Nobody Ends Up Dead in a Bathtub, Everyone Keeps Their Organs

Chapter 10

Some nights Damián wished he still smoked.

The habit had been comforting. Stepping outside, pulling out a cigarette, cupping his hands around it to light it against the wind. There was routine to it. Whenever he had a bad day, he could always stand on the sidewalk and breathe in the nicotine and tobacco, and it would wash over him like a heavy blanket. It was simple. Easy.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

Stub out ash before his fingers burned.

It always took the edge off his appetite. Whenever hunger pangs were beginning to twist at his insides, he would stand on the stoop of his building and go through cigarettes until his vision lagged when he turned his head, and he could return to his apartment without needing to think about food again for a few more hours.

Christian hated it when they dated. He complained whenever he nuzzled his nose into Damián's hair and could smell the thick musk of smoke. He refused to stop on their dates so Damián could pick up a new pack, and he would make a point to frown whenever Damián excused him from a room.

But Damián cherished those moments when he stood in the dark, under the single light outside by his apartment's front door. Sometimes he was alone, and he loved the solitude. Sometimes, someone would stand beside him, scrolling through their phone and puffing quickly just to get the buzz going. His neighbor, Danny, would speak to him if he felt like it.

More often than not, Danny didn't. No matter how often Damián would try to start a conversation, finding joy in annoying the grumpy, older man.

Damián liked sharing cigarettes with clients after appointments. It felt cliche, but he liked that cliche. He liked leaning over, either accepting their flame or flicking it up for them. It was like a bookend to the intimacy. A proper closing.

But he quit smoking years ago. No matter how much he itched to reach for his bedside nightstand now, he knew there wouldn't be anything to grab. Just a copy of Giovanni's Room, headphones, and odd pocket change he had no idea where else to scatter.

Damián stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom and thought that he should hang a plant there somewhere. But maybe the ceilings were too high in his apartment. Getting a plant hung up would be one thing but taking care of it would be another. He would have to dust it up there, water it. He would have to climb up to take it down every so often to shower and inspect it.

Still, a spider plant or a pothos would be nice. It would be something to look at rather than dull white paint.

Damián sort of liked being self-destructive. He liked burning up on the inside so intensely and then sizzling out once all of his energy was spent. It was like a sprint.

When his eating thing returned every so often, it was always with some excitement. Some adrenaline. He couldn't lie to himself. Plans for counting calories and restricting his food always, briefly, gave him something to look forward to. Like he was at the starting line, hands pressed to the hard rubber of the track, legs ready to push himself forward to the finish.

And then, once he settled into the diets, every time, he felt like he lost a part of himself. A stumble. A fall. A roll across the finish line, bruised and skin rubbed raw.

Maybe he'd get lucky someday, and he would be a completely different person.

He didn't know why he fell into fits of enjoying his self-destruction except he guessed he liked the idea of one day someone coming up to him and, seeing his pain, offering to help.

If he suffered enough that someone noticed, he might feel like he had permission to cry. If someone saw him in pain, then that meant that someone saw him. Someone was seeing him and noticing him, and they cared enough to take him in his arms.

They would see all of him.

They would see him as a mess. They would see all of his flaws.

But it never happened.

When someone did mention it—the fact that he was pushing his food around, that he was claiming a little too often that he had already eaten—he brushed it off. When Leo asked for the second time if he was sure he didn't want dinner, Damián thought that it wasn't fair to burden his little brother with his problems. Diego was just a client, and Damián couldn't break the illusion he paid for.

Danny, across the hall, was all rough edges, and he was never sure what to say, though Damián was certain he noticed his fluctuating weight. A hesitant flick of a cigarette to knock off ash. A long look up and down. But Danny never said anything.

Christian had his own problems, and the two of them had been caught in a spiral of enabling each other.

Alex—

Alex would be out of his life soon enough. It didn't matter what Alex thought or did.

Damián hadn't found the right person to save him yet, apparently.

And he never got so bad that a complete breakdown would demand attention and energy from someone around—something he really wanted. He wanted to absolutely implode on himself so that someone would rush to him and be forced to take him all in.

Once, with Christian, he got close. One particular bad week led to a fight and then their breakup. Christian was so caught up in his own feelings that he didn't see Damián's cries for help. He didn't see that Damián's sudden moodiness, his need to get a rise out of Christian, was him begging him to stay and work things out and just hold him.

Damián just wanted to be told it would be okay. That a fight had an ending. That he should really try to eat something.

Instead, Christian responded with his own hurt. His own need to be told that things would be okay. His own implosion that was demanding attention that Damián didn't have.

And Damián guessed that that just happened sometimes. They added fire to one another. They burned bright together. It was inevitable that one day they would consume and engulf everything around them until there was nothing else.

Damián wished he still smoked. He would kill for a cigarette, the musky smell of burning nicotine. He wanted to choke. He wanted to stand in front of the building and have his and Danny's ash mix on the ground before they turned back inside, silent.

It would kill the hunger pang gnawing at his insides.

Damián's phone buzzed against his pillow. He heard it, muffled but strong, through his cheek.

He grabbed it, hoping it would be a text that could distract him from his spiral.

An update is ready. Restart your phone.

He swiped the notification away and returned his eyes to the ceiling. There was no one left, he presumed, to check in on him. And maybe that was his fault. People didn't flock to forest fires when they refused to stop burning.

A pothos would be nice. Right in the corner of his room. A pothos and a step stool.