Ellen fell to the ground next to the toilet as she felt her energy drain out of her. Reaching up she put her hand to her forehead where a fever was starting. She felt nausea start to rise inside her and gave out a groan of annoyance and was then forced to throw up into the toilet.
Not now! I don’t have time for this!
Though she supposed she never had time for this and whether she liked it or not there was no changing what was happening. Her Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome had been triggered, there was only one thing she could do; get her lazy roommates to take her to the ER before she was dehydrated.
Crawling to the door she cracked it open and shouted down the hallway to her roommates. “Krissy! Veronica! I need a garbage bag! Or a bowl or something! I just got sick!”
She heard scrambling in the other room as they got out what she needed and Veronica came down the hallway Krissy following behind looking confused. Veronica handed her the bag which Ellen quickly opened holding at the ready.
“Why couldn’t you have gotten it yourself?” Krissy asked annoyed “And why are you on the floor?”
Ellen took a deep breath. She didn’t like her roommate Krissy with her condescending look and way of acting like she was better than everyone else just because she was taking nursing classes though how she had decided to become a nurse was beyond her seeing as asfar as Ellen knew she spent more time going to parties than studying.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” Ellen said hoping they would believe her and get her the help she needed. “I have something called Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. It makes me throw up over and over. The only way to get it to stop is to go to the ER. I need one of you to take me.”
For a moment they just stood there staring at her with that wide eyed shocked look that had been etched in her memory from all the times she had told people about her diseases.Then Krissey let out an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes.
“Really Ellen? This again? I heard you asking Mr. Arnald about it; you heard him. It doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as Cyclic Vomiting Disorder.”
Ellen glared at her, panic filling her chest. “Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. And it is real, I have it, and I need your help!”
“You just threw up because you’ve been so stressed about that report due on wednesday.” Krissey retorted.
She was about to try and explain how things like stress could trigger an episode or maybe explain her fever and exhaustion to prove there was something wrong with her when she was forced to throw up into the bag at her feet. When she was finished she looked up at her two roommates, tears of pain and desperation in her eyes.
“Please. You have to believe me!”
Veronica stepped forward smelling like the essential oils she always used. It almost made Ellen gag again.
“Ellen you need to calm down. Come on. We’ll take you to your room where you can relax for a while.You’re just stressed.”
Veronica helped her to her feet and Ellen let her lead herself be led down the hallway to her room where Krissey had turned on Veronicas lavender scented air freshener. Ellen held her breath to try and not smell it as nausea tried to overwhelm her again. She struggled weakly against Veronica who gripped her arm tighter and forced her to sit on her bed. Ellen gripped her bag tighter like a lifeline. There had to be something she could do to make them believe her!
Ellen spotted her Hope Chest next to her desk and rushed to it grunting as she lifted the lid. Veronica and Krissey started towards her trying to tell her to relax or take a nap; as if she could do that with the threat of dehydration hanging over her. Moving around books on biology and finances and cooking she pulled out the laminated book created from page protectors that she had so desperately worked on during the summer in case something like this happened.
A guide to Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. Instructions on what could trigger an episode, what needed to happen to make it stop, how to recover from an episode, and every bit of research she had been able to find on the possible cause and cure.
She turned back to them and held it out. “C.V.S is real. I need to get to a hospital so they can make it stop!”
Veronica took the packet from her and opened it. “Oh Ellen..you really believe all this junk? It only fuels your fears. You don’t need a hospital. You need to relax.”
Krissey scoffed looking over Veronica’s shoulder at the packet. “What are your sources? ‘Stomach flu overeactors.com?’”
“No! ‘The national institute for rare digestive system diseases’!” She started flipping to the sources pages at the end of the packet but they pulled it away from her out of her reach.
“Give it back!”
“No!” Krissey shouted “This thing doesn’t exist! You’re overreacting!”
“Yes it does!”
Krissey raised an eyebrow, an arrogant smirk on her face. “Then why haven’t I heard of it?”
Ellen sat down exhausted, answers flying around her head. Because you don’t study! Because people don’t know the cause. Because some people don’t believe in it. Because it’s rare. Because it’s easier to think it’s just stress and not a disease without a cause or a cure. Because some people think it’s better to tell someone they’re crazy than tell them they have a disease no one understands.
“Because it’s rare. And people like you refuse to try and understand.”
Krissey glared at Ellen. “Come on Veronica. Ellen needs to think some things over.” they started walking towards the door. Krissey looked back at her. “You can either be a stressed person stuck in a room,or you can be a crazy one. You decide.” Ellen forced herself up and stumbled towards them only to collapse against the door as it closed.
“Sorry Ellen!” Veronica said from the other side “But it’s for your own good!”
“Krissey! Veronica! Let me out right now!” Ellen pulled on the door handle but the door wouldn’t budge. “Let me out!! Please! You don’t know what your do-”
Ellen dove for the trash bag by her bed just in time as her stomach clenched bringing tears of pain to her eyes. She blinked the tears away letting them fall and looked at the bag. Not much had come out. She didn’t have much left.
Four she remembered her father telling her. That was how many times a person could get sick before they lost everything. Before their stomach had nothing left to give and dehydration started. How long would she last before she became so dehydrated her body stopped functioning? A few hours? A day?
She looked at the locked door shuddering as she remembered stories that she had come across in her research about C.V.S. About people being locked in asylums because other people thought that they were making themselves sick, people searching for answers and never finding them, always being told that the sickness was their fault.
“I’m going to find what causes you.” Ellen said to the disease within her “If I get out of this I’m going to find the cause and I’m going to make sure no one ever has to feel like this again.”
She took a breath and coughed on the pungent lavender scented air. Using the wall as support for her exhausted,trembling legs she walked over to the window and forced it open letting in a beautiful rush of cool, clean air. Ellen stuck her head out the window letting the cold night wash away some of her fever and looked at the lights of cars driving by and people in their apartments and houses. So close, and so far at the same time.
Ellen forced herself to go back into her room only when she started shivering and surveyed her room to try and figure out what to do. Her roommates had not believed her and had locked her in the room with not even her phone which she had left charging in the kitchen like always. Her eyes fell on the lavender scented humidifier sending the stench into the air. She had an idea.
***
Ellen waited on her bed with the trash bag at her feet. She would need to let her roommates calm down before she put her plan in action or they might just ignore her. So she waited. Waited until she could hear them in the kitchen chatting about boys and weird coworkers and annoying teachers. Looking at the clock she found that about twenty minutes had passed since she had sat down,she was about to get up when her body convulsed and she instinctively pulled the bag open in front of her. For all the pain it caused her only a trickle of liquid came from her mouth. The fourth time. She had nothing left to give.
Once she caught her breath Ellen stood and stumbled towards the humidifier that she had unplugged from the wall picking it up and went to the open window. She stuck her head out again into the cool night air looking up at the stars that were beginning to show in the sky, praying that her plan would work. If it didn’t…
She pulled her head back in and held the humidifier by the cord letting it dangle out the window above the drop. If it didn’t work would she be able to climb out the window? Could she survive the twenty foot drop to the sidewalk below? She didn’t want to think about it.
“Krissey! Veronica! Let me out! I need to get to a hospital!” It was best to start with the big things she knew they wouldn’t give her. Then they might give her something smaller.
“Ellen for the last time! You aren’t sick!” It was Veronica. Good.
“Fine! Then bring me my phone!”
“Ellen-”
“BRING ME MY PHONE RIGHT NOW OR I’LL DROP YOUR HUMIDIFIER OUT THE WINDOW!”
Ellen heard her fiddling with the doorknob taking down whatever they had used to stop the door from opening. The door swung open crashing against the wall. Veronica stood there eyes wide at seeing Ellen holding her precious humidifier out the window. Krissey could be seen looking in behind her.
Ellen felt a rush of hatred upon seeing them and had to stop herself from dropping the humidifier out the window right then. Just to get back at them for what they’d done to her. Just to see it shattered on the ground, destroyed, for the pain they’d caused her.
“Bring. Me. My. Phone.”
“Ellen” Veronica said, holding her hands out. Like she was trying to calm a crazy person. Ellen didn’t care if they thought she was crazy. She barely cared about anything. She didn’t have the energy to.
“Stay back!” she let the cord slide through her fingers an inch. Veronica froze.
“Bring me my phone. Now!” Ellen forced every bit of venom and raw anger she had into that last word. Their faces paled surprised at the rage their quiet roommate was able to have towards them. As if she would destroy them if she had the energy to.
Veronica turned and rushed out the door as Krissey stood there wide eyed and terrified. A moment later Veronica berst back in Ellen’s phone in hand and held it out to her.
“Here! Here It is! Take it!”
Ellen snached it from her hand clutching it close to her chest before she brought the humidifier in so they wouldn’t take it from her. She pulled the humidifier back into the room resisting the urge to drop it out the window anyway just to see the look on their faces. Veronica took it and rushed out the door, Krissey following her.
Ellen slumped to the ground exhausted, trembling from fear. Her mind spun trying to decide who to call. Her first thought was the police. They could arrest Veronica and Krissey couldn’t they? This was practically a kidnapping or a hostage situation right? If nothing else it was a case of neglect. Did that count with roommates or just parents? She shook her head. She didn’t need police, what she needed was someone to take her to the hospital. Her mother would be a good choice but she worked a half hour away and wouldn’t be able to come right away. Her dad was even farther, back at the house. She needed someone close.
“The Club.” she whispered, pulling up the chat. They all lived by campus and better yet they knew what her disease was and what she would need. They would believe her. They would save her. She started texting.
‘Help! This is Ellen! My C.V.S. started and I need to get to the hospital as soon as possible! My roommates refused to help me and locked me in my room! I need someone to come get me and take me to the hospital! Please Help Me!!!’
She hit send and almost immediately got an answer from Micheal the biotech student asking what her address was. She texted it to him.
‘On my way!’
She let out a relieved sigh. Someone was coming. She would get to a hospital. Ellen pulled up her mother’s contact next and texted her.
‘Mom my C,V.S. started. I tried to tell my roommates about it but they didn’t believe me and locked me in my room. I managed to get them to give me my phone and have texted a friend who will take me to the hospital.’
She hit send on the message and leaned back against the wall to wait for her mother to call her. She was so tired. Not to mention thirsty. A gag made her reach for the trash bag by her bed again but nothing would come out. She needed to get out of here and get to a hospital.
Can I even get up? Ellen wondered looking at her body. She wasn’t sure.
Krissey looked in at her through the door. In her relief about her phone Ellen hadn’t noticed that they had left it open.
“What are you doing?” Krissey said looking at her like she was a misbehaving child.
Ellen glared at her. “No-None of your business.”
Ellen’s phone rang in her hands as her mom called her and she looked at it, her brain trying to get her exhausted body to answer the phone. She lifted it up and was about to answer when it was snached from her hands by Krissey who appeared over her.
“Who did you call! The police?!”
Ellen shook her head slumping to the ground. “N-no. Give it back!”
Krissey hit decline on the phone silencing her mother’s call. “No! I’m not going to let you blame us just because you keep overreacting!” She started walking towards the door and Ellen scrambled after grabbing her ankle with her weak hands. “You’re not sick so just get over it already!” Krissey yanked her foot out of Ellen’s grasp, stepping on her hand in the process and making her cry out and cradle it to her chest.
“That’s what you get for trying to call the cops on us!” Krissey said as she slammed the door shut.
Ellen laid down on the floor silent sobs shaking her body. Everything was falling apart. Looking up at the light in her room made her eyes hurt so she put her arm over them relishing in the shadows. She had nothing else she could do to get them to help her or get them to give her back her phone and Krissey and Veronica were probably already texting the people she’d texted saying it was nothing. She would be stuck here waiting for her energy to slowly drain away.
A hope still refused to die however, the words of Michael’s text flashing through her exhausted mind.
‘On my way!’
Ellen just hoped he was still coming.
My Secret Universe 