Chapter 18: Euthanasia

I felt so alone, so vulnerable. And not the way I felt when it was just Tyler and I, along with the rocking of the waves and a canopy of stars. With Tyler, I felt alone in the solitude that we shared. It was comfortable, wrapping around me comfortably but never suffocating. And now, the only comfort I had was preserved in those memories. But now it felt like I was in my underwater cave, the darkness choking and disorienting me, rendering me unable to find my air bubble, or even a cave wall or sand bar to push off on.Panic rising deep in my chest, I looked around for anything to end it now, to escape from the suffering I was guaranteed to endure. Flashes of my pale almost-siblings, tubes and liquids, doctor's words. "A deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life, to relieve intractable suffering." Was this my punishment for surviving the odds once? I understood that death was inevitable, and an early end wasn't difficult for me to comprehend. I had just never faced my own mortality in such a consuming way before. I brushed my fingertips across the pale crescent moon birthmark on my left calf, marking me as human. Sucking in a breath, I wrapped my fingers around my thin wrist and felt my pulse pushing urgently through layers of tan skin scattered with constellations of freckles.I slowly slid off of the City Hall couch and sunk into the plush carpet, running my palms across it. My hair fanned out around me, the pin loose and my twist unraveled. I was surrounded by crimson pooling around me like blood.
I bit my lip hard at the thought and returned to the couch. I flopped onto my back and slid off halfway, my ankles grazing the headrest and my head on the floor, my neck at an unnatural angle. I let the blood rush to my head and tried to forget the images of doll-like tributes, their fragile china faces broken and smashed in, skinny legs inverted at the knees and ankles. Crimson linings and empty eyes. Crumpled and suspended in time, like a doll abandoned during play.
I heard the door's edge brush against the thick carpet and I quickly rolled all the way off the couch and landed on my feet before the door was pushed all the way open. "Oh, Bay..." my mother's arms were around me before I saw her face. She clung to me as if she was the one that needed the strength. My father reached his long arms around the both of us and I pressed my face into his chest. I'd never get to see my potential brother or sister grow up or even know if they made it to birth. And I felt a hollowness in my bones as I realized that the cycle would continue without me.
"Mr. and Mrs. Mullingar." a voice called from the hallway. My mother unwrapped her arms from around my neck and grabbed my father's hand unsteadily. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together. Gently, she placed a kiss on each of my eyelids and my father kissed my forehead, like they used to do when putting me to sleep. And they were doing exactly that, in another sense.