14

May 1st, 2019

I woke up in the middle of the night. For a split second, I forgot about what had happened only a few days prior. However, the second was over before I could even think about sitting in it, and when the realization hit me, I turned around in my bed and stared into space, numb from the emotions that still rocked my system.

The blinds on my window were open, and a bit of light peeked through from the moon and the streetlights, highlighting a few spots in my dark room. One beam cast a spotlight right on my medication bottle.

I reached my hand out toward the bottle, knowing I needed to take it.

Do you want to see me? The words came back to me instantly. My fingers hadn’t even reached the nightstand before I pulled back, restraining myself. I hated myself for it, but I was saying yes to that question. I hated myself, but I was so desperate, so broken, and in so much pain that I needed his familiar presence back.

When I looked at the nightstand again, I felt a sense of déjà vu. I knew how this scene had played out before.

I remembered arriving home from the hospital after losing Dimitri and waking up in the middle of the night after a nightmare. I texted Elli immediately, and she called me right away, telling me to take my medication. She stayed on the call with me as I cried myself back to sleep.

Tonight, there was no one to text.

Elli was dead. Amanda and I weren’t on those kinds of terms. Aaron… I couldn’t even think about Aaron. So I ignored the healthy part of my brain telling me to take the medication. I turned away, facing the wall, and hugged my blankets close.

I woke up several times throughout the night but turned over and went back to sleep immediately each time. It was midmorning when I woke up naturally and blinked up at the ceiling, stewing in my feelings. It was strange. I wasn’t numb, but I didn’t feel strongly enough to elicit the appropriate response, which in this case would have been crying or angry screams. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry, or if I wanted to just be simmering in the sorrow that didn’t quite boil over.

When I heard a sudden knock and the creaks from my opening door, I rolled over and faced my mom, who was sticking her head in my room.

Chotu, are you awake?” she asked softly.

I just blinked at her. She nodded before making her way inside and sitting on the edge of my bed. She was wearing a pair of yoga pants and a marled gray cowlneck sweatshirt. She looked how she usually looked on a casual day, but this wasn’t a casual day. It was exactly four days after Elli died. Not even a week later. There was nothing casual about this day.

She looked at me for a few seconds, examining my state. “You looked exactly like this a year ago,” she said, her eyes coming to my face, and I looked away, not wanting to make eye contact.

“Did you take your medication last night?” Her voice was soft, and I was reminded of everyone’s voices from a year ago, soft as if I would break from louder sound waves. I didn’t say anything, giving a barely there nod, unwilling to outright lie verbally, and also using the raw tightness in my throat at the simmering emotions as an excuse to remain silent.

We remained quiet for another minute. “I know you’re going through a lot right now, but make sure you take care of yourself when you can, okay? I know Elli would… want you to take care of yourself.”

My mom’s words were soft. My initial reaction was to bite back with a rude comment, something along the lines of “What do you know about what Elli would want?” but before I said anything, that desire dissipated as quickly as it manifested. I realized my mom was right. Even when I lost Dimitri, Elli was the one who told me to be strong. She acknowledged that I had to go through some tough times to get better, but she always told me to keep my focus on getting better. There was always an end goal of recovery. I just didn’t know if recovery was possible this time.

Why does it matter what she would have wanted? She’s already dead.

I pulled my blanket over my head and heard my mom walk out of the room without closing the door. I closed my eyes again and tried to drift off to sleep.

“Why don’t you talk to her, Jasmine? I don’t know if she took her medication.” My mom’s voice floated up the stairs a few minutes later, and I sighed, knowing my sister was downstairs. I could hear the sound of the kettle as it boiled water at an obnoxiously loud volume before it clicked, equally loudly, to signify the water had boiled.

“I’ll talk to her; just have your cha,” my sister replied. A couple minutes later, I heard her steps on the stairs, then her gentle knock on my door.

“Priya, it’s me,” she said as she walked in.

“I know,” I replied. The mattress moved and dipped slightly as she sat in what I assumed was the exact same spot my mom had.

“Mom doesn’t think you took your medication.”

Silence.

“Priya, I’m not going to force it, but you need to take it. This is exactly the kind of situation that could push you into an episode.” Jasmine’s words, although spoken softly, were said with an attempt at conviction.

I was not convinced, though. “I know.”

That’s the point.

I didn’t feel like talking, I didn’t want to think, and I didn’t feel like seeing reason. I just wanted to simmer for a while. I wanted to feel what I felt and not have to be strong or take care of myself. I wanted to sleep and not wake up until I wanted to be strong.

“Scoot over,” my sister said suddenly. I poked my head out to look up at her with a furrowed brow, but all she did was motion with her hands for me to move closer toward the wall. I stared at her blankly for a few seconds before sighing. I knew she wouldn’t give up. She was too persistent. So I obliged and moved back until my butt hit the wall. She proceeded to lie down and face me, her hands going under her head. We commenced an uncomfortable staring contest, yet it seemed that I was the only uncomfortable one. My eyes kept darting all over the room while hers remained static on my face.

The more she stared at me, the more I felt like a bright light was being shined in my face in an attempt to get me to talk. She wasn’t asking for anything, but I knew what she was doing. I didn’t want to talk, though. I didn’t want to think, and I didn’t want to reason, so I rolled around in the bed and faced the wall, blinking as my eyes and throat stung with the tears that started to well up again. Usually, Elli was the one lying in bed next to me as I processed and thought through hard things. Usually, she was the one to scoot me over and either pry information from my lips or give me comforting silence that eventually coaxed me into opening up on my own.

“I don’t get it,” I said brokenly as the tears fell from my eyes, trailing down my cheeks and soaking my pillow thoroughly. My sister remained silent.

“I keep hoping that this is all a dream. That if I sleep enough, I’ll wake up and see a thousand missed calls from her. I know it’s not, and I know I won’t. But all I want to do is just… sleep. I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to talk. I just… want to sleep.”

“So sleep,” my sister said gently. I clenched my eyes shut as more tears fell.

I woke up later that night, alone and slightly hungry.

When was the last time I ate? Must have been more than twenty-four hours ago.

My stomach wasn’t hurting, but I definitely felt weak when I tried to hold myself up with my arm. I moved around in bed and picked up my phone to see some messages on Facebook from people I rarely talked to and a text from Amanda.

Amanda: Hey Priya, I’m so sorry about Elli. I know you guys were inseparable, and I hope you’re doing okay. Let me know if you need anything!

I thought fondly of Amanda but I wasn’t sure I considered her a friend—I always thought of her as Elli’s friend. Maybe if something of a smaller magnitude had happened, I would have reached out to her for support. This was not a small event, though, and I was not in the mood for some pity from one of Elli’s friends. I was definitely not going to let her know if I needed anything, but I did appreciate her offer. Plus, I had to at least acknowledge she was being nice. Was she hurting, too, since they were also friends? I couldn’t remember if I had seen her at the funeral. I couldn’t remember most of the faces from the funeral. Most of the funeral events blurred together and were hard to remember, except for the ones I wanted to forget—the ones involving Dimitri and Aaron. Those memories were seared into my mind, projected onto the inside of my eyelids whenever I blinked.

I threw the blankets from my body as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I stood up and immediately felt myself getting dizzy, my vision filling with a multitude of different colorful shapes and the room tilting from side to side like a pendulum. I sat back down on the bed and took a few deep breaths before I slowly rose up and walked out of the open door toward the staircase.

I could see the living room from the banister. My mom and sister were watching some show on mute. As I took a few steps down the stairs, their attention shifted from the screen to me, and I could see my mom sigh slightly.

“How are you feeling, chotu? Are you hungry?” she asked.

I nodded and slowly approached the couch. I looked at the TV and saw they were watching a rerun of Grey’s Anatomy. It was our family’s favorite show to watch together. For the past six seasons, my mom and I would watch it religiously every Thursday when she was in town. It was marginally comforting, somehow, to see the familiar show on the screen.

My mom stood up from the couch and walked around the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.

“What do you want to eat? I can make you a pancake if you want.”

I followed her into the kitchen.

“Can I have a bean and cheese burrito?” I asked, and my mom looked at me for a second as if she were going to contest my request. She knew I didn’t like them, but she also knew they were Elli’s favorite. So she nodded her head and took out all the necessary things to make the burrito. I pulled out one of the barstools from under the island countertop and sat down, leaning my body forward to rest my head on the cool, dark speckled granite.

Soon the smells of the cooked beans, melting cheese, and tortilla mixed and filled the air, and the bean and cheese burrito that I didn’t actually want was set before me. I stared at the perfectly wrapped meal and felt my stomach turn at the idea of eating it, at the idea that I would get to eat this and Elli never would again. I looked at the food, then at my mom, who stood cautiously on the other side of the countertop. She was watching me expectantly, so I lifted the burrito. I took the smallest bite ever and gagged.

“Don’t eat if you don’t want to. I can make you a smoothie or something. Something lighter.” My mom was already opening the fridge to pull out fruit for a smoothie. I shook my head, determined to eat the entire burrito. It was almost like some sort of sick tribute to Elli, like eating that burrito would somehow honor her or, better yet, make me feel closer to her, as if she were going to pop out of the bathroom, call my mom her mom, and sit down next to me to have her own burrito.

But that didn’t happen, and the stupid burrito tasted as gross as ever because I hated beans.

I ended up crying over it at the kitchen counter. “It’s so gross. Why did she like these?” I sobbed as I flung the burrito onto the plate and covered my eyes, chewing the mush in my mouth. My mom rushed around the counter as I started to cry and sat down next to me, enveloping me in her arms as she hushed me and patted my head. I swallowed, then instantly sobbed again into my mom’s arms. I let her hold me until I made my way, once again, back to bed, still crying, and knocked out for the night.