Thirty Two

    Thirty-two.  32 times now she has woken up and dragged herself out of bed.  32 times now she has driven herself to this building, opened the door and shuffled her lifeless body into this room and waited.  Every step she takes adds more and more weight on her chest.  Her fragile 120 pound body feels like 300 pounds of needles.  Here again to wait.  The heaviness clogs her soul.  It steals her drive, and kills her ambition while suffocating her heart.  As the heels of her feet take turns carrying this burden across the room, she locks her eyes on her destination.  The world is eerie to her ears.  She can faintly hear the sound of the out of date TV playing The World’s Craziest Storm Chasers.  How fitting she thought.  The subtitles flashed across the screen a few seconds after what was said, and peoples mouths never quite match what they are saying.  The dysfunction was calming.  The sound finds a way to help make the room more muffled.  Muffled sound is good for her numbness.

    Fifteen.  15 chairs and she has sat in every single one of them outlining this room.  15 chairs and by her 16th time she knew exactly which one she liked best.  The eighth chair.  The chair where she can see all the doors from.  The chair where she can see the escape.  The chair that looks the most worn out and understanding.  The chair in the corner next to the glass ringed side table that looks like the building was built up around it.  It also meant that the chances that someone would sit next to her and try to strike up a conversation was cut in half.

    She wasn’t interested in having a conversation with her own mind, let alone with anyone else.  She slowly slid her hands down the side of the wooden framed chair.  Her sweaty palms skidded along the sea foam pleather as she sat back in the chair.  She wrapped her fingers underneath the seat.  Holding on tight with her left hand, she searched creepily with her right to find the piece of gum she had gotten so used to playing with.  Every visit she had to sit here and wait.  She looked around the room to make sure no one was staring at her.  She already felt anxious the longer she had to sit here.  If someone saw her playing with used gum under the chair she would have to head for that escape door due to embarrassment. 

    It was comforting knowing she could count on that piece of gum to be there, exactly where it was the week before.  She had a flood of thoughts swirl around her mind so quickly it was unclear which one appeared first.  Thought... Who placed it there?  Thought... Were they experiencing the same kind of pain she was?  Thought... Do they know the energy it took to get out of bed?  Thought...Could they be friends, this gum abandoner?  Thought... Did they just lose interest in chewing the gum... did it lose its flavor?  She suddenly found herself feeling bad for the gum.  Transferring her emotions to the gum.  She began to pity the gum for being so unloved that someone just stuck it up under chair number 8.  Her chair.  She felt the heat rising in her body.  Swimming through her veins as if they were full of lighter fluid.  

    She was hot.  She could feel the sweat dampening the space between her breasts.  Her beautiful breasts she no longer shows to anyone.  She hides them.  She hates them.  She blames them for the reason she has been there 32 times now.  Why couldn’t she have just been stuck up under a chair and forgotten about.  But no!  Someone had to find her and scrape her off the bottom of the chair.  Like a toddler, they tried to chew her like she was a normal piece of gum but she lost her flavor and her chew.  She was hard and flavorless.  They keep chewing and trying to make her softer but it is too late.

    She began to just press her pointer finger up against it so neither of them would  feel alone while the wait kept lingering on.  She locked eyes with the pamphlets on the side table.  She hated those things.  Nothing in a pamphlet can explain her feelings or make it better.  Trust her she has them all in the junk drawer at home next to the life she used to have hanging on the refrigerator.  She orders a lot of take out now.

The wait was beginning to affect her breathing.  When the wait was too long she would begin to remember.  Reluctantly her mind took out the book with all the memories written inside it and began turning the pages, memory by memory.  Page 1-The day they found out the good news.  Turn page-The first day she threw up.  Turn page-The exhilarating moment of watching her belly move side to side.  Turn page-The appointments. Turn page- The shopping. Turn page- The nine weeks too early when her water broke after the car slammed into them.  Turn page- The new nursing bras flying all around the car, mingling with the little pink onesies.  She insisted that this store was the best one for her new extra large chest that her husband just fell in love with.  Damn Breasts.  Turn page- The planning of his funeral while she laid in the hospital trying to keep their little girl in longer.  Turn page- The emergency surgery.  Turn page-  The NICU.  The wires.  The crying.  The skin to skin.  Not making milk to help her survive.  Damn Breasts. Turn page- The doctors trying to keep her calm while they told her the news that she wouldn’t be leaving the hospital with a baby.  The two people she loved more than anything are just gone and all she has left are these Damn Breasts that do her no good.  

Her mind turned to the last page in her book.  There she pictured him holding their little girl.  They looked happy together and she longed to be in their arms as well.  She pictured words being mouthed to her from her husband saying ‘Keep holding on, we will be here waiting for you’.  Her eyes fogged up with the lingering image as she let out a deep breath.  She pressed the gum as hard as she could.  

Her thought was thrown off by the touch of the nurses hand on her shoulder.  She flipped her mind back to the awareness of the room, flicking the gum to the floor.  She reached down and grabbed it before the nurse could see what it was.  She placed it in her jacket pocket.  She looked up at the nurse who empathetically responded “I’m sorry, I called your name twice.  I didn’t mean to startle you.  The therapist would like me to take you back to the room now.”  The nurse led her back through the door.  She looked back at the waiting room, her chair as the door closed behind her.  She squeezed the gum hard in her hand as she heard the nurse say “Right in here, hopefully it won’t be too much longer of a wait.”  ‘Hopefully’ she thought to herself as the images faded back in her mind.