Chapter 5 #2
“I’m not leaving.” He grabbed my good hand and squeezed. “I’m just not watching.” Ben closed his eyes as Don moved the needle to my fingernail.
“You ready, babe?” Don asked.
“Stop calling me babe, you monster,” I cried, causing Ben to chuckle, with his eyes still closed. I hung my head and then nodded.
Don buried the needle beneath my nail. I didn’t writhe in pain, but my whole body swayed like I was on a pendulum.
I tipped my head back, and my eyes rolled to the back of my head as I groaned in agony.
“Fuuuck . . .” I whispered, having promptly lost all the wind in my lungs. “I can’t do this . . .”
“Don’t pass out, Ellie. Do not pass out.” Ben still wasn’t watching. He was clutching me with both of his hands now.
After about a minute of Don digging for treasure like he was Blackbeard searching for gold, I had to end it. “You gotta stop . . . Don. Stop,” I hissed breathlessly.
Tears spilled from my eyes. Don’s face contorted into a thousand wrinkles. Eventually, he put the needle down on Jeffrey’s desk. I slumped over, and my head dropped between my legs.
“It’ll just come out on its own eventually. I think. I’m guessing. I’m certain.” Don turned to Jeffrey, who was nodding. A tense smile was plastered across his face, but he looked like a standing corpse.
“But it’s lead paint. Shouldn’t it, you know, not be in my body?” I mumbled. I had lost all strength from the torture I had just endured.
“It’ll probably just come out on its own,” Jeffrey said through gritted teeth. “Excuse me.” He smiled, then left. To vomit, I assumed.
I finished my classes, suffering in pain like a goddamn champion, and when Ben and I got back to our Grayrock apartment, he sat on my bed with me, waiting to see what my next move would be.
Anything touching my finger was still excruciating, so I left my hand out on the bedside table while hiding the rest of my body beneath the hideous fish-in-a-martini-glass bedsheet that I got for 80 percent off at Macy’s.
“Maybe we could try . . . the needle thing again? Or is it hospital time? I genuinely don’t know what to do right now, buddy.
Do you have insurance? Do we just assume it’ll come out?
It’ll come out, right?” Ben shook his head, perplexed.
“Here, let me make you dinner. That’s something I can do.
” Ben stood and opened our small, empty fridge.
“We have no food! What’s wrong with us?”
I sprung up. I went into the bathroom and pulled out my makeup kit, then fished around with my good hand until I found my metal nail file.
“Ellie, what are you doing?” Ben gasped, wide-eyed. He zeroed in on my nail file.
By this point, I was a machine. “I’m getting it out.” There was zero lightness to my voice. I started filing my nail the usual way, screamed bloody murder, and realized I was just pushing the chip in farther and sculpting it beneath my first layer of skin.
I looked at the file, then my nail again.
Removing my entire nail was the only way to get the lead paint out.
So I started filing my nail from the top down.
Once again, my body began swaying with torment, and my eyes rolled to the back of my head.
Ben was watching me, stunned, as if he were living inside a horror movie.
“I’m gonna faint.” Ben looked dead behind the eyes.
“Don’t. Don’t do it. If you faint, I’ll decapitate you in your sleep with my nail file.”
Ben couldn’t hold my hands because they were busy, but he sat on his bed, across from me, and held on to the outside of my thighs. “W-what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Just be with me,” I whispered with my eyes closed. I pressed down on my wound harder, sawing my nail off, needing it all to just be over with. Fire shot up my arm with every stroke of the nail file. The nerves in my neck pinched, twisting my body uncontrollably.
Ben brought his hands from my legs to the sides of my head, and he held me in place. He pressed his forehead to mine and swayed with me. I kept my eyes closed as he slowed his breath down.
“Deep breaths, buddy.” He took a long, deep inhale and started counting, forcing me to slow down with him until we were breathing together. He held my head against his and moved with me until I’d filed off my entire nail.
Both of our eyes were on my finger, and he quietly said, “Holy shit,” as I peeled back my first layer of skin.
Ben brought his lips to my forehead and kept them there while still holding my head.
He counted again with his mouth against my skin, trying to keep me calm as I pulled out the piece of chipped lead paint.
“I did it.” I finally let out a breathless laugh.
Ben’s forehead fell into my lap. I instinctively threaded the fingers on my good hand through his hair.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, trying to catch my breath.
Ben eventually looked up at me and shook his head.
His mouth was open. He was struggling to find the words he wanted to say.
“You’re a maniac.” He smiled, then moved away from me. “Let me get you a Band-Aid. And a bucket of disinfectant.”
“Okay . . .” I climbed beneath my sheet once again and looked over at the discarded paint chip. I couldn’t control my feeble laughter. “Ben?”
“Yeah?” he said, coming out of the bathroom with a Band-Aid.
“I filed off my nail.”
Ben matched my laughter as he tended to my finger. “Damn right you did. You’re Ellie Fucking McCain. Remind me never to underestimate you.” Ben gave my hand a quick kiss and surprised me when he didn’t let go.
“Thank you for being there with me today. And for just now, too.”
Ben opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say, he decided against it. He snapped his mouth shut again and let out a quick recovery breath before asking, “Want me to run downstairs and grab us some dinner?”
“Yes, please.” I nodded, then leaned back against my headboard.
Other than a clown, I had never birthed anything before, but the feeling of expelling that paint chip from my body was euphoric and otherworldly.
I had two choices. I could tape the paint chip into my diary, or I could keep it on the bedside table, next to my lucky golf ball.