Chapter 11 – Void Heart Syndrome

With a manic little laugh, a tiny figure floated down the hall.

Light as a feather, swift as an arrow, she flew.

Max caught sight of her ebony hair as she passed, and followed her quickly.

When he finally caught up, the girl was facing away from him, in her black skinny jeans, black high top converse, and black v-neck shirt.

She turned her head slightly and blew a puff of smoke into the air.

“Casey?”

The girl spun around, swaying like a drunk.

“Oh, hey!” she sang, intoxicated. “You’re Max, right?”

She paused a moment, choking and coughing.

Max wrinkled his nose.

“You look… gross. And your breath smells like weed.”

Casey let out a hysteric giggle.

“Hurr hurr,” she sang. “Smoke weed errday!”

Max silently promised himself he’d never say that again.

And she was a terrible actor.

Burnt people don’t act like that.

Max rolled his eyes in disgust.

“You don’t smoke weed; you’re asthmatic.”

(See, I can’t possibly be NAD because I didn’t know Casey was asthmatic.)

“Never stopped you,” she shot back.

Her voice had stabilized and her mood back to normal.

“What?” Max protested. “I’m not asth--!”

“My sister’s severely asthmatic,” Casey continued. “Never stopped her.”

(See, I can’t possibly be NAD because I didn’t know Casey had a sister.)

“Listen, Casey, I don’t care about your…”

“Sure, it makes you hungry, but it’s also supposed to speed up your metabolism…”

Casey attempted to circumscribe her waist with her hands.

“I’ve been losing weight for you, you know?”

“… What?”

“For you,” she whispered.

And then her voice grew louder.

“I did everything for you. I changed my clothes, my likes, my personality… All for you… and you still don’t love me. So it must be my appearance, right?”

Max wrinkled his eyebrows.

“Wait, I never asked you to--…”

“I’ve practiced putting on makeup for you,” Casey interjected. “You like Dre and Dre wears makeup, so if I wear makeup, you’ll like me too, right?”

The lines around her eyes grew dark and thick.

“I started smoking weed cause you smoke weed and I’m starving myself and everything, all for you!”

She took a couple steps forward as Max stepped back.

“And you still don’t love me! So what is it? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not skinny enough?”

But then, she had used up all of her measly lung capacity.

Her breathing, her heart rate, stopped.

She fell forward, into him, collapsing to the ground.

Max found himself helping her down, even cradling her malfunctioning head in his lap.

Her empty eyes glossed over and a single tear slithered down her left cheek.

A pale little hand reached up to touch his face.

Max cringed, silently.

Seeing this, the hand fell, but in the face of death, he took it.

“Why don’t you love me?” she whispered, weakly. “Am I not pretty enough? Am I not skinny enough for you?”

She looked rather gaunt.

Her face began to wither.

Her hair thinned and fell out.

Everything about her began to deteriorate, as if the life was being sucked out of her by some ungodly force.

Max closed his eyes.

He couldn’t bear to look.

But even in the dark recesses of his mind, Max could still feel himself holding the girl’s hand.

Beneath the surface, muscle cells were bubbling, breaking down, disappearing.

Her yellow skin turned as white as his.

Disturbing, it became papery and thin until it flaked off like old paint, piece by piece.

And then he was holding just bone.

It was so lovely white.

He held it until even that disintegrated into a pile of salt.

Still, the crystals deteriorated.

Nutrients drained from the bone dust, becoming smaller and yellow.

The grains of sand slipped through his fingers, gathering in a misshapen lump on the floor.

Time wore away at that, turning the pile from gold to gray.