This is a spin-off of several works I have completed or are currently underway.
This series of short stories will follow a few of my characters through the rehabilitation process until they have their moment of clarity.
Some issues dealt with in thi...
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trigger warning: purging
Cold sweat. A washcloth across the back of my neck. These feelings were all too familiar.
What wasn't familiar was relating these feelings to something other than purging. Though at this point, I wasn't sure what end the bloat was going to come out of.
I'd been shitting for forty-five minutes. Just when I thought I was finally free from this nightmare, my stomach would clench again, sending my right back to the toilet bowl.
"Use the squatty potty!" Madison had called out, about twenty minutes prior. "It's a real life changer!"
I couldn't do this again. If this is what a working digestive system feels like, cross my name off the list. I'd choose purging any day of the week.
My knees buckled as I curled up onto the bathroom floor, pressing my cheek into the cold tile with an aching body.
"How're we doing in there?" Ms. Wiley called.
"Dying."
The joke didn't go over well, the door clicking open. "That answer isn't on the accepted answer list."
"It's the honest one."
I hadn't been allowed to flush the toilet, and in this moment, I wouldn't wish Ms. Wiley's job on any other human being as she peered over into the toilet bowl.
"I didn't puke," I said, from my position on the floor. "Though it would've been so much easier than that."
She reached over to flush the toilet. "It only gets easier from here. The first bowel movement is always the hardest."
"Please don't pep talk me while I'm lying on the bathroom floor."
Ocean waves of stomach acid crashed against the lining, begging to be released from this torture. It was all I could do to close my eyes, to try and let the urges pass.
"I can't let you sleep in here, honey," Ms. Wiley said.
"I can't get up yet." If I did, my fingers were going down my throat.
And so she waited. Another fifteen minutes ticked by, and the urge to purge only increased with each passing minute.
The pressure had built in my chest, clawing it's way up my still sore throat. My head was pounding, and I could hear my heartbeat in each pulse of my ear drums.
Just one finger could end this.
"I don't do midnight calls for just anyone," Dr. Rivera's voice said. "Thanks, Wilma. I'll take it from here."
"Congratulations!" Madison's voice carried from down the hallway. "In the words of Sheryl Crowe, rewritten by me, the first poop is the hardest, baby I know!"
Dr. Rivera laughed as she closed the bathroom door, but all I could do was groan.
Not even a shitty rendition of Sheryl Crowe could get me off this bathroom floor.
