calories weren't adding up on an internal calculator and "you're getting so big!" was a compliment.

no, I'm in the hospital, seated across from my ex's recovering-train-wreck brother, counting the calories as each bite slides down my itchy scratchy throat. I'm starting to forget how fat my body feels, just to cope with eating. otherwise, I would've jumped through the thick glass windows by now.

"I can make a much better tomato soup than this," Mikey said in a prideful tone, polishing off his grilled cheese with one last bite. "pre-ED, I was a master chef. Frank and I would stay up watching chopped, then around 3 am we'd get up and make the next big dish. I shit you not, we invented the cake pop."

I cracked my first smile of the day. "is that so? I didn't know I was in the presence of excellence."

he scoffed. "you're bluffing. you're trying to tell me you never noticed how amazing I am? because, seriously, I'm amazing."

I shrugged. "if you say so."

"I know so!" he laughed.

"you know the secret to the perfect tomato sauce?" he prompted, so full of himself in the moment. wow, treatment really changes a guy.

"sugar," I guessed.

"close! everyone thinks you can willy-nilly add a tablespoon or so to a pot of sauce. the real experts know that you caramelize the onions in butter and a little bit of brown sugar before you add them to the sauce."

"wow," I smiled. "you really are a master chef. have you thought about culinary school?"

"well, yeah, but there's an obvious problem there," he said and pointed to his temple. "the way my brain see's food is one of them."

"you seem to be doing much better," I said with a shrug. holy shit, i just took the last bite of my grilled cheese. it almost came naturally.

he shrugged. "in some ways, I definitely am. still got a long way to go."

I nodded. "well, you're going the right way."

he nodded. he was silent for a little bit, looking at the doorway. "maybe I could go to culinary school."

"definitely! maybe once you meet a specific milestone or something."

"that makes sense. goals? are we talking about goals? is there a future, all of a sudden?" he gasped. in a whisper, he added, "that's exciting."

I smiled and looked down. "Mikey, you got me all the way through this meal. all I have left is this bit of soup," I announced, honestly surprised.

he shook his head. "I had nothing to do with that. it was all you."