Antagonym

Chapter 13

I knew as soon as my eyes cracked open and a pounding headache split my brain in half that I had fucked up.

I couldn't remember a thing from last night but it was enough for me to know exactly what had happened. There was no way in hell I would ever get this drunk unless I was having an episode. Despite the hammering in my temples, I forced myself to open my eyes in my dark bedroom, but I wasn't alone.

Sebastian was sitting at the edge of me bed with his bulging arms crossed and the look of a worried mother on his face. "I did it again, didn't I?" I asked in a raw voice, the sound making the pain in my head even worse. My tone sounded like nails on a chalkboard and it pointless my temples like a sledge hammer. It took all my willpower to keep my eyes open while Seb stared at me.

"Yeah, you did. Beck called me after you left the stadium. It took me an hour to find you and when I got there you'd already downed half a bottle of vodka. I thought they were going to have to pump your stomach but you were already torturing yourself with that damn yellow Gatorade. I think you had thrown it all up by the time I got there." I couldn't stand that taste of it after everything that had happened to me, that's why I threw it up every time. There was some masochist inside of me that forced me to do it. 'Get over it,' Was all I ever heard in the moment.

You can't get over it.

It haunts you and everything you do.

Seb's broken and worried voice made me regret everything. I had done that and scared the shit out of him. I had burdened him with the responsibility of making sure I got home safe so my brother didn't have to stand over my grave. I was selfish and I hated myself for it more and more every day.

"I knew you weren't going to jump," Sebastian said eventually. "In the two times this has happened I have never seen you close to that railing. You sit on the edge of the curb like you're waiting for something."

"I'm waiting from some one to fucking hit me," I muttered insensitively while closing my eyes and leaning my head back on the soft pillow.

Seb let out a deep breath of frustration. "You need to go back to therapy." It wasn't a suggestion. It was a command. A command based in love and worry, but still a command. "That's three times in six years. What happens when no one finds you? What happens when you don't purge your own stomach? Then Griffin gets a call at 3am because your half dead body washed up on the shore and the next thing you know your sister, your blood brother, and your best friend are standing in a hospital room over a cold corpse," Seb's deep, manly voice cracked in a way I had never heard before.

"Have you ever seen a drowning victim? Someone who died of alcohol poisoning? Someone on life support because they're brain dead and they are so weak they can't breath for themselves? Is that what you want? To end up like those people I help treat everyday at the hospital?" Sebastian asked. I didn't want to open my eyes and feel the guilt of the tears I knew where in his eyes. My best friend wasn't emotional but he could be when he wanted to. After being with him for almost four years, I knew when he was effected. I didn't want the guilt. I couldn't.

I know what he sees every day at his internships. I know what those bodies look like. "Your skin pale. Your chest compressing and jerking like a dead fish while a machine breathes for you, a tube down your throat. You'll never have a career, a family, a life. Finn and Sylvia almost lost you once. Don't make it a reality for all of us."

"Small things like what some asshole said can make you upset. It's okay to cry. It's okay to feel miserable. It's okay to feel whatever you feel, but you cannot seriously contemplate suicide and say you don't need therapy."

I didn't respond. I didn't know what to say. I felt like an asshole but there was nothing I could do to fix this. I can't help my guilt. My thoughts. My sorrow. My memories. Everything was always tucked away waiting for an escape and when that moment came it was like a wrecking ball.