Snaps
1058 Words
Percy
One, two, three, four…. Five. When I lock the final bolt in place, I turn around and take a breath. My hand searches for the light switch in the dark, and once I feel the small piece of plastic, I push it down. Once, twice, three times. F**K. No power. Just great. I transferred the money last night, but it must have been short. Chicken finger and their hormones are messing with my brain.
Crossing my small studio, I open the fridge and close it again. One, two, three. Looking inside, I blow out a breath. Well, at least I only had milk in here. I grab the carton and dump it in the trash can. The sour smell permeates the air for a little longer, and I breathe through my mouth for the next few minutes. Drank too much spoiled milk in my life. Food poisoning was a constant state for me and my sister growing up.
Having a stomach ache every night after dinner because our Mom would just scrape the molt off something.
I open the small cabinet above the two-platter cooker and pull out a pack of rye crackers. My bed creeks when I flop back onto it. The package clip has a click to it, so my compulsion kicks in. One, two, three… clicking it a fourth time before I can open the foil. With my phone in hand, I scroll through the list of city-wide free clinics, saving the one that’s close enough to campus that I can walk there but not so close that I will necessarily meet other students.
Lying on my bed in the dark, I scroll mindlessly for about another hour before I start my nighttime routine. I always hope that the slue of images will make me tired enough to be able to ignore that tiny voice in the back of my brain that forces me to do it the exact same way every night. But it never does.
Fifteen steps, and I have to get them exactly right, or I can’t sleep. Steps 11 and 14 aren’t possible without electricity, and I’m already dreading the headache that will give me. I tap my foot one, two, three times next to my bed before I walk into the small en suit. The light clipped onto the mirror is battery-operated, and I take a long look at all the labeled baskets and boxes.
Easy… An ease I didn’t feel all day floods me the second I see them. Taking a deep breath, I lean forward over the sink.
‘Relax.’ My eyes look tired in the mirror, and the makeup I applied a few hours ago runs a little. ‘Everything is in order. No one touched your stuff. Everything is in its place. BREATHE.’
But the itch won’t stop. It’s not an outward one. It’s a feeling in the back of my brain. And I know that’s not a thing. I know it’s my obsessive behavior and compulsive disorders. Knowing doesn’t make them go away, though.
My palms start sweating, and after I exhausted all other techniques, I pick one of the elastic bands from the small tray next to my toothbrush and put it around my wrist. “Snap, snap, snap.” One, two, three. Especially after a long day on campus and at the club, where I exhaust myself suppressing it, it’s hard to stop counting— my ‘stupid little stick,’ as my mom called it. Well, f**ck her.
::::::::::
After a terrible night’s sleep, I made it in time to be the first patient at the free clinic. The nurse behind the counter gives me the judgiest once-over in the history of humanity, but I ignore her. It sure ruffles my feathers, though. Like f*cking nothing else.
‘I’m tired and hormonal and impulsive… no need to jump the gun and chew her out. Maybe she didn’t mean it like that.’
Oh, she meant it like that. My inner monologue was trying to force me to be nice to a really nasty b*tch.
“Do you know who the father is?”
The elastic snaps against my skin when she tightens it, pulling the tray with the vials in her lap.
“Yes.”
Her brows pull together.“That’s a new one.”
“Sorry?“
The nurse’s chubby fingers press into my flesh. “All you people are usually not that good at… keeping track.”
“What ‘people’?” I can already feel bile rise in my throat. She just clicks her tongue. “College kids. We’re close to campus, so we get all the STIs and unwanted pregnancies that are too chicken to go to the campus health center and be serviced by their classmates.”
“As is their f*cking right.”
The nurse’s lips curl in a snarl when she looks up at me. With a ‘clank,’ she puts the cannula down, and her grip on my arm loosens.
“Don’t be rude, young lady!” Oh, of course, she is one of those. The ones that reach their late forties and pretend that people a few years younger than them must be dumb little toddlers. Anything 30 and under? In diapers. How dare they have an opinion and talk back. The longer I look at her, the more my blood starts to boil, and I feel a ramble come on.
The words bubble up in my throat, and I zone out. Everything, every person, blurs with the surroundings for a moment. While I’m trying to gauge the feeling of each syllable making its way up to the surface. I don’t hear what the nurse drones on about, but judging by her pulled eyebrows and accusing eyes, it isn’t pleasant.
After 20 seconds (yes, I counted.) I can’t hold it in any longer.
“… just supposed to let young people treat us like that? We provide a service, so you better LISTEN when we educate you. Have you ever heard of the common courtesy of respect for health care professionals?”
“Have you ever heard of the saying: respect is earned, given, and can be taken away again?” The nurse’s face turns tomato red, and she opens her mouth to say something, but I hold up a hand to stop her.
- Writer
