TRIGGER WARNING: TRAUMA REVOLVING AROUND FOOD AND EATING.

I did this a little while ago, I've always been a person who eats fast and takes too big bites but it just got stuck in my throat and it was actually quite scary. This story is a mix of what really happened, storylines and what suits the character.

It's told from Viv's POV.

"Do you ever stop eating?"

I made a pause to grab the two last hotdogs of the ones that had been boiled for dinner. This wasn't the first time I was still eating by the time the others had all left the table and only I and Scott were left by the table. He smirked and made a comment that I pretended to be hurt by.

But then, I just couldn't see in front of me how my parents had been- before I lived with Uncle Ray.

…" Don't you eat so much Vivian." I heard my mum's voice. "We don't have much money and now we have food we need to make it last for more meals than only lunch today."

"Oh come on" It switched to dad's voice and he disagreed. "At least eat until you're full so at least you're not hungry again right afterwards. The next problem we'll deal with afterwards. But you'll have to eat fast. Or somewhere here might realize what we're doing…" Dad looked around the burger place, and the family that had actually ordered the meal we had gotten. "Eat fast." …

It was almost five years since I had been taken from my parents' and to my uncle Ray's. When with him, we had never been rich. And I knew he was like dad with all the stealing. But I could eat until I was full for every meal, and I didn't have to save anything to make sure I had for the next.

Still, almost every time I ate, I heard my parents' voices in my head.

And even though I didn't have to I kept eating, and eating fast so that even after everyone else had finished their meals and left the table I was having my second or third portion. I kept doing that.

Scott usually stayed by my side as it went. But that one time he did when the phone suddenly called, and it sounding its loud signal from the office.

"You can go and answer it…" I told him. "…I'll finish this. Then I'm done."

Scott didn't answer, but he did get onto his feet and half-jogged out of the room. And meanwhile I was going to keep my side of that promise and finish when I realized I had swallowed a too big bite. It moving slowly down my throat.

It wasn't that it made me scared or something. It just wasn't a nice feeling, especially not when it had gone down the wrong pipe and almost made it hard when I tried to breathe. It would usually take a few seconds for it to go down, this time it didn't feel as if it moved at all and I carefully drank a sip of water, but it took me a couple of seconds to realize it wasn't helping.

I must have swallowed at least a couple of bites after the one that had gone and gotten stuck. Meaning more and more was now there.

I wasn't scared, this had happened once or twice before, and I kept eating too fast, taking too big bites loads of times before- almost by every meal. Still, those times I just coughed once or twice- what had gotten stuck moved and slipped down my throat or come up the same direction it came.

But this was something else. And whatever it was it was just as stuck. It wasn't that it completely kept me from breathing but it was interfering there.

I could hear Scott talking in the office and for just a second thought about going knowing. Maybe he knew something I could do. The Heimlich maneuver or anything really.

But after all of the times he had told me not to eat so fast. What if it made him mad?...

I got up on my feet, sometimes during these times it helped standing up and stretching.

It didn't this time though. And I could feel something that had really gotten stuck. My stomach cramped with trying to get it up the same way it went down but that didn't help neither.

As if that would I gripped into my mouth with my hand, gripped around food that was mashed from my chewing, as much as I could and pulled it out, throwing it onto my plate in the move and saw what was left of the hotdogs. The pieces I hadn't eaten yet.

I didn't even know what made me want to do it when my legs, as well as my hands really were shaking, and I half walked half stumbled out the back door. I just knew I needed the fresh air. And if everything stuck in my throat made me vomit I couldn't exactly, do it all over the table. And one could never know how long anyone would stay in the bathroom for…

I could hear the others' voices from the living room and all around the house…

Some part of me was thinking that whatever I did I just had to keep this secret if I didn't want to be yelled at. After all of the times I'd been told not to eat so fast or swallow so big bites without chewing…

I was fourteen years old, most people my age had learnt how to eat without ending up choking. Especially when there were no reasons for them to rush…

Just as I came outside, and closed the door behind me, so no one would hear me. And in the same moment it clicked I fell down on hands and knees on the ground while I heaved and green-brown-yellow junk made its way from my throat and down into the grass in front of me.

I hate vomiting.

Well, I also hate the feeling of something stuck in my throat. And even more than that I hated the feeling of not being able to breathe properly.

Come on Viv. I told myself. Cough, cough harder. Or you'll never get out of this or it will get so much worse.

I suddenly saw in front of me a picture about how the piece of casing moving in my throat wasn't able to breathe at all. When I wasn't able to breathe at all. How my brain couldn't get enough oxygen to keep awake, how I blacked out and maybe something even worse.

I also saw in front of me a video from facebook about someone getting on hands and knees, and throwing themselves down on their stomach which pretty much would be explained as making the Heimlich Maneuver on oneself.

But how was I supposed to do that and wasn't that if I really wouldn't have been able to breathe at all?

My breath was hyperventilating and shaking, but at least none of what I had swallowed had gotten stuck so bad I couldn't breathe eat all. And while my whole body was shaking, I hadn't exactly lost all control of and could make myself cough. The coughing turned into heaving and for a third time green-yellow-brown-junk made itself up my throat and down onto the ground in front of me.

If there was anything with vomiting, I hated more than it all it was seeing the junk that had made its way out. Yet I could never really help to feel fascinated by it. Especially this time, when I saw in the junk a large piece of sausage casing that must have been stuck. But still I couldn't help there was something still in my throat- something large!

Maybe it was another piece of casing. And that piece of rubbery and hard to chew, how was I ever going to get rid of it?

It felt like I had been going through this for hours, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or two. If even that. My breath was still way too fast and when I tried to take a deep breath to cough harder, I suddenly hiccupped as if my stomach was once again cramping to get rid of what was stuck in my throat.

It made me cough, weakly this time and this time I could get nothing up. But still, I felt something moving and all of a sudden, I could breathe normally again.

I waited for another minute or two, it seemed I had finally stopped heaving at least, but my breath wasn't completely back yet and I hadn't dared swallowing in fear it would get stuck again or come back up. Whatever was left I could still feel in my throat but it had moved I could tell. And so finally I could feel as it slowly slipped down towards my stomach.

At last, I decided on my own that if I wasn't back in the kitchen soon and by the table Scott would come back after his call and wonder where I'd be. And with that I finally got back onto my feet and on still shaky knees went inside and back towards the table.

Now I looked back towards the hotdog and bread something in my stomach clenched again and I didn't know if I was to ever eat again after what I had just gone through. Especially not that rubbery sausage skin that I was never able to chew pieces off for real.

"Haven't you finished yet?" Just as I had sat down by the table Scott came back into the kitchen. "I thought we were out of hotdogs…" He looked strangely at me, down on the plate, then up on me. "Are you okay? You seem out of breath? You can't have eaten that fast…"

I looked down on the plate again, on what had been left when I realized I couldn't eat more. And what I had literally pulled out from my mouth.

"I…"

It was when I tried to speak I noticed that five minutes ago, in the middle of all heaving I couldn't have been able to speak. And I still wasn't able to. I took a deep breath, waved Scott to be quiet and then saw him frown deeper while I took a few, careful sips of juice. And with relief felt them slip down as if nothing had just happened.

"I…" I tried my voice again, it sounded a bit shaky and Scott laid a hand on my shoulder. "I… I'm…"

Shouldn't it just have been better if I didn't tell him or anyone else what I had done? Maybe they would worry about… well, of it ever happening again or whatever else people could worry about?

"It just went a little dramatic." I decided to say at last and tell him. "A piece of this went down the wrong pipe so I couldn't breathe. And how I coughed and heaved and threw up it wouldn't come up…." I moved another piece of casing with my fork where it still laid on my plate covered in mustard. "…It was just kind of scary… It felt like I couldn't breathe properly."

Scott had kept his hand on my shoulder, I saw him frowning at first but then I looked in another direction while I finished speaking. Maybe some time I would be able to understand I had been able to breathe all along so nothing had really happened, but not right now…

Before Scott said anything I got up, took my juice glass and slowly walked out the back door where there was a pile of what I had coughed up as of a sign that it had been real even though I couldn't feel it inside of me anymore. I would have wanted to leave it, but for some reason couldn't stop staring or figure what to say next when I heard Scott come up to me and see it himself.

"They've been calling for rain…" He might have figured what I was thinking. "…The whole night. So before the morning comes this will be gone and like it never happened…. Bub Viv?" Calling my name for attention I looked up and on Scott again. "I know you don't like to ask for help. But please, if anything like this ever happens again you have to come for me or May- Li for help. You don't have to worry that we'll be mad. We'll take care of that afterwards but please! And…" He made a pause. "Do you still think about your parents when you eat?" I hesitated, then figured why not tell him all at once anyway and nodded. "I don't get everything about childhood traumas. But I think I get this one. And while I know, you know you don't have to be like you are around food and eating… You might need more help than what I or May-Li can give you."

"You mean… like therapy? Like something for someone with an eating disorder?"

"Something like that if that's what you want to call it."

The first feeling that hit me was anger about therapy. I had never needed, or wanted it. But still, knowing something about other children in care.

"Viv, Asking for help doesn't make you weak… quite the opposite if you ask me. And I've seen the way you go when you swallow a bite too big and you do it practically every meal. Now this happened!"

I would have liked to just put my hands over my ears. I hadn't needed any help yesterday, the day before that and I wasn't going to need one today or tomorrow.

But that feeling grew up inside of me while I felt the raindrops starting to fall on me.

"Come on Viv. There's no point with standing here outside when the rain comes in. I would tell you not to worry about what just happened but I know it's not that simple. Only… If this doesn't change soon and you can eat… better. We'll have to do something about it. It's for your own good and there's nothing to be ashamed of."

I once again got the feeling of wanting to put my hands over my ears and sing until Scott had left or just quit talking. But he just laid a hand on my back again and led me inside. What I had coughed up was soon but memories and meanwhile I kept on getting the feeling of something that wasn't there anymore was choking me.

"Of course I wish that that didn't have to happen for me to learn. But I think I learnt my lesson now… finally."

I mumbled to myself when I finally came inside and Scott started sorting out the dishes. Although I made sure it was too quiet for him to hear it.

"If only it didn't take a new kind of trauma to finally get rid of some old ones…"

I don't even know why I decided to write this. I just felt like it.

Random fact

Just some notes about what was real and not.

-Everything about the memories and trauma Viv has from her parents, stealing and having to eat as much as she can and fast as she can is made up to fit the character. We do know her uncle was stealing some phones, but nothing about her parents so who could they have been? It's also, in the series never mentioned. But loads of kids in care, fostered or adopted have problems during eating- are picky eaters, collect foods, eat and eat and eat until they're so full they throw up and things like that. They're just used to never knowing when they will get a proper meal again. I'm just simply a person who keeps eating fast and too much at once.

-This one isn't important really. Viv eats a hotdog and it's the sausage skin that gets stuck in her throat. I ate a piece of bread (the bread usually used for sandwiches) and some kind of thick cheese- hotdog.

-I wasn't standing on my hands and knees, I was on my feet, on the balcony leaning over the railing and I keep wondering if any neighbor could hear or see me.

-That yellow-green-brown color of what had gotten stuck in my throat (I wasn't sure if I should add this detail- yuk) And seeing how I coughed up a piece of sausage skin while I still felt like I was getting choked.

-I carefully drank some sips before that last time but it just got stuck. I had water though, drinking from a bottle and Viv has a glass of juice. Viv only carefully drinks some when it's finally over.

-That sort of hiccup when all of me, except for the coughing. It was like my stomach too was trying to cramp to get it up from my throat.

-Then finally feeling as something just sort of let go, while something stayed. Within another minute or two that slipped down too.

-I went back the next day to see if I could see it. I could not and I'm pretty sure it had been raining during the night so- all's finished and well.

-Calling it "dramatic" afterwards. Scott is there in the story, I was alone. I wrote it in the Facebook chat to my mum and she's practically begged me now to ask for help by some neighbor if this ever happens again. Let's hope it never does though. I think I finally learnt my lesson.

And that's the whole story. Curtains down, lights off and off we go.