Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
CAITLIN
I shoot up as my ringing phone yanks me into consciousness.
My limbs are heavy, my head feels like it’s filled with cotton, and I have no idea if I’ve been sleeping for fifteen minutes or fifteen hours.
A glance at the clock tells me it’s just after ten—still in the morning, I assume, from the light filling the room—and it takes me a second to remember how I ended up here until I see my open laptop, a legal pad, four of my favorite pens, and the wrappers from at least seven mini-Snickers bars strewn on the empty side of my bed.
Yep, it was an escape behind a closed door and bury my complicated and confusing feelings for a man I should hate but actually kind of don’t in work and chocolate situation.
I must have fallen asleep pondering the fact that I no longer seem to want to tear off Drew’s balls and feed them to him, and I really don’t know what that’s all about.
I blame his haunted eyes in the kitchen. It turns out I have no defense against the sadness that lives in the deep brown.
Satisfied I haven’t accidentally slept for an entire day and happy for the distraction from the man, I swipe to answer the phone, praying the Pittsburgh number isn’t a client calling to give me more vacation work.
“Hello?” I answer, bringing the phone to my ear.
“Hi, can I speak to Caitlin Parker please?” The woman’s voice on the other end is clipped and businesslike.
“This is Caitlin.”
“Hi, Ms. Parker, this is Gloria from Dr. Elaine McNamera’s office. I’m calling because an appointment just opened up, and you’re next on our waitlist. Would you like us to put you on the schedule?”
My heart leaps into my throat and my hand involuntarily tightens on the phone. I get a phantom pain in my lower abdomen, as if it wants to remind me exactly why I’ve been waiting with varying amounts of patience for this call.
I’ve had heavy, unpredictable, and often ferociously painful periods since I was fourteen.
I’ve mentioned it to doctor after doctor over the years, but no one ever had any answers for me beyond this is just how it is, and I believed them, even though none of the women I know suffered the way I did.
I survived month after month on a steady cocktail of ibuprofen, heating pads, and super plus tampons and pads so thick they might as well be diapers, most of my life revolving around when I would get my period and how bad it would be.
It wasn’t pleasant, but I managed.
But over the last four or so years, it’s gotten worse, and with no doctor able to diagnose me with anything beyond bad luck and Sometimes being a woman sucks, have a birth control prescription for your troubles which is, evidently, what passes for diagnosis and treatment in women’s health circles these days, I channeled my lawyer brain into figuring it out on my own.
Like the summa cum laude law school grad I was, I devoured every article I could find and had conversations with anyone who would talk to me.
I studied and researched and connected dots and spent at least a day or so every month with cramps so debilitating I legitimately thought I might die.
Every single thing I could find pointed in one direction.
Endometriosis.
Three different doctors told me it wasn’t possible since they didn’t see it on a scan, and two others dismissed my concerns without doing any kind of exam at all, telling me cramps are normal and to try alternating ibuprofen with Tylenol since that can be more effective than ibuprofen alone.
They mentioned sometimes warm baths can be helpful and that a lot of women see period pain resolve once they’ve experienced a pregnancy, as if it’s a given pregnancy is something every woman wants or can have.
Thanks for fucking nothing.
Radicalized by rage over the way doctor after doctor dismissed my pain as, essentially, the cost of being a person with a uterus, I started looking around for endometriosis specialists and found out Dr. Elaine McNamera, one of the leading endo researchers in the country, is right in Pittsburgh, and I immediately got on her waiting list for an appointment, hoping something would open up sooner than the initial ten-month wait.
Now that it has, I’m surprised to find my reaction is less excited anticipation and more stomach-churning dread, and I’m actively considering turning down the spot.
“Ms. Parker, are you still there?”
Get your shit together, Caitlin, I mentally chastise myself. I don’t do avoidance, and I definitely don’t do prevarication. I have one speed, and it’s jump in with both feet and solve the problem in front of me. Squaring my shoulders, I turn my attention back to the phone.
“I’m still here. I’ll take the appointment. Thank you so much for calling.”
“Great,” she says, all business. “Let me just get some information from you.”
Twenty minutes later, I’ve given them all my basic health information (once a month or occasionally every two weeks, a major organ in my body actively wishes me dead and that takes a toll), the date and circumstances of my last period (two weeks ago and terrible, thanks for asking), and a credit card number because of course the one doctor in the state of Pennsylvania who might be able to fix me doesn’t take insurance (please allow me to step up on my soapbox about the abysmal state of healthcare in this country in general, and women’s health care in particular).
When I finally end the call, I put all the appointment information in my calendar before setting down the phone and taking a long, slow breath, focusing my attention on my legs stretched out in front of me and my lime-green toenails that are bringing me a ridiculous amount of joy this week.
I’ve barely finished exhaling when the door to my room crashes open, revealing a grinning Maya.
“Found her!” Maya turns her head and yells out the door before sauntering into my room and throwing herself on the bed, rescuing my bag of mini-Snickers from its spot shoved halfway under my pillow. “I knew you would have the good snacks,” she says with a mouthful of chocolate.
“Help yourself,” I say dryly, rescuing my laptop, legal pad, and favorite pens since I have a pretty good idea of what’s about to happen. Then I reach into my nightstand drawer and pull out a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips, tossing them at Maya, who prefers her snacks salty.
“I love you,” she says effusively, tearing open the bag. She reaches in for a handful but doesn’t get it to her mouth before Emmy and Sarah stroll in and flop down on either side of her.
“Why did you run away from breakfast so fast?” Emmy asks, catching the bag of Skittles I throw her. “Tyler challenged Drew to a sourdough duel, and five minutes later they were arguing about whose stretch and fold technique was better. Whatever that means.”
“It’s a dough-strengthening technique that helps develop the gluten in sourdough bread. It helps the dough rise higher and makes for a better internal texture,” Sarah says, grabbing the Resse’s Pieces I take out of my nightstand and toss on the bed in front of her.
Emmy snorts. “You know I wasn’t really asking, right? I just want to eat it. I don’t care how it’s made. I would rather be dead than bake bread from scratch.”
“Hard same.” Maya pops a chip into her mouth. “That’s what bakeries are for.” She slides her gaze to me. “And hot professional football players who enjoy baking in their spare time.”
“Why are you looking at me?” I ask, even though I’m almost positive I know exactly why she’s looking at me.
“Because you and Drew were making serious eyes at each other during breakfast.” I look up as Maddy walks in with Sophie right behind her.
I avert my gaze, extremely interested in rummaging through my nightstand to find Sophie’s and Maddy’s candy of choice. “We were not.”
Except it’s totally a lie because I definitely couldn’t keep my stupid eyes off him, and there’s no way a table full of these smart, perceptive women missed that.
“You so were,” Sophie says, sitting next to me against my pillows and taking the jelly beans. “What’s that all about anyway?”
It should be easy to tell them. To say the words Drew asked me out and then stood me up and I should hate him but for some reason I don’t and I don’t understand it and I definitely don’t like it except maybe I do like it and it’s all very confusing so can you help me figure it out?
It should be, but for me, it isn’t. Because if I tell them now, I’ll have to explain why I didn’t tell them six months ago in New Orleans since they were all at the same club I was and I saw them five minutes after it happened.
And why I didn’t tell them the night he stood me up.
Why I didn’t call them to come over and eat junk food and bitch about why are men even and wipe my tears like I’ve done for all of them so many times.
I would have to explain to them what I can’t even explain to myself, and I don’t know how to do that.
So instead, I roll my eyes and yank my bag of Snickers from where it’s half stuck under Maya’s arm.
“It’s about nothing. If I was looking at him, it’s because I was irritated about his inability to be serious about anything, ever, unless it’s fucking whatever swimsuit model crosses his path and posting shirtless thirst traps on social media. ”
“I don’t know,” Maddy says thoughtfully, rolling over onto her stomach and propping her chin in her hands. “I think Drew is more serious than he seems. He and Cam have been best friends forever, and Cam told me that when his wife died, Drew was pretty much the only reason he got through it.”
My heart gives an involuntary and unwelcome tug at the thought of Drew holding Maddy’s fiancé Cam’s family together all those years ago the way Cam says he did.
Because Maddy’s right, an unserious person wouldn’t do that, and I hate that I’m absolutely sure that, despite the fucking and the thirst traps, Drew is as serious as they come.
His eyes give him away.