Page 23 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

I blink down at the paper as my eyes blur with tears again. This little gesture, this surrender to irritation and inconvenience, does cheer me up. It disrupts the absolute terror threatening to take over every neuron in my brain.

“Damn,” Damien says with fondness. “Binx, I love this fucking drawing.”

I do too. It’s a detailed, shaded sketch of me reading while Damien stares at me, his hands cradling one of my feet. I sniffle and Damien wipes away the tear that falls for the second time. I want to stay awake and spend as much time with these people as I can before I’m trapped in my house for the indefinite future.

But my body demands rest. And my concern over everyone in proximity to my stupid, cursed body isn’t enough to keep me on this side of consciousness. Sleep is a siren dragging me under the surface of her calm water and I am her willing captive.

That’s the only good thing about seizing—the absolute oblivion that I escape to while I sleep off the aftereffects.

The reality that awaits me when I wake is not one I’m ready to face.

ㅤ

I’m walking back to the couch when Binx lets out a shaky sentence that makes my blood run cold.

“Lillith? What’s wrong?”

I hurry around the corner just as Lillith’s head hits the armrest of the couch with an ominous thud. Binx is shaking her, but her body is rigid and bowing off the sofa. Her slate irises flicker behind fluttering eyelids as she clenches her jaw with what looks like tooth-cracking force.

A seizure. Grand mal, I think, judging by the way her arms lock at an odd angle over her arching from

“Hey, Binx, move for me, alright?” I say calmly, sliding into an old role that feels easy as breathing.

“What’s happening to her?” he asks, terrified.

“Move out of the way for me,” I repeat, and he blinks once before he does. I kneel next to the couch and grab onto Lillith’s shoulder while supporting the bend of her neck with my other hand. I firmly but carefully roll her onto her side. It takes most of my strength despite how tiny she is. It’s hard to move a body when every muscle is fully contracted.

A bit of spittle dribbles out onto the palm of my hand as she wheezes in a deep breath through her nose that winds up sounding more like a snort. It’s loud enough to pull Naomi’s attention.

“Oh my god,” she says when she appears from behind the couch. “I’ll call 911.”

“No, it’s alright, I’m a paramedic,” I say.

“I thought you were a drummer,” Binx croaks.

“Well, yeah. I am. But my day job before going full-time was paramedic,” I say watching as Lillith’s eyes close and the tension in her body loosens. “There we go, it’s coming to an end now.”

I brush my fingers through her hair. She’s drenched in sweat, and her complexion has drained of color, but her pulse seems steady and her breathing comes and goes at a soft and regular pace. “Hey, Naomi, can you get me a rag and some cool water?”

“Of course,” she says, jogging over to the coffee bar. Lillith’s eyes move under her hooded eyelids right before she blinks rapidly. She’s coming out of it, but she’s struggling. Disoriented.

As soon as Naomi places the water and rag next to me, I wet it and start drawing cool paths across her brow. I watch as her pupils flicker, then contract, homing in on my face as her consciousness fully returns.

“You’re alright, little bird,” I say. “You had a seizure. You’re safe. You’re alright.”

It’s a bit of a blur as the rest of things unfold, but before long, Lillith is asleep on the couch and I’m ordering a rideshare with the destination set as her shop-slash-apartment. I sit and talk with Binx and Naomi while we wait for it to arrive. I assure them all that Lillith is probably just exhausted, that it’s normal for someone to need plenty of sleep after a seizure of that magnitude, and that if she’s got a history of epilepsy and vehemently refused an ambulance, that she’s safe to go home.

When the rideshare arrives, I lift Lillith up into my arms while Naomi carefully places the drawing between two of the books I got for Lillith to keep it safe.

It’s easy enough to get Lillith buckled into the back seat of the van that arrives to pick us up. I pull her against me after I slide in after her, cradling her head on my lap.

“Hey, is she alright?” The driver asks. He’s a young guy, probably nineteen. I respect that he’s worried about her, for all he knows I’m just some asshole who roofied Lillith and is taking her wherever I want.

“She’s alright,” I say. “She just had a seizure and is sleeping off the exhaustion from it.”

“Shouldn’t we take her to the hospital?” he asks.

“Nah, she didn’t want to go,” I tell him. “You want me to wake her up so she can corroborate, though?”