Charlie #2
I toe off my battered sneakers and leave them in the cubby near the door. The rugs here are plush and forgiving, and when I step onto them in my socks, I feel taller and lighter, almost like I could float if I wanted to.
I wander over to the wall of coloring supplies and scan the options, letting my fingers drift across the labels.
I pick a pack of thick triangular crayons—my favorites, because they won’t roll away if you drop them, and they’re easier to grip when your hands feel useless—and a coloring book with baby animals on the cover.
I cradle them against my chest and make my way to the bean bags in the middle of the room.
I choose the biggest one, a ridiculous oval the color of a traffic cone, and fall into it with a loud whoosh. The bean bag envelops me, swallowing me up, so that only the tops of my knees and my head poke out. It’s like being cocooned in a giant mitten, and I love it.
I open the coloring book to a random page, a scene with a bear cub clinging to a tree branch, and set the crayons beside me.
I can feel my body relaxing with each small, concrete task—opening the book, snapping the crayon case open, and peeling back the paper from a fresh blue crayon.
It’s the kind of focus I can’t manage anywhere else.
I start coloring, filling in the sky with big, even strokes.
My hands are still shaky from the day, but it’s easier to forgive myself here.
No one cares if the colors go outside the lines, or if I have to switch to my left hand after a minute because the right starts to cramp.
The bear gets a patchy brown fur, the leaves a cartoonish green, and the branch turns a wild shade of purple because why not.
The world outside the lines is allowed here.
At some point, I become aware that I’m humming quietly to myself, a nonsense tune that probably belongs to a commercial or a children’s show I haven’t seen in years. It’s embarrassing but also comforting. No one can hear me. No one is watching.
Except the plushies, maybe.
I reach out and grab the nearest one, a long pink cat with an embroidered smile and a missing ear.
I tuck it into my lap, pulling it close as I keep coloring.
With every minute that passes, the frantic buzz of my thoughts slows down.
My breathing evens out. The ache in my back and legs dulls to a manageable throb.
I color until my eyes hurt, then look down at my work and feel a flicker of pride, before it’s quickly smothered by the old shame.
I’m too old for this.
I’m too much.
I’m not enough.
All the bad thoughts start to come back, but softer now, less like an alarm and more like a tired voice warning me not to get comfortable.
I set the coloring book aside and let my head fall back against the bean bag, staring up at the white ceiling tiles. There’s a stain in one corner, a tan circle that looks like the moon.
For a while, I think about nothing. Then, inevitably, I think about everything.
I think about the doctor’s message. About the mail piling up back home.
About my birthday next week, and how it’s supposed to be this milestone I never thought I’d reach, but now it feels less like a celebration and more like a countdown to disaster.
I think about the crumbs in my car and the persistent, gnawing guilt that I’m wasting every second of my life.
I think about how my body is crumbling, cell by cell, and how no one seems to care enough to figure out why.
My throat tightens with the urge to cry, but I try to ride it out. That’s what you do. You let the feeling come, and you don’t try to fix it. You just wait and hope it passes.
My thumb drifts up toward my mouth, and before I can stop myself, I’m sucking on it.
I close my eyes and try to focus on the soft give of the bean bag beneath me, the plush warmth of the cat in my arms, and the quiet voices coming from the TV.
I drift somewhere between awake and asleep, letting my thoughts float over me like clouds.
Some are dark and heavy, others brief and bright.
I remember how, when I was younger, my mom used to rub my back in slow circles when I cried, and how she would whisper, “It’s okay, baby boy.
You’re safe.” I don’t know when she stopped, or when I stopped believing it.
A tear slips down the side of my face, cold and quick. I swipe at it with the back of my hand, annoyed that I’m crying again when I promised myself I wouldn’t.
I curl further onto my side, tucking the plushie closer to my chest.
My eyes start to sting a little, and I open them, blink rapidly, and then stare at the TV like that might keep the tears from falling.
It doesn’t.
One after another falls, tracking down into my hairline as I stare at the bright, happy colors on the screen.
I don’t make a sound.
I just… cry.
My fingers tighten in the plushie’s fur, bunching it up as I pull it closer, like if I hold it tight enough, it might hold me back.
It doesn’t, either.
Nothing really does.
A hiccuping breath breaks out of me before I can stop it, and I press my face harder into the soft fabric, curling in on myself more.
“I tried,” I whisper around my thumb, words slurring slightly. “I really tried…”
Every appointment, every test, every time I forced myself out of bed when my body felt like it was made of concrete. Every time I explained the same symptoms over and over and watched someone’s eyes glaze over halfway through.
“Everything’s negative.”
“No need for a follow-up.”
My chest squeezes painfully, and I let out a small, broken sound, squeezing my eyes shut.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I murmur, voice barely there. “I don’t—I don’t know how to fix it…”
And no one else seems to want to find out.
That’s the part that hurts the most.
Not just the pain. Not just the exhaustion.
It’s the way people stop trying.
Like I’m not worth the effort.
Because I’m too complicated. Too inconvenient. Too… much.
Another tear slips down, soaking into the plushie.
“I just want someone to take care of me,” I admit softly, the words fragile and a little embarrassed as they leave my mouth. “Just for a little bit…”
My grip loosens after a minute, the tension draining out of me as the crying fades into quiet sniffles. The movie keeps playing, unchanged and cheerful, and completely disconnected from the heaviness sitting in my chest.
Eventually, my breathing evens out again. The exhaustion settles deeper, heavier now that I’ve cried, like it’s seeped the last little bit of energy out of me.
I tuck one leg up and drag a nearby blanket over myself. It smells faintly like laundry detergent and something sweet—maybe from one of the other littles who was here earlier.
My thumb slips from my mouth after a while, my hand dropping lazily to rest against my chest as I stare at the screen, blinking slower and slower.
I’ll just take a little nap.