Free Burnout by Adrienne Maria Vrettos

then shake it harder, trying to clear it.
    She leans in a little behind me, watching my reflection in the mirror. “You all right? You don’t look all right.”
    “Fine,” I answer, before rushing by her to throw up in the toilet.
    She asks once more if I’m okay, but I don’t answer, and a moment later, after listening to me retch again and again, she leaves.
    I black out for a while after I throw up. I don’t know for how long. When I come to, I find that I’ve fallen and I’m slumped against the toilet. I push myself up, groaning at the soreness in my joints.

CHAPTER 12
REMEMBERING
     
    T he last time I was at Duke’s . . . the last time I
remember
being at Duke’s was a few days after I got out of rehab. It was my first time seeing Seemy, and it was not going well.
    “Seemy!” I leaned over and hissed loudly in her ear. “Sit up!”
    She grinned up at me from where she lay on the cushioned vinyl seat of our booth. Then she reached under the table and peeled off a piece of gum and acted like she was about to put it in her mouth. I hit her hand, making her drop it.
    “What the hell, Nan!” she whined. “I’m
hungry
!”
    “Then sit up and eat your french fries.” I tried to pull her into a sitting position, but she stayed limp, giggling at me as I tried. Tick had done the same thing that morning, refusing to let me get up from where we lay together on the couch, watching cartoons. He’d been sleeping with me since I got home, and I’d been dragging him around the apartment while he hung on to my leg, refusing to let me go anywhere without him. With the Tick, all I had to do was tickle him to get him to let go. With Seemy, all I wanted to do was smack her. “Fine. Just fine. Lie there if you want.” I turned back to my french fries, dipped one in ketchup, and tried to swallow through the lump in my throat.
    I smelled Toad before I saw him. He sat down hard next to me in the booth, taking up too much room with his teeth and his elbows and his stupid pants. “Whatsup.”
    “Hey, Toad.” I ate another fry. He took one from my plate, and I fought the urge to punch him in the face. He jumped all of a sudden, then bent over to look under the table and cracked up. “Stop pinching, Seemy!”
    He sat up and leaned back in the booth, threading his fingers together behind his head and spreading out his elbows like he was reclining on a beach. He stayed in that position for only a second before shifting again, taking another french fry, and winking at me. He was like a damn dog, pissing all over the place to claim his territory.I wanted to tell him I got it. Duke’s was his place now. His and Seemy’s. And Seemy was his too.
    “So, Nan,” he asked, drinking my Coke, “are you having a good welcome-home-from-rehab dinner?”
    Seemy cracked up and started singing that song: “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no!”
    I put down the fry I was about to eat and moved to get out of the booth, shoving Toad out of my way.
    “Come on, Nan, chill out.” Toad laughed, his mouth full.
    Seemy suddenly regained her ability to sit up. “Don’t go, Nanja!” She tried to grab my arm, spilled my Coke. I yanked my arm away, kept walking toward the door.
    I passed by Edie, one of the waitresses we knew. She was leaning against the counter, watching me. “You taking them with you?” she asked.
    I shook my head.
    She smirked. “Please?”
    As I pushed open the door, I heard her call out, “I’ll give you a dollar if you do! Two if they never come back!”

CHAPTER 13
TODAY
     
    I rinse my mouth in the sink and splash water on my face, even if the makeup keeps me from feeling it. I stare at myself in the mirror and then unzip the jacket. The words across my chest read, HELP ME . And now I have this feeling, this terrible feeling that it wasn’t me who was asking for help at all.
    Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Nan.
Don’t ask why it feels like your body is ripping apart at