Sophomore year, I am standing in the Gilmore Hall bathroom, with a bottle of NyQuil in one hand and the little dosage cup in the other. I pour up to the first fill line and take a look at the green liquid, lip curled, before I tip it back and immediately rinse the leavings out of my mouth. I climb into my loft bed, turn the little fan on next to my face and fall into a guided sleep.

The next night, I stand in front of the same mirror, pour to the same fill line, and climb back up into the loft again. It had been comforting the night before, to know that I was being put to sleep. It was under my control. My thoughts were unable to keep me awake that night.

The next night, I have to pick a different mirror; some girl was washing her dishes in front of my normal one.

“Aww, got a cold?” she asks, looking back at me, at the bottle, as she rinses a pink bowl.

I smile, closed mouthed. “…sure.”

“Feel better, hun.”

You don’t know me. I measure the NyQuil to the second fill line. A little more won’t kill me. I down the sour syrup. It tastes vile, as always. Running down my throat, covering my insides; coating my heart in green. That night I set the NyQuil bottle in my shower tote, keeping it in the bathroom to avoid carrying it back and forth.

The next night, at 11:00, I go for my tote. I look at the bottle; the dwindling green medicine. If the nightly process had in fact started with me trying to stop a cold, it was gone by that point. I pour to the third and highest line on the measuring cup and drunk. I wake up that morning realizing that I have no longer been dreaming, and always used to.

The next night, I pop out of my dorm room to go print something in the basement. Halfway down the hall I find myself missing my USB, and go back into the room to get it. Emily is sitting on the floor working on an art project, her computer playing music nearby. Ben Fold’s The Luckiest is on. She looks at me quickly.

“Sorry… I thought you were going to be gone for a few minutes.”

I smile, close mouthed, “Its just a song.” USB forgotten, I’ll print it in the morning, I dart out the door straight to the bathroom. I pour NyQuil to the brim of the measuring cup and lick it clean after feeling the familiar slick of the medicine slide down my throat.

I return to the room. Emily has closed her computer.

“Lu, are you ok?”

Already dizzy, eyelids half closed, I nod slightly and gave her a thumbs up. “Just tired.”

I hoist myself into the loft and fall asleep almost instantly, face down in my pillow with arms beneath me the way I had fallen onto the mattress. I wake up in that exact position, completely rigid, puffy eyed, and dreamless.

The next night, I look at what was left in the bottle. Slightly more than the regular dose I was working my way towards. I’ll have to get more tomorrow anyway. I throw the little measuring cup away in the trash, along with the NyQuil lid. I hold the bottle to my lips and tilt my head back until I am sure that every last thick drop of medicine is in me.

Once up in the loft, I hazily make sure that my alarm is set for class the next morning. I glance next to my clock at the picture that is propped there. His light brown eyes have a question in them.

“Your fault,” I mumble, before curling up in the fetal position, holding the light green Billabong shirt that did not belong to me.

For months I justified this dependency. It was just cold medicine.  It was just a shirt…and he was just a picture.

Luciana, 23.999