Read Online Binary Star by Sarah Gerard - Free Book Online

here.
    I have to leave.
    Where are you going?
    I’ll sit in the car.
    Just sit down, please. Relax.
    I’m going to die.
    You need to stop talking like that.
    I stand. I kneel and vomit into my hands.
    Jesus Christ.
    Everyone sees me.
    I’m having a heart attack.
    No you’re not. Is there a doctor? Anyone?
    It’s coming through my nose.
    I know, I see it. Have some water.
    I’m sorry.
    Wipe your face. You need to eat.
    I’ll throw it up.
    You’d better not throw it up.
    I’m floating away.
    I’m carrying you. Stop being dramatic.
    Do you think I’m pretty?
    You’re fucked up, you know that?
    Aren’t you drunk?
    I am drunk. Just shut up, please.
    You put a rag on my face in the car. You give me water.
    I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
    Is this better?
    Why are you drinking?
    I’m not sure. Why aren’t you eating?
    I am.
    No, you’re not.
    Yes I am.
    John’s breathing stops some nights and I have to move him. The Seroquel he takes to sleep makes him sleep too deeply to know that he’s choking. I can only help him when we’re together. When he’s in Chicago, I’m useless. He stays out drinking late at night and takes the pills anyway.
    Some nights I stay awake expecting he’ll call me to say that he’s dead.
    Some nights I stay awake expecting to feel that he’s died.
    As if something connects us across the distance and he disconnects.
    I cradle the sphere of his skull in my palm and lift it up. I turn it left and right, left and right, until it’s perfect. This doesn’t last.
    Some nights I turn his whole body back and forth for hours. He breathes and then his throat relaxes, sputters, and stops, and breathing is a struggle.
    The sound is so loud that it scares me. I’ve tried to sleep on the couch but I think that, if I don’t go back and save him, I’ll wake up alone.
    I’ve told him to talk to his doctor. He’s changed medications over and over. They all do this.
    I’ve told him not to drink with them but I know that’s ridiculous.
    He snores so loudly sometimes that he wakes himself up and looks around like he’s surprised. In the light from the neon sign next door, I can see that he’s seeing visions. He looks at the backs of his eyes.
    Sometimes I wake him on purpose and ask him to stop but this makes him angry.
    That’s if I can even wake him. Most nights I shake him and shake him and he never wakes up.
    Or I shout his name directly at him many times, but even this doesn’t work.
    The day after one of these nights, he’ll sleep until four in the afternoon. I spend the time that he’s sleeping reading on the leather couch, or wasting away on the Internet, or playing with Dog.
    I’ve never had keys to his apartment. He won’t make them. I’m afraid that, if I lock myself out, he can’t let me back in.
    I’ve said this to him many times but he says that there’s nothing he can do, that I’ll have to get used to it.
    I sit on the back porch for hours with Dog. By four o’clock, I feel like I’ve opened my skull and scraped the inside clean and filled it with dust.
    I think that, if I can find the center of the noise, I might be able to make peace with it. That maybe, if it’s the only thing I hear, I won’t even hear it.
    In order for this to be true, there would need to be no other sound. But there is Dog, and there is the fan, and there are the sounds of the building settling. Then there are neighbors.
    I think that his neighbors downstairs must hear him.
    They must have said something, if not to John, then at least to the landlord.
    They are like watchdogs.
    Do they lie awake worrying he’s died when the sound stopssuddenly? Do they think about coming upstairs? About knocking on the door, to be sure he’s still living?
    Would they do that?
    Or are they only concerned with their own sleep?
    I’ve thought about calling John’s parents but he would consider that crossing a line.
    If John were to call my mother, I don’t know what would happen. Something drastic, I