15. Giselle
FIFTEEN
GISELLE
Breaking the Cycle
I had a lot to think about.
As expected, I’d collapsed into my bed without so much as taking my stockings off, so exhausted that I wouldn’t have been surprised if I slept for a century, but I was only unconscious for six hours until my bladder very insistently roused me from my slumber.
I hadn’t gone through my normal bathroom routine before bedtime, and I was getting to that age where sleeping through the night was largely affected by whether I needed to pee or not.
Grumbling to myself, I went to the bathroom, did my business, washed my face, then chugged three glasses of cold water.
The water tasted like ambrosia, an elixir to my body.
It felt like someone had run over me with a steamroller, hung me out on a drying line on a particularly windy day, then inflated me back to normal but with only ash for bones.
Not exactly a great way to start the weekend.
Nevertheless, I peeled the rest of my nice clothes off and tossed them on the chair at my desk. Definitely not hanging up where they should be, but at least it wasn’t the floor.
And then I went to bed again.
Cue another six hours where I was completely dead to the world. In any other situation that might have been alarming, and I would have been upset with myself for going so long without ingesting any calories, but I felt rejuvenated when I woke up again.
The rest of the weekend was strange, to say the least. Maybe an hour or two after I had made the transition from conked-out zombie to barely functional human being, I’d checked my phone.
I had a text from Ben. Honestly, I was surprised he reached out at all.
It had been pretty ballsy and assumptive to say what I had about a second date but I wanted him to know I wasn’t ready to close the book on us yet.
Something, I didn’t know what, drew me to him.
Yeah, there was the basic attraction, but it went beyond that.
While I truly loved my family and my class, and I had a lovely connection with them, sometimes it felt like I was so alone.
Like I was walking around with an open chasm in my chest that no one else could see or understand.
And for some reason, it felt like Ben could see it, and maybe that was because he had one of his own.
I texted him back, telling him I was fine, then asked how he was holding up. We had a very brief conversation about how the previous night seemed like a dream, then wished each other well.
I’d been tempted to call him and beg for more information, more of his time, but I knew better. I needed to examine how I truly felt, and he needed space to recover.
If my brother or father noticed that I spent the rest of the weekend eating, sleeping, or reading quietly in my room, they didn’t mention it—mostly because they knew me. I was grateful they didn’t push, because I was sure I would have burst into tears if they did.
Not because it would upset me, but because it was yet more proof of how loved I was. And maybe that sounded like a weird reason to cry, but I knew two people who didn’t have that same luxury, which made me want to hold my family members that much closer.
“Are you sure you’re ready to go back to work today?” my brother asked as I slowly and methodically worked my way through the eggs benedict my father had made for me.
It was one of my favorite breakfast foods, and while it wasn’t particularly complicated to make, I never had the time for it during the school year, so it was usually a summer-only treat.
“I’m sure,” I said with what I hoped was a confident finality. “Honestly, I might go insane if I have to stay here another full day.”
“You don’t like us, I get it,” Simon teased, placing his hand over his heart. That couldn’t be farther from the truth, but as the eldest sister, it was my responsibility to razz the middle sibling even worse than the youngest child.
“I can’t help it that Mom and Dad made perfection on the first try but never quite hit the same mark again,” I said primly, dragging a chunk of English muffin through the delicious hollandaise sauce on my plate.
“Oh, is that what happened?”
“Yep! As you can imagine, our parents were distraught. However, they did as well as they could with the two of you.”
If I was being serious, it would be such an incredibly toxic thing to say, but we were siblings joking around, and it was quite a relief to banter.
Although my family tried their best, they’d been handling me with kid gloves since I got out of the hospital.
It was nice to just be Giselle, the older sister again, instead of Giselle, the sick older sister.
“Why don’t we ask Dad? After all, he was there.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” he said flatly, not even looking up from his newspaper. I wasn’t sure where he even got a newspaper. Were they still printing those? As a teacher, maybe I should brush up on that a bit.
Hah, like any of my students would ever read a newspaper in their life outside of research. While I loved much of the digital age and the connection it brought, as well as the accessibility of information, it had robbed many people of the joy of physical media.
Granted, calling newspapers a joy might be giving them a little too much credit.
“See?” I said. “He doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Sure, it’s my feelings he’s looking out for.”
We continued to tease each other for the remainder of my meal, and it was easy to forget that outside our door was an entire reality that included people who could shapeshift into various animal forms. People with super strength, super senses, and super healing.
It was like something out of those comic book movies so many of my students loved, yet it wasn’t a work of fiction. It was real life.
I wasn’t upset about it, but it was kind of exhausting to think about. Reimagining the entire world under this new context caused my mind to turn out question after question about dozens of different variables. So many questions, but no one to ask. Not exactly conducive to having a productive day.
Nevertheless, I was serious that staying home any longer would make me go batshit crazy.
I loved my home, and I loved my family, but I was missing so much time at school.
And while I had promised to take time for myself and acknowledge my limits, I was at the point where more rest would be damaging rather than healing.
Once I was done eating, I loaded my dishes into the dishwasher and headed out.
I didn’t go straight to my car, of course.
Instead, I headed to Grandma Mack’s with one of my takeout boxes in my hand.
I had been a bit apprehensive when Ben told me to order multiple meals if I couldn’t decide, but once I relented, I knew I had to get this sweet old woman something nice.
I had no idea when last someone had taken her out, let alone to such a fancy place.
“Look at you, my dear!” she practically crowed from her porch swing when she saw me approach. Although she had visited a couple of times while I was in recovery, I did miss our little morning get-togethers. “You are looking healthy!”
Was I? I would have thought the opposite considering my heart had almost exploded on Friday, and I’d been in my head all weekend, but hey, I wasn’t about to argue with the compliment. Maybe all that resting had done its job.
“Thank you, Grandma Mack. I brought you some food from that Americana bistro we talked about a couple of times. It just came out of the fridge, so you’ll need to heat it up, but it should be good.”
“ Bistro? I know you didn’t! Goodness gracious, did your daddy finally take you there? I been telling him he owes you since you practically run that house. He needs to treat you!”
Aw, she was sweet. And I don’t know what possessed me to tell her, but suddenly I was answering quite honestly. “No, it wasn’t my dad. I had a date, actually.”
“A date? ” If it were any other little old lady, I might have thought she sounded incredulous.
But I knew Grandma Mack well enough to know she was excited.
“Well, it’s about darn time! I don’t know what’s wrong with young men these days that you ain’t been scooped up already.
You a catch, Miss Giselle. You. Is. A. Catch! ”
While the older woman generally didn’t have an accent, whenever she did get particularly excited or heated, her Southwestern roots appeared. I couldn’t remember which state she’d grown up in, but it was past the Silver Arch—the gateway to the West, as I believed it was called.
“Eh, I haven’t really wanted to be scooped up,” I said, handing her the container.
“But you be wanting to be scooped by this date, huh?” She waggled her eyebrows at me, and I actually blushed.
“ Grandma Mack! ”
“What? We’re both grown. Why pretend otherwise?”
She might have had a valid argument, but I decided to skip right over it. “It was a good date.” It absolutely wasn’t, but I didn’t want to explain why. “I wouldn’t mind another.”
“Then you go get it, girl! You more than deserve it.”
“Thank you. I’m gonna go head to school now.”
“What? You’re back to work already?”
Hmm, maybe I should have been concerned that she was the third person to seem surprised about me returning to work, but I brushed it off. “Yup. Ready to get back to the grind. I miss my kids.”
“I’m sure they miss you too. You skedaddle off then, Missy! I’ll report back to you on what I think of the food.”
“Thanks, Grandma Mack.”
“Nah, thanks to you!”