Chapter 34
THE DAYS THAT FOLLOW are agony.
Not just emotionally. My body has completely rebelled, attacking me with the full force of barbed wire across the kidneys that makes getting out of bed an eye-watering ordeal. I spend Sunday and Monday holed up, mainlining ultra-strength Tylenol and cursing my maker. And crying.
And screening calls. My absence from the gym does not go unnoticed, and on Tuesday, I admit to Babs and Helen via text that I’m basically bedridden with pain.
Within the hour, I’ve received a care package containing three pints of ice cream from Jeni’s and a selection of Haribo chewy candies, which tells me that Heather and or Mark had been asked about my preferences.
Accustomed to my inoperative periods, they send me messages of sympathy and offers of Taco Bell, but I demur.
They know too much, and one look at me will tell them exactly what’s going on.
I reply with appreciative gifs and promises to keep them updated. I am an asshole.
When I do emerge from my miserable isolation that evening, the guys tiptoe around me.
I worry what I might be modeling as far as expectations regarding the menstrual cycle.
Diego roasts a chicken for dinner. Alistair watches me like he might one of those extreme driving videos out of Russia, with a combination of anticipatory anxiety and morbid curiosity.
Grant avoids eye contact. Ian is not mentioned.
I’m at the Ping-Pong table for a change of scenery Wednesday evening, testing out all 240 of my felt-tip markers to see which are out of ink and how long I can commit myself to the task before lobotomizing myself with one.
Habit has me glancing at my phone every few minutes, but I turned it off when a new group chat populated.
Babs, Helen, Heather, and Mark. Helen asked Ian how I was doing.
He didn’t know. She would like to know why not. Theories abound.
Grant joins me at the table. He sits, picks up one of the scraps of cardstock I’m using to test my pens, and turns it over between his fingers. “I talked to Ian.”
It takes me three tries to recap my cyan. I want to ask, “About me? Has he asked about me? How is he? Forlorn? Pining? Indignant?” but manage a cool “Yeah?” instead.
“About what I want to do. Education, and all of that.”
I put down the pen, giving Grant my full attention. “How did it go?”
“He was surprised. Worried that it would be a lot of responsibility for me. But he… got it?” His brow puckers, as though he still hasn’t worked out how this conclusion came to be.
“He understood that, like, helping to establish that foundation of fitness is part of why I want to do it. Because it is!” He leans in, face alight.
“Ian helped me figure out how to express that. I want to introduce kids to how awesome it is to move their body on purpose.”
“To move their body with intention?” I ask, unable to help myself.
Grant snaps his fingers, pointing at me. “Yes! Oh, that is a great way of putting it. Yeah! How awesome it is to move their body with intention,” he echoes.
I doodle the phrasing for him on another scrap of cardstock, angling the pen for a flourish. I push it to him over the table, and he picks it up, still beaming.
“Rad.”
“So he really wasn’t…” My first thought is butthurt, but I go with “Put out?”
“Nah. I mean, it’s not that different, you know?
And he understands my motivation. He relates to that.
He’s just thinking ahead, to me, dealing with parents and school districts and even getting a job in the first place.
But he said I’d be good at it.” He sits taller.
“He’s stoked on the kids’ classes for the gym, too.
He’s going to look over my notes and stuff, but he thought it was a great idea.
He said he was proud of me for figuring all this out, and my commitment to it. That was cool.”
“I’m glad.”
He turns the little card over. “It’s so crazy that I stressed about telling him for so long.”
I shake my head. “He’s your big brother. You look up to him, and don’t want to disappoint him. And there was a chance that not following in his footsteps would come across as rejection, and no one wants to be responsible for that kind of hurt.”
I’d know.
“Um…” He worries his bottom lip, and I concede to the obvious follow-up. “I haven’t asked Ian, but what happened with you two?”
“We… didn’t work.”
Grant sits back in his chair, brow furrowed again. “He’s been in a real dick mood since you stopped coming in,” he adds. “That’s part of why I talked to him. Figured, he was already grumpy, might as well just get it over with.”
“Bold strategy.”
He nods, the motion more a reflex than sign of agreement. “It’s just a bummer. I hoped that being with him would mean you’d stick around longer.”
This tugs at my heartstrings. “Oh, you guys are fine. You hardly need me.”
“We don’t need you for stuff,” he counters.
It stings, literally stings, like an actual punch to my chest, and it’s a struggle to keep my face placid.
“Not that it isn’t awesome. Your eggs are still better than Diego’s.
But we like having you around, just, like, being you.
It’s cool, coming home and knowing you’re here, seeing your stuff around. It’s cozy.” He grins. “You’re cozy.”
The word wraps around my aching heart. “I like cozy. Thank you.”
Grant’s smile broadens, then wavers. “I liked that for Ian, too. And you. This one time—” he falters.
“This is gonna sound like some real creeper shit, but I swear, I just happened to look at you two. You were on the couch in the lobby, and he was out, like old man–style, head back, mouth open—” He drops his head back, mouth agape, to demonstrate, and I laugh.
I have absolutely caught Ian in that position.
Grant lifts his head and catches my smile.
“Anyway, the way you looked at him…You smiled all soft, like it was the best thing ever to be on some shitty pleather couch with my brother. And you cuddled into him, and I think you fell asleep, too. And you were smiling. Cozy,” he emphasizes.
“Like, how having you here makes the house cozy, but for you, being with Ian made you feel cozy. And the same for him.”
Anything I might say in response is lodged among the tangle of emotions in my throat. Cozy is right. Cozy is what I felt, among so many other things.
Grant excuses himself to go shower, and I nod, keeping my eyes on the table as he stands, hoping that he doesn’t see the tears in my eyes.
A sharp yip! echoes in the hall. “Jesus, Alistair! You scared the shit outta me!” I look up to spot roommate number two entering the room from the hallway. Grant’s voice grows faint with distance as he grumbles, “Lurking in the dark like a fucking weirdo.”
I cock my head as Alistair takes Grant’s seat. “Alistair,” I chide. “Were you lurking in the dark like a fucking weirdo?”
Alistair doesn’t say anything, but he’s angled himself slightly toward the hall. A door closes, and the bathroom fan switches on. He lifts his chin at me. “Is it MS? The diagnosis you’re waiting out,” he clarifies, like he hadn’t slapped me with the initial question.
Ice prickles over my shoulders. My silence probably answers for me, but I nod. How the hell does he know?
“Fuck.” The expletive draws out as Alistair falls back into the chair.
He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve been noodling on it since I overheard you talking to Mark and Heather when you moved in.
It wasn’t until the eye thing that it clicked for me.
But you never brought it up, and I figured that meant you didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t blame you. That sucks.”
“Thank you,” I say, not quite grasping how we’re having this exchange; I was still settling into cozy.
“What do you know about the condition?”
“Generalities. Loss of mobility and feeling. Exhaustion. I—” I suck in a breath. I feel winded every time I try to approach this. “I’ve avoided researching because I know that once I go down that rabbit hole, I’ll never come out again.”
“Yeah, that sounds like you.” He drums his fingers against the table, pausing the rhythm to point at me. “Have you ever had mono? Like, when you were younger.”
I nod, remembering the article my mom sent. I still haven’t read it. “Seventh grade.”
“Did your neurologist ask you that?”
“No. Why?” I ask, wariness creeping in on my confusion.
“Huh. ’Cause a few years back a study linked Epstein-Barr to MS. It was a huge study.
They worked from something like ten million blood samples, and found that individuals who were not infected with Epstein-Barr virus virtually never get MS. It’s only after Epstein-Barr virus infection that the risk of MS jumps something like twenty-five-, thirty-fold?
Of all infections, it has the clearest connection. ”
I shake my head, not following, and not sure I want to. “So, is Epstein-Barr mono?”
“It’s usually what causes mono. But other viruses can cause it, too,” he adds, hastily. “And it’s not like everyone who’s had Epstein-Barr gets MS. It’s just…”
“Everyone who has MS has had Epstein-Barr,” I finish for him.
“Pretty much.”
I do not care for this new information. And it looks like Alistair regrets having brought it up; his handsome features pucker like he’s bitten into something from Built Box before Diego’s doctored it.
“Your eye was what had you getting checked out?” he asks, voice tentative. It’s the least confident I’ve ever heard him. I nod, and he grimaces.
“It’s cleared up since. Now I get to experience the joy of waking up every morning, afraid to open my eyes in case my vision’s gone again, instead.”
“Ugh. Fuck that.” He frowns. “When was that… It’s a nerve attack, right?”
“Yeah. It was the week I moved in with you guys.”
“Was it why your boyfriend broke up with you?”
The allusion still stings. “It was the straw that broke that particular camel’s back.”
He nods, eyes going bright, like I’ve done more than answer a question; I’ve confirmed a suspicion.
“You been noodling on that, too?” I ask, dryly.
He makes a dismissive sound. “Not that it caused that breakup.”
“What do you mean?” I immediately regret asking.
Alistair leans back in his chair, resting it on its back legs. I arch a brow. He knows I hate that. Which is why he’s doing it; his responding smirk is all challenge.
“Does Ian know about the MS stuff, or did you nip that particular camel in the bud?”
“You’re mixing metaphors.”
His front chair legs land hard against the floor.
“Doesn’t matter. In any case, you’ve made the decision for him.
” At my sustained scowl, he elaborates. “You either dumped him out of the blue before he found out, or he found out, and you freaked and left him before he had the chance to do what your shitty ex-boyfriend did. It’s a fucked-up move either way. ”
“And there’s no third scenario?” I counter, though I’m rattled. “Just me, being a cowardly asshole.”
“You and I both know that Ian wouldn’t leave you over this.
You know him. You know his past, which, come on.
That only makes this worse.” Some of the hostility leaves his expression.
“If this was just about you being scared, that would be one thing. But Ian’s in it.
That dude cares about you. And you are throwing that away because you’re being a little bitch. ”
“Excuse you? Just because you’ve turned your brain back on, you think you get to dole out insight? You don’t know. You don’t know what I’ve already had to deal with, what this fucked-up body has already cost me—”
“Oh, what? A dickhead boyfriend? Some loss!”
Tears spring to my eyes. “Ian’s already had to accommodate enough.” The words barely make it through my clenched teeth. “I’m not asking for more.”
For the first time in this exchange, or ever in the time I’ve known him, Alistair seems surprised.
His eyes widen, going distant, his mouth shaping something my comment has evidently made irrelevant, because he doesn’t voice it.
He just stares at me, and I stare back, conceding to the tears already on my cheeks. I don’t know when they fell.
Alistair blinks, lips pressing into a line. After another beat of my wretched silence, he stands. He shakes his head, disappointment clear in each side-to-side movement. “Then I guess you never really knew him. Because if you did, you’d never believe that you’d ever have to ask.”