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“The tiniest lifeboat, full of people I know.” Mac breathed in after she finished talking, I watched her chest rise slowly but just for a moment. I was so scared I just… snapped.
“What is your damage, Heather?” I almost laughed just out of fear. “Are you saying Westerburg isn’t a nice place?” My voice is frantic, I didn’t even entirely know what words had just spilled out of my stupid mouth.
“Heather!” Ms. Flemming is trying to stop me, I wish she tried harder.
“Where the fuck is your school spirit? You don't deserve to wear our school colours.” I’ve raised my voice now and Mac is shrinking away from me, I’ve never seen her so scared… It hurts me to watch yet for some reason I just can’t stop blabbering.
“Let’s not be mean spirited-” Flemming’s useless ass just keeps trying.
“Why don’t you just hop into your stupid little lifeboat and catch a gnarly wave to Remington!” I can see Mac holding back tears now and so am I, I want to run up to her. Apologise. Tell her I didn’t mean it. But if I’m going to keep myself safe I can’t risk losing my status like that. Fuck. Mac runs out of the room and I am urging my body to go follow her but I'm just frozen where I am.
My ears are ringing. I think I hear Veronica saying something but does it really matter now? I’m probably losing the only person who has ever been kind to me. Why did Heather Chandler ever die? No, I suffered under Heather Chandler, so why am I suffering now?
“So what do you all think of that?” Looks like I just caught the end of Veronica’s little speech. It’s not like it mattered to me though.
“Some people will say anything if they think it’ll make them popular.” I say out loud but it isn’t directed towards Veronica. It’s directed towards myself.
A group of girls is approaching me now, I can’t imagine what for.
“Oh my god, Heather! We just walked past the bathroom and just guess what we heard.” One of the girls starts.
“What?” I say, with about as much enthusiasm as a dog being told he’s going to the vet.
“It was Heather Mcnamara, she said ‘Stupid child-proof caps!’” Another one of the girls finished for the first girl. Fuck, I’m going to be sick. I manage to muster what was apparently a convincing laugh.
“Oh she’s definitely going to whine all night.” I say, attempting to reassume my nasty Heather persona.
What am I doing? My best friend could be dead right now. No, not just my best friend, my only friend.
“Yeah, why doesn’t she just kill herself? Or is she just too stupid to get the pill bottle open.” The first girl snarkily comments.
“Fuck, what if she did get the bottle open-” The girls start staring at me, “I mean, yeah, she’s being so pathetic.”
I’m going to throw up, I have to leave now.
“She’s totally going to die alone!” The third girl chimes in and they’re all laughing now.
*HURK*
This is my shot, I cover my mouth and sprint to the bathrooms while the girls are distracted. The stall closest to the entrance door is closed so I slip into the one beside it and vomit. From the stall next to me I can hear a faint voice. One I recognise.
“Heather?” A cough followed her innocent question. She said it so softly I almost didn’t hear her. I wipe my mouth and lean up against the side of the stall.
“Yes, Mac it’s me. I’m so sorry for all the things I said, please tell me you didn’t swallow the pills, Mac, please.” I’m practically begging, I can’t let her die. She probably thinks I hate her. Another gentle cough comes from Mac’s stall and I nearly vomit again out of fear. “Mac, just please unlock your stall, I want to fix this.” I can hear a faint shuffle on the floor and then what felt like hours of her fiddling with the lock to open the door as I silently left my stall. I forget to flush the toilet as I go but what does it matter now.
*CLICK*
Mac finally gets the lock undone and I rush in. She is sitting on the ground, her back to the stall I had just been in. I kneel next to her and grab her hand, “Fuck, Mac, did you down the entire bottle?” I stare at the empty bottle on the ground. What a stupid question that was. Mac won’t look at me and not one bit of myself can blame her for it. “Listen, you need to throw up. I know you hate when I make myself vomit but that is the most important thing you can do right now. I don’t want you to die, you can’t die.” There is so much desperation in my voice now, my eyes are welling up with tears, and for the first time since I was a piece of shit to Mac earlier that day, she looks at me. Her eyes are puffy from crying, her face is red with streaks of mascara being the only thing to break it up.
“I… Don’t want to die.” She manages to croak after a moment.
“Good,” I shuffle her over to the toilet, “You need to get every last pill out of your body.” I let her do what she needs to while I simply hold her hair back. “I wish I never said any of those horrible things to you, I was just so scared of being bullied again. Being treated how we were before Heather found us. I thought the only way to stop that from happening would be to become her but now I see just how God damn stupid that was.” I start sobbing while Mac continues retching. “Mac, I am so sorry. I’ve been such a shitty friend.” Every noise stops, It feels almost like everything is frozen. Mac picks her body up and looks into my eyes. Then she just falls backwards into me.
“Mac, no, absolutely not. You can’t just fucking die like that. Don’t you dare die on me.” I hold her close attempting to feel for a pulse. God, I wish I paid attention in health for once. “Mac, please,” I’m sobbing again, “I love you. I can’t lose you.” I place my head into the crook of her neck and suddenly feel her breathe in.
“God, Duke, I don’t understand how you willingly throw up so often.” She’s giggling at me.
“Oh my god, you asshole! You scared me, dick. I thought you died!” Mac is wiping tears off my cheeks, but I’m smiling now at least.
“Scaring you is the least I deserve to get to do but I think it’s a good place to start. You need therapy, idiot.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. I’m done being like Heather, I don’t want to be mean anymore.” I sigh, letting myself melt onto the floor while giving Mac a light, teasing punch. “I’m really glad you’re not dead, do you maybe want to skip for the rest of the day or…” I let my voice trail off, she’s head of the cheer team so she probably can’t skip because of the pep rally but what’s the harm in asking. I mean, she just tried to kill herself so I’d say that’s excuse enough to leave.
“You know what, yeah let’s skip. I feel so bad and I'm probably going to have to throw up a couple more times just to get all of that shit out of my system. It’s one pep rally, no one will care if I’m gone. Well… Okay it may be an issue but they really should cancel the pep rally anyway.” She giggles a bit and then attempts to stand up before immediately sitting back down. “Okay, maybe we should wait here for just a bit longer…” She says sheepishly. I stand up instead.
“There’s no way I'm letting you stay in the school bathroom, come on, I’ll carry you if I have to.” I start laughing at the prospect, we both know I’m nowhere near strong enough to carry anyone for that length of time, but it at least gets Mac to stand up. She gingerly places one arm over my shoulder while I hold onto her waist and we begin to leave. We push past Veronica who had just arrived at the bathroom, presumably to help Mac.
“Heather, are you seriously going to go with her? After all she’s said to you?” Veronica glared at me with absolute disgust, I knew she was talking to Mac so I stopped and let her respond.
“Sometimes people don’t have to die for the world to be fixed, Veronica,” Mac calmly responds, “maybe you should consider that.” Veronica looks absolutely baffled, I’m rather confused as well but Mac is already trying to pull me away. “If we didn’t stick together, I’m sure one of us would kill herself so I’d rather work through it by your side.” I simply nod in agreement, maybe the friend I needed was right here all along and I just couldn’t see it because of how caught up in the popularity I was…
Otherwise, the walk to the office is uneventful, save for some questioning glances by other students. Once we hit the office I flatly tell the lady at the desk (I never bothered to learn her name), “Heather Mcnamara and I both threw up, the nurse told us to go home. Said it's probably a stomach bug or something.” Then I took Mac out the door without waiting for a response. We got to my car fairly quickly and I set Mac up with a bag in case she felt sick again.
“Why don’t you think of a movie for us to watch tonight, you know, since we’re skipping the pep rally.” I glance at Mac making sure to keep most of my gaze on the road. “I have a ton of VHS tapes so whatever you think of is probably there.”
“Alright, I’ll think on it.”
We have finally arrived at my house and I bring Mac inside, “Here, sit on the couch, I’ll grab us a blanket and then search for whatever movie you’ve decided on.” I begin to turn away before remembering one more thing, “Oh and you know where the bathroom is in case you have to throw up again.”
“Thanks, Dukie, you really are turning around.” She giggles at me.
“Absolutely do not call me that,” I tease, following it up with a laugh. Then I venture to get the ingredients or a cosy movie night, and a glass of water for Mac. “So what movie has the pampered princess decided on?”
“The pampered princess has decided to ask her jester to watch E.T.” Mac humours me in response to my question.
I laugh while searching my shelf of VHS tapes, “And, gotcha!” I say pulling the tape out from all the others, popping it in the player, and finally getting comfortable on the couch with Mac who immediately began to use me as a pillow. I slipped her a quick kiss on the cheek before zoning in on the movie only to be broken out of it by Mac teasing:
“Eww, vomit lips! Don’t kiss me like that!”
“Oh hush, it's not like you haven't thrown up today too.”
Mac returns the ‘favour’ and says one more thing before becoming quiet for the rest of the movie, “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Don’t thank me, I’m the reason you tried to end it, I’ll thank you for being ready to help me fix myself. I know you won’t forgive me easily but I’m ready to work so I can deserve your forgiveness.”