Chapter 16 Curtain Call
Curtain Call
Catherine
Catherine woke to whiteness. Not to Theodora’s warm smile or the pale ivory of her expensive linens, but the aggressive, sterile white of institutional paint applied in thick layers over decades.
The ceiling tiles above her were perforated with thousands of tiny holes, and she stared at them without comprehension while her mind assembled itself back into something resembling consciousness.
Her body felt distant, like something she inhabited but didn't quite control. Her left arm was heavy; when she tried to move it, an IV tugged, tape tight against her skin. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick, and a dull ache pressed steadily at her head, impossible to ignore.
She became aware of the hospital gown next. Cotton. Thin. Someone had—the thought arrived and then skidded sideways before she could finish it. She tried again. Someone had undressed her. Yes. That was the thing she was trying to think.
She turned her head slowly, muscles protesting, looking for clues until her eyes found Theodora.
She was asleep in a chair pulled close to the bed, folded forward in a position that would strain her neck later.
Her scrubs were wrinkled, her copper hair slipping loose across her face, softening her features.
One hand rested atop Catherine’s, fingers still curled around hers, as if she had drifted off without meaning to let go.
Catherine looked at their joined hands, and the sight cut through the remaining haze with a clarity that surprised her.
Theodora had stayed with her. That knowledge settled heavily and uncomfortably in her chest, bringing with it a rush of feelings.
Gratitude flooded through her first. Then came love, unwelcome and overwhelming, the kind that made Catherine's chest thump with its intensity.
God. She was so in love with this woman.
She withdrew her hand slowly, extracting her fingers from Theodora's grip with movements designed not to wake her.
She told herself it was so Theodora could sleep.
But even as she thought it, she knew it wasn't entirely true.
There was something else underneath it, something she recognized with the weariness of long practice, the quiet instinct to take back whatever she'd given before it could be taken from her.
She thought about the night Theodora had stayed on her couch after her shift, the pill in her hand at the kitchen sink, Theodora's face when she'd walked back into the lounge and let Catherine believe she hadn't seen.
She could have said something then. She'd thought about it.
But Theodora had changed the subject, and Catherine had let her, and the moment had passed the way those moments always did when she allowed them to.
There would be a better time. A right time. Her terms, her timing, her choice.
And now here they were, and her terms hadn't counted for anything.
Theodora's hand lay where Catherine had left it.
She watched her sleep for a moment, then, with nothing else to do and nowhere else to look, turned her attention to taking stock of herself.
Her hair felt wrong, falling loose around her face when it should have been pinned back, and she lifted her hands to correct this before remembering she had no pins, no elastic, nothing to impose order on the disorder her body had created.
She settled for tucking it behind her ears instead, both sides, finger-combing through tangles that suggested time had passed while she'd been unconscious.
But the movement woke Theodora.
Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused for a heartbeat before they found Catherine's face. Relief flooded her expression immediately, so complete and unguarded that Catherine had to look away before the thump in her chest became a full-on cardio event.
“Hey,” Theodora said. She sat up straighter in the chair, one hand reaching toward Catherine before stopping halfway, as if only then realizing she was no longer holding it. “How are you feeling?”
"Disoriented," she said, because that much was true and required no elaboration.
Theodora watched Catherine, her gaze moving over her face before dropping to where her hands rested against the hospital sheet. “That makes sense,” she said. “You had a seizure. Luis found you.”
"What did he say happened?" Catherine asked, keeping her voice level.
"You were seizing in the hallway outside your apartment," Theodora said.
"I think you may have been coming back from your mail box?
You had a stack of letters next to you when he found you.
" She paused, and Catherine heard the careful selection of words, the editing that happened before speaking.
"He called an ambulance, and you were brought into the ER around four hours ago.”
Four hours. She turned the number over. It didn't attach to anything. No feeling, no image. Just the number, sitting somewhere outside her, waiting for her to claim it. She let it go. It would mean something later.
"Where are my clothes? I'd like to get dressed."
Theodora leaned forward in the chair, closing some of the distance between them, and Catherine felt herself shift back against the pillows by an inch she hoped wasn't visible. It was. She could tell by the way Theodora's expression flickered before settling back into careful neutrality.
Theodora looked down at her hands. "I took them to the dry cleaners next door."
Catherine's stomach clenched. "I see."
"I have a spare set of clothes in my locker. I can grab them if—"
"No. I don't want your spare set of locker clothes." The words came out sharp—sharper than Theodora deserved—but Catherine didn’t know how to pull them back once they were loose.
Catherine drew in a slow breath, biting the inside of her cheek. The urge to cry felt ridiculous, childish. She wouldn’t. Not again. And certainly not in front of her.
Theodora cleared her throat. "Nat—Dr. Huang ran a full workup. Everything was normal except your lamotrigine levels were elevated. That's likely what triggered the seizure. She wants to keep you for observation, but there's no sign of further complications."
Catherine gave a small, measured nod, then turned toward the window, toward the slice of city nightlife beyond the half-closed blinds, anywhere but Theodora.
After a moment, Theodora spoke, her voice barely more than breath. "I should have noticed at the café. The aura. You were seizing right in front of me, and I missed it. I'm so sorry."
As raw and exposed as Catherine felt, she couldn't bear Theodora blaming herself. "You don’t need to apologize. You didn't know I have epilepsy."
"Still. Is that why you left so quickly?" Theodora asked.
Catherine nodded, her hair brushing against the hospital pillow. "That tirade about our age gap, about how you'd eventually leave me..."
"Sudden intense feeling of fear or joy," Theodora murmured, recognition dawning. "A common aura symptom."
"I couldn't stop myself from saying any of it." Catherine's voice tightened.
Theodora ducked her head to catch her eyes, her face so open with hurt. "I understand why you wouldn't tell everyone. But I wasn't just anyone to you, Catherine, was I? At least, I didn't think I was. Why didn't you tell me?"
Catherine gave a small shrug like a child being scolded, "I knew the conversation needed to happen at some point if we were going to—" She stopped, unable to finish the sentence.
"But I wanted to tell you myself. In my own way.
I never wanted you to see it." The words felt like confession and accusation simultaneously.
"I know that must feel—"
“You don’t know,” Catherine said, the interruption louder than she meant it to be.
She closed her eyes briefly, forcing a slow breath, then made herself look at Theodora.
“I’m sorry. I’m not—” She faltered, searching.
“I’m not upset with you. That’s not it at all.
It’s just…this isn’t how I wanted you to find out. ”
"Catherine, if anything—"
"Don't, Theodora. Please." Catherine's voice came out strained, the careful control slipping. "Don't tell me it brings us closer or that it makes you care about me more."
Theodora sat back in her chair, her expression controlled in ways that suggested she was working to contain her own reaction.
“I know this is frightening,” Theodora said carefully. “But the post-ictal confusion should clear over the next few hours. We can adjust your lamotrigine and make sure your levels stay therapeutic, and—”
"Stop. Just stop." The words broke out of her, raw and untempered. "I don't want your medical recommendations." Her voice had gone tired, almost pleading. "What happened today wasn't frightening. It was humiliating. Do you understand that? Do you get the difference?"
She stopped, struggling for words that would make Theodora understand.
"I don't want you to look at me like I'm something that needs monitoring.
That's not— " She stopped. Started again.
"I wanted to give you a different version of this.
Of me." She pressed her fingers against the sheet, steadying herself.
"I can't look at you without knowing you saw me at my worst. And I know that's not— " The sentence went somewhere she hadn't meant it to.
She swallowed. "I didn't want to be the patient. I wanted to be your equal."
The word hung between them, and Catherine watched understanding dawn across Theodora's features, "You think what happened today makes us unequal?"
"It makes me feel unequal. Whether that's rational or not. I mean, Christ, Theodora, I’m a decade older than you, I'm supposed to be the stable one, the mature one.
Instead, I'm lying here with tubes in my arm, all the while knowing that you saw me lose complete control of my body.
I—" Her jaw clenched as she swallowed against rising bile.
"I wasn’t dignified in any way. And I can't bear knowing you'll always have that image of me.”