11-Kit - Two Years Ago
(Twenty-sixth of April, twenty twenty-three)
I flick a half-frozen pea across the plastic tray.
It skids and bounces before settling against a lump of something pretending to be mashed potatoes. Microwaved vegetables are always damp and overcooked. The nauseating stench kills my appetite. Not that I had one.
Most people don’t want to eat after collapsing onstage and getting their stomach pumped, but the doctors insist I “get my nutrients up.” With how raw my throat is, I don’t think even the mushed starch could go down.
Setting the full tray back on the trolley, I push it away, the metal wheels scraping against the floor with a hollow grating. The movement stirs the air, mixing the bleach and cheap hand soap with the radiated veg’s stench.
The telly bolted to the corner of the room plays some old ’90s sitcom reruns, the laugh track obnoxious and too loud.
Colours are washed out, and the picture’s grainy.
American hospitals are horrid. The food’s dodgy.
The entertainment sucks. Everything feels like a punishment.
Worse than prison, though I’ve never been there. I let out a humorless chuckle.
Could always ring up dear ol’ Dad and see how his experience has been.
A speaker sits on the tiny table next to the visitor’s chair. Seth must’ve set it up earlier, knowing I can’t sleep without music. But the wanker put Don’t Hurt Yourself Anymore, the one Louanne and I wrote about my attempt, on repeat.
Keeping it just out of my reach is utterly cruel.
The opening notes drift through the room, the melancholic melody suffocating me for the eleventh time. I haven’t begun to sing the lyrics yet, but the tune alone is enough to tighten my chest.
There are still three shows left on the tour. We’ll leave LA as soon as they discharge me, then be on our way to San Diego. I nearly ruined everything by pushing myself past the point of sense.
What gnaws at me most is that I didn’t intend on popping my clogs this time.
Not properly. I just turned thirty a few days ago, for Christ’s sake.
There’s still a part of me that’s excited, stupidly hopeful, like life might finally start behaving.
I just went too far too fast. Or maybe some part of me didn’t care if I stopped.
That bit terrifies me.
“All right, ya wee gobshite,” Seth calls, stepping inside and closing the door with his boot.
Fried onions, chips, and grease waft from the bags he holds. That’s one thing America perfected: takeaway. There’s truly nothing quite like a burger you get in three minutes. It simply hits in a way hospital cuisine could never. My mouth waters despite myself.
“I figured I’d get ya some real food,” he says, holding up the grease-stained paper. “Not that this counts as real, but hopefully it’ll shut yer stomach up.”
He looks dreadful. Absolutely knackered. His bronzy-sepia skin’s washed out, and his black eyes are red-rimmed. I can only imagine what watching me collapse did to him. Seth’s not the type to panic; he’s the type to carry everyone else’s weight until his bones snap.
“Seth, I—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he says, thrusting the bag into my hands. “Eat. Greg’s comin’ in thirty, and I don’t need ya goin’ feral from hunger on top of everything else.”
I rub the knot between my knitted brows, groaning. “How pissed is he?”
Seth collapses into the slipper chair and prays as he begins to unwrap his veggie burger, not bothering to answer. I follow suit, melted cheese growling my empty gut as I unwrap my deluxe.
“Oh, that bad, yeah?” I ask, but his slumped shoulders tell me I won’t like what he’s going to say.
He takes a bite of his burger, chewing slowly before finally swallowing. “They cancelled the rest of the tour.”
Everything we built, gone in a single sentence. It hits like a punch I should’ve seen coming.
“They didn’t have to do that. I’m fine,” I protest. “I can perform tomorrow, I can—”
“The hell you can,” Seth snaps, his gruff tone rich with unbridled fury.
“Look at ya, mate. You’re a fuckin’ state.
” His voice cracks enough for me to gather everything he’s not saying.
“This is our biggest tour ever. Our biggest album yet. Maybe it was just too much too fast. This is killin’ ya.
None of us can stand it. Louanne won’t even visit! She’s furious with ya. I’m furious.”
“I—”
“Nah. Don’t wanna hear it.” He stands abruptly, chair scraping across the linoleum. “This is killin’ ya, mate.”
I stare at the speckled wall. Part of me wants to argue, to swear blind I’m fine, that I can push through.
I’ll drag myself onstage even if I’m held together with tape and caffeine.
But the truth sits heavy. I pushed too hard, ran myself into the ground, and now everything we built—the momentum, crowds, and buzz—stalled because I couldn’t keep my wits about.
And yet underneath the guilt, there’s this quiet, shameful flicker of relief. Like maybe the universe finally forced me to stop before I tore myself apart completely. I hate that I need the break and that everyone knows it.
Seth tosses his half-eaten burger into the bag and crumples it in his fist. He paces toward the door, then stops. Fresh tears streak down his cheeks as he faces me.
“Don’t ya ever scare me like that again, Kit. Ya hear me?” Seth chokes on the words like smoke.
The fluorescents are a sickly yellow, flickering like they’re on their last leg. Stale air presses against my senses, twisting my insides.
“I hear you, mate. I’m sorry.”
I swallow hard. Salt clings to my tongue. My throat’s raw, scraped thin. Don’t Hurt Yourself Anymore’s bridge drifts through the room. The piano chords are slow and heavy, each one landing like a weight on my sternum.
“If it were up ta me,” he says, turning back toward the door, “you’d be locked away in a proper rest facility right now. Thirty-day program. No arguments.”
The fluorescents drill into my skull. I blink. “Seth—”
“But I know that’d cause a bloody panic,” he retorts.
“So, the week’ll have to do.” He drags a hand through his hair, tugging at the curly black strands.
“Get yourself straight, man,” he says, voice low.
“You keep pushin’ like this, the schedule, the drugs and drinkin’, the no sleep, you’ll be dead.
It’s too much. I’m a lot of things, Kit, but I’m not daft. ”
With the chilling truth of his words, the room grows colder. The thin polyester blanket does nothing to warm my bare legs. My hands tremble in my lap, the paper takeaway bag rustling.
“Whatever’s eatin’ at ya,” he says, barely a whisper, “you’ve gotta face it. Pretendin’ it’s not there clearly isn’t workin’. And I don’t care how nauseated ya are after this conversation, eat yer damn food.”
The door clicks shut behind him, and silence settles over the room, broken only by the drone of the speaker and the telly.
The burger is heavy, like my hands have gone numb.
Thick tears drip onto the bun and soak into the bread.
I take another bite. It adheres to the roof of my mouth and makes every swallow feel like foil scraping my sore esophagus open.
I wipe my face with the heel of my palm. The hospital bed creaks, the sheets rubbing against me. My body’s hollow, like someone scooped out everything inside me and left only the skin. I drag in air through my cracked windpipe.
The song’s melody swells to a mournful plea, each key landing like raindrops on glass. I close my lids and let music wash over me. Chords rise and fall. It’s a hand reaching out in the dark, whispering, “please stay present.”
I don’t know if I deserve that.
The door handle clicks. I wipe my face quickly, trying to appear less like I’ve been crying into a cheeseburger, but it’s not Greg. A short, curly-haired nurse steps in, wearing gum-pink scrubs with black, cartoonish illustrations of various medical equipment.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” she says, her American cadence warm and easy. “Just checking on you. You doing okay?”
I nod though my neck’s stiff. “Just tired.”
She gives me a soft, knowing look that tells me she’s seen too much and understands more than I want her to.
“Well,” she says, adjusting the blanket over my legs, “you rest up. And eat. Drink plenty of water if you can.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I will.”
She smiles, a heavenly coconut washing over me as she squeezes my shoulder. The nurse slips out quietly, and the room dims. I force myself to take another bite of the burger.
Death didn’t come for me. Life did.