• That kind of horrified scream told me it was more than an, I’ll-just-stay-at-home-today-and-be-better-tomorrow-sickness.
    It was eating her alive.
    9-1-1 seemed harder to dial while my fingers were numb and
    clumsy.
    The hospital is white to symbolize sterility and
    I know how she hates hospitals because they remind her of death and
    I once pointed out newborn babies and
    told her it was also about life, but that was always the difference between us……….
    The sirens are blaring as They strap her in the gurney and
    she throws up a waterfall of blood.
    Her body looks like it could snap like a twig and
    I don’t like the way her spine arches, like toenails curling upwards.
    Her pupils don’t dilate when They use the light and
    tell her to follow it.
    Instead her eyes roll up in her head and
    she chokes on her blood as I suffocate on nothing and
    my cell phone is ringing and
    ringing and
    ringing……….
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘What happened? Where are you? The neighbors said they saw an ambulance’
    ‘Gabby is dying.’
    Silence and
    then the dial tones in my ear and
    I told my mother that my twin sister is going to die even though I swore to her I would take care of her…
    She’s screaming for me and
    there’s nothing I can do and
    They tell her to calm down and
    she’ll be alright
    and her fingers are twisted into claws as I realize
    she won’t be alright.
    I follow Them in an urgent care room and
    I feel like I’m a ghost as I slither in through the door like I’m watching through someone else’s eyes.
    The masks cover Their mouths and
    the caps cover Their hair and
    the gloves cover Their hands and
    needles cover her body like she is committing taboo by sleeping on a bed of them.
    A huddled mass of blue scrubs surround her and
    order each other around and
    I’m just standing in the doorway and
    the metallic taste of her blood is like sticky August heat hovering around me and
    I’ve never seen so much.
    Not even when we were riding our bikes and
    my flip flop got caught in the wheel and
    we collided and
    her wrist was caught between my spokes, cutting her like a razor wire.
    The monitor spikes up and
    down, little green zig -zags of mountains and valleys.
    Her breathing is ragged; it reminds me of track after we would finish a race, me always a foot in front of her and
    we wouldn’t be able to catch our breath and……
    Why is it so bright?
    The fluorescent light bulbs are too intense;
    I close my eyes and my eyelids turn dark pink………
    Just like the skin that They tore open, They told me it was the only way to save her
    Cut; Slice; Hack
    I feel like we’re in that Saw movie we watched together, our heads buried in each other’s shoulders because we couldn’t watch the horror.
    The horror I watch now. I see Them scramble in as the zig-zag enters a valley, and
    They hope to climb a hill. I want it to go up to the top of Mt. Everest.
    ‘You have to leave now,’ They tell me.
    I stand there and
    I stare at her and
    I see the holes They cut into her body and
    she screams and
    screams and
    there’s nothing I can do and
    the nurse keeps pushing me out and
    telling me I need to leave and
    I plead for them to just give her something to ease the pain and
    I’m running out of breath and I can’t breathe……………………..
    When it’s over, I can’t even look at her face. I tell her she’s still the prettier one with her strawberry- blond hair and
    her face spider-webbed with drops of crimson.
    They wrapped her up so she can’t see the mess of insides that is her own, spilling out like too much Kibbles & Bits poured into a dog’s bowl.
    She shows me the stitches which are black and
    they run deep and
    she looks like the rag doll that we sewed together when we were eight at camp that one year.
    She cries into my shoulder and
    her tears are crystal and
    she tells me she’s disgusting.
    Her eyes are hard and
    they glint with malice as the doctor comes in smiling and
    waving and
    telling her she’s lucky to be alive and
    it won’t hurt so bad anymore and
    she leans over and whispers and
    I can still smell her breath from the fountain of blood that came out of her mouth earlier,
    ‘Why am I still here?’