Please, stop! It hurts! I have nothing left inside of me!
Ella continued to cough and gag. Her throat burned down all the way into her esophagus. With every lurch of her stomach, her vision became spotted with black dots that threatened to eclipse everything. She was going to pass out. She couldn’t keep this up. She groped blindly in the air for something, anything, to hold on to.
“Help!” Ella croaked. She was falling. And then hands wrapped around her torso and gently lowered her onto the bathroom tile.
“I’ve got you. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Her mother sat with her on the bathroom floor gently stroking Ella’s head.
“It hurts!” Ella said in a raspy voice between gasps for breath.
“What hurts? Your throat?”
