Trunk – Celeste B.

March 18, 2026

I was in a suit and tie when my father called and said my sister tried to kill herself. The tree in front of my apartment swayed, a divine rhythm everything seemed to follow—everything except me. And probably my sister.
        Then the headache kicked in. I was dehydrated and hungover.
        Sunday night we decided to go bar hopping, because what else are you supposed to do before defending your undergraduate thesis the next morning? I was with Rae and Rowan. They were dating, and Rae chose the same degree path as me. We would end up hating each other in the next six months, but for tonight we were smashed, dancing under the glow of a disco ball.
        Rowan got sick and went to the bathroom to vomit while Rae and I stepped outside. Smoke filled the back patio, and I could barely make out faces in the haze. Rae pulled out a pack of Blue American Spirits—our lord and savior—and lit one up. I reached for the pack instinctively, but quickly pulled my hand away.
        I had taken 2-CB two days before, and the phenethylamines told me my lungs were going to collapse if I continued smoking. And I listened. I lay in bed crying for at least six hours, just staring at this vape that had carried me through so much. I was due for a sudden change anyway, and thankfully this time it was growth.
        Rowan met us on the back patio, grabbing Rae’s hand.
        “We need to get out of here,” he said between gasps. Obviously the cigarette smoke was not agreeing with his aggravated stomach.
        Rae rolled her eyes and led the way out of the bar patio and into the streets of Bloomington.
        We started the mile-long strut back to Rae’s place, the opposite direction of my apartment. Rowan had agreed to be DD but was already vomiting in bushes. If things went wrong I’d call an Uber. Or just walk.
        We made our way past the courthouse, lit up by a string of Christmas lights even though it was the middle of February. Rowan was struggling to keep up, stumbling behind us. He began reaching for his pocket over and over again, and a look of terror entered his face.
        “Oh shit. I never closed out the tab.”
        “Are you fucking serious?” Rae replied. She was a Libra but definitely did not have a personality of care or balancing scales. She was the scale, and she decided when it was balanced.
        “We gotta walk back,” Rowan groaned.
        Rae gave him a slight shove. They were about to argue again, and reliving mommy and daddy yelling at one another was not in my pre-agreed cards for this evening.
        “I think I’m going to just walk home—” I began.
        But Rae was already turned away from me, hand in the air, waving me off as she carried Rowan back to the bar.
        Great.
        I walked a couple more roads, mildly drunk and moderately directionless. I swayed down the street, trying to stay upright.
        Then I heard this song—no, not a song. It was a harmony. Three voices melding together in an angelic way, just down the alleyway.
        I turned to my left and right. Everyone around me either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
        I turned down the alley, following the beautiful voices of these three women, and I was ensnared. Their voices fused into a synesthetic bubble—blue, green, and gray—floating in the alley air. I was holding myself up as I walked through the alley, and the singing was getting louder and louder and then—
        It just stopped. The bubble popped.
        Then a girl’s voice whispered,
        “Come here.”
        There was no one there. Not in front of me, not behind me.
        Then the girls started laughing, a cacophony of disharmony. The popped bubble turned into a nauseating yellow haze, floating down from the sides of the brick walls onto me.
        I turned around, holding myself against the building wall, trying to lunge myself out of the alley—which worked a little too well because immediately I bumped into two very large, quite handsome men with Kappa Kappa Phi hats and a trail of smoke following them.
        “I’m so sorry, I just—”
        “What did you give up for Lent?” one of the frat bros asked, breaking one trance and creating another.
        “Uhhh… I guess nicotine?” I responded, confused and off guard.
        “Do you want to try this vape?” he replied, opening out his hand to me.
        My saving grace.
        Maybe if I just take one hit, my discombobulated brain could put itself back together again.
        I reached for the vape, and he pulled it back, laughing. His friend started laughing. Then I began to laugh. His other friend shot me a short look of compassion, but by the time I even processed it they were already ten feet in front of me.
        I sat on the ground outside the alleyway, reaching for my phone, trying to stop the spins.
        I texted my sister:
        “hey, could you come grab me?”
        She replied:
        “I am really not sure. I am trying to find Isaiah. He said he was walking a girl home who was too drunk at the bar, but he is a lying sack of shit anyway and I think he is trying to cheat on me.”
        I groaned.
        He is a lying sack of shit, sure—but not in a reality-TV cheating way.
        For example, he picked up my sister, said he was a Prophet, and told her she would not inherit the “Kingdom of God” if she didn’t give all her money to him after her first paycheck working at the hospital. He also sent her pictures of injection marks on his arm saying,
        “look what you made me do”
        when she was not responding to him in her sleep.
        So he is no Love Island contestant. He is, however, future Dateline material.
        “I will help you look. Can you please just grab me?” I wrote, and dropped a pin.
        I put my head back against the brick wall a little too hard and felt a pain radiate from the back of my head into my jaw, causing me to clench and bite my tongue a little too hard. I spat blood onto the concrete and watched it spread along the cracks.
        Right in front of me the courthouse was beginning to shimmer. Little colorful auras surrounded the lights.
        It was quite peaceful.
        Would be prettier with a cigarette.
        Then I hear a honk. It’s my sister.
        She has always been fucking prettier than me. She once told me I was too fat to fit into a coffin, or that I would need two urns. To be fair, I told her to ask her boyfriend to ask God for advice on how to fix her shitty personality.
        I smiled and opened up the door.
        “I didn’t expect you this quickly.”
        “I was in the area. Isaiah’s phone last pinged around here.”
        I buckled my seatbelt and nodded. I looked in her cupholder on her center console and saw a vape and a folded-up pocket knife.
        “And what is that for?” I asked, pulling out the knife in the cupholder.
        Her face immediately got hot and red. I knew this was the time to back down any line of questioning. I have learned from a very early age to pick up on her cues; there would be punishment if they weren’t respected. I put it back into the cupholder and she began to drive south. Thank God—my apartment would be close by.
        I started to reach for the vape but stopped myself. Something was telling me I would regret it. And by something, I mean the remaining 2-CB in my body giving me a mental hand slap.
        The car was quiet, which was strange. Normally my sister would be blaring hard techno and speeding, but she wasn’t. She was driving safely, quietly, and looking straight ahead, only occasionally glancing into the rearview mirror.
        The inside of the car was dark and consuming. All I could see were the headlights ahead of us lighting up trash cans and driveways.
        I could tell she was not entirely here.
        “So do you need to be dropped off?” she asked after minutes of silence.
        Thank God. I really could not bear this silence a moment longer. And I was not looking forward to running into Isaiah, who I had been actively avoiding since he lied to me about having rectal cancer. I don’t know why he lied; I didn’t care even when I thought it was the truth.
        But I still asked—
        “Didn’t you need help looking for Isaiah?”
        “No. Just his phone—”
        She hesitated.
        “It was shut off there, so I wanted to make sure he didn’t drop it.”
        I knew she was lying. She was probably scared. I don’t blame her. He scares the bloody shit out of me too.
        She pulled up to my apartment complex and gave me a hug.
        “I love you so much,” she said, her voice cracking like she was about to cry.
        “Are you sure you are okay?” I asked, patting her arms that draped across my neck. I began to shudder slightly.
        She could see it.
        She pushed me away.
        “Get the fuck out.”
        “What?”
        “Get the fuck out. I don’t want to fucking see you right now.”
        So I got out of the car.
        The porch light to my apartment was lit up—my roommate used that as a sign for whenever he had a girl over. Gross.
        I put my hand on the doorknob, trying to be as quiet as possible, and noticed a streak of red on the handle.
        I touched my tongue.
        Still bleeding.
        I walked inside, went upstairs, and chugged some water and spit it out. Still a little red, but looking much better.
        I dropped into my bed, wearing my clothes from the bar, and passed the fuck out.
        I had to get to my thesis defense, and shit was not going to be easy. It was over the practical applications of psychedelics in westernized therapy. My little self-experiment this weekend seemed to work.
        I woke up early and threw on my clothes. I took a quick fifteen-minute shower and reviewed my notes. I grabbed Zofran from the medicine cabinet and took two.
        I was on complete autopilot.
        Definitely got way too drunk last night.
        That’s when my dad called.
        He said, “We really need you at the hospital. You are her only signed next of kin, and we don’t know what her condition is. All she said was that she doesn’t want to be here anymore, and she has completely ignored all of our texts.”
        “Who are you—”
        Then I stopped in my tracks.
        Fuck.
        She is in the hospital.
        My idiot sister tried to commit suicide.
        I hopped in my car and sped to the ER, about a mile away.
        I ran to the front desk area where my family was, and they hugged me.
        We were all crying.
        I smelled like cigarettes, managed to smoke 2 on the way over. We had a good run.
        My dad screamed at the nurse.
        “I know she is here. I know she is fucking here. Please let us see her.”
        “I really can’t let you. Just who she signed off on being here.”
        I asked the nurse if I could go back. I showed her my ID and she said yes.
        We began to walk down the long white hallway, lit up by fluorescent lights.
        “Sorry we couldn’t tell your parents. Your sister did not sign them onto her form.”
        I was kind of taken aback. I’m surprised she would put me at all.
        We walked into the room. The nurse gave me my sisters backpack and left.
        “I am so sorry,” she began as soon as she saw me.
        Her arms were bandaged up, from the wrist all the way to her bicep.
        “How did this happen?”
        “Isaiah and I had a huge fight,” she replied.
        “Can you please do me a favor?”
        “Anything.”
        “The knife in the bag—can you throw it out?”
        “Of course.”
        Without a second thought, I went to the sharps box in the hallway.
        I opened the bag.
        The whole inside was covered in blood.
        Fuck.
        Disgusted, I took the bloody knife from her bag and tossed it in.
        I used the hand sanitizer beside it and walked back in.
        “Is it gone?” she asked.
        “Where did you put it?”
        “Somewhere it’ll be disposed of,” I said, sitting next to her.
        “Why aren’t you letting mom and dad back here?” I asked.
        “They are really concerned about you.”
        “Did they find him?” she cut me off.
        “Find who?”
        “Isaiah.”
        “I’m really not sure.”
        “So they haven’t?”
        “No…? Didn’t you find him last night?”
        “I did,” she replied listlessly.
        “So where was the last place you saw him?”
        She stared ahead.
        “In my trunk.”