Unproductive
an excerpt

Alex calls me shortly after I get back from lunch. “Any news?” “No, nothing”, I respond. “Um, I’m pretty busy… just got back from lunch… should go,” I say quickly. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll see you at around…?” “Six, I think. Yeah, probably six.” I’m bad at this, keeping things from him. I’ve never been a good liar, and while I’m not directly lying to him through this conversation, I know I’m keeping things from him. “Okay,” he sounds so cheerful, racking me with more guilt, “Love you, see you tonight.” “Love you too”. I end the call by pressing the release button on the phone and hold the receiver in my hand while I stare blankly at my computer monitor, my eyes becoming hazy as they lose focus.

Everything seems so wrong now. I feel ill, like I might throw up, so I quickly make my way to the bathroom. I can’t believe that Alex called just then, just after I’d returned from my lunch date, or whatever you want to call it, with Eddie. I start sweating and begin dry heaving. This is unlike any panic attack I’ve ever had. There’s a lump in my throat and I’m terrified that whatever it is may make me stop breathing and I’ll choke to death on guilt or the part of my sandwich that I’m certain is stuck in my throat. The cold sweat covers my entire body, but I feel it especially on my arms and it makes me shiver. I heave again and this time something comes up. It’s been years since I’ve vomited and as the sting of acid burns my throat and the pool of tears comes to my eyes, I’m thankful I’ve not had the stomach flu since I was 17. I can’t handle puking. I’m crouched on the hard tile that lies in the bathroom of my workplace and I suddenly realize it’s not as clean as I thought it was. This makes me heave again, but I’m able to hold down whatever might be left of my lunch.

Alex doesn’t know. He can’t know. Besides, there’s nothing for him to know. Thoughts are racing in my head, and I can’t keep any idea at bay long enough to convince myself that I’m acting crazy. The lump in my throat is still there, so I force myself to swallow, gagging on the taste of vomit. My face feels hot and tight, and I’m almost certain that I’m living my last moments. Calm the fuck down, I tell myself, but it’s not working. Just calm down, have some water, don’t think about Alex, don’t think about Eddie. But I am thinking about Alex and I am thinking about Eddie and I am thinking about the fact that there is something lodged in my larynx and it will not come lose and soon I will start to get sleepy from the definite lack of oxygen I’m now experiencing from the piece of food or shame that is most definitely the cause of all of this.

I stumble to the sink and force some water into my mouth and down my throat. I’m shocked and comforted at the ease I have in swallowing, despite my brain telling me that I have something the size of a walnut stuck in my throat. I look in the mirror and my face looks bloated, my eyes bulging white and the blue of them highlighted by the redness of the skin around them. I exhale quickly and blow the air out for what seems like half a minute before sucking in another gulp of oxygen and holding it in my lungs until they force it out again. My hands feel tingly, a sign of impending loss of consciousness, I think. I also notice the room starting to sway, the ground coming up at me in waves. To die in a bathroom, I lament, is horribly embarrassing. This makes me think of all of the embarrassing and shameful things my friends, family and mostly Alex will discover once I’m dead and gone. For one, the laundry isn’t done and the bathroom’s a mess. Alex won’t clean it, because he won’t think of it, he never does. It will be my lasting legacy – dead in a bathroom at work with a filthy toilet left at home and a boyfriend who didn’t care enough to clean it.

Then there’s my diary, the one I keep under lock and key and stuffed away in a suitcase so that no one will find it. They’ll pry the lock off, of course, and then Alex will read all of my entries about him and how stupidly smitten I was with him when we first met. He’ll see how I wrote down every detail of our first date and he’ll laugh at how simple I was, how childish the writing I’ve left the world is.