Chapter 21 #2
“Yeah. Like, when you get home from work, lie on the couch and imitate a vegetable. Stay away from the gym. Eat refined sugar. And don’t work at home. Just for a week, but I bet you’ll feel better at the end of it.”
“I don’t know, Ally.”
“I’ll keep you company,” she offers with a grin. “I’m very good at holding down the couch.”
“Okay,” I give in. I’ve tried the conventional approach for almost a year, and I still have a fucking tremor. It hasn’t gotten worse, but it hasn’t gone away either.
“Great,” she grins. “Let’s start now. We have the whole afternoon.”
“You want to spend the entire afternoon on the couch?”
“Yup.”
“Can I take a shower first?” I’m still wearing my sweaty tennis clothes.
“Showering is allowed, yes. I think I’ll shower too.”
We shower in our respective bathrooms, and I try not to think about the fact that she’s just down the hall. Naked and wet and soapy.
Fifteen minutes later, we reconvene in the living room. I sit on the couch, and Ally sits cross-legged in the wing chair beside me. She’s wearing faded jeans and a Maple Leafs t-shirt, and her wet hair is piled in a knot on top of her head. She smells faintly like peach shampoo.
“Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you should see a doctor about your tremor.”
No. The thought of going back to see Dr. Barrett, telling him about this tremor; I just can’t. “You said you thought it was a stress response.”
She sighs. “I do, but I’m not a doctor. And on the one in a million chance it’s something else, I don’t want to be the person who told you you’d cure it with sleep and TV.”
And sex. Ally specifically recommended sugar, sleep, trashy TV, and sex. I have a very clear memory of this.
“Ally, I don’t think—”
“Drew,” she interrupts. “If you don’t get it checked out, you’ll worry you’ve got some sort of awful condition, and the fear will keep you up at night. And if you’re not sleeping, it’ll make the whole problem worse. You’ll be in your head about it.”
“Ally—”
“I get why you might not want to see someone in Somerset,” she says. “It’s not that big, and if word gets out things could be awkward. But couldn’t you go somewhere else? You must still know people in Toronto, right? There must be someone you’d trust to keep it quiet.”
She’s right. I do know people in Toronto, people whose judgment I trust. And people who I could trust not to blab about the fact that Drew Malone has a tremor.
But if the tremor is caused by something other than insomnia and stress—something on the list of very depressing neurological conditions—it can’t be kept quiet, regardless of whom I see. Because if it’s something else, it will almost certainly get worse, and it’ll mean I’ll have to stop operating.
And call me a coward, but I’m not sure I want to find out. At least not yet.
“I’ll think about it, Ally.”
I can tell she’s not happy with that answer, but she doesn’t push. “What do you want to watch first?” she asks.
“You can pick.”
She smiles as she grabs the remote and starts to scroll through streaming options.
“Really?” I ask, after she hits play on Legally Blonde.
“Already seen it?” she asks.
“No, but—”
“You said I could pick,” she reminds me. “You can choose next.”
“Okay,” I concede.
“I’m actually kind of jealous,” she says. “I wish I could go back and watch this for the first time. Everyone writes Elle off as a ditzy blonde, but she shows them.”
“Now you’ve spoiled the plot,” I complain, and Ally rolls her eyes.
Partway through the movie, Ally goes to the kitchen and returns with candy.
“Sour Patch Kids or chocolate covered almonds?” she offers, holding out the packages. When I raise an eyebrow, she grins. “It’s an important part of this process, Drew.”
I decide to trust her process, and take the package of Sour Patch Kids.
When Legally Blonde is finished, I choose Casino Royale, which Ally hasn’t seen. At some point, we order pizza and eat it in front of the TV.
We start Succession next, and after the first couple of episodes, I give in to the temptation to stretch out on the couch.
The next thing I know, I wake up to find the TV is off, and Ally’s no longer in the chair next to me. I’m still on the couch, but I’m covered with the duvet from my bed.
I grab my phone from the coffee table and see that it’s six o’clock Monday morning. I must have fallen asleep watching TV, and slept for . . . I don’t know how long. Ten hours? Eleven? Ally must have brought my duvet from my bedroom.
It’s crazy. I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep on the couch.
Ally appears and flicks on the light. She’s wearing my green t-shirt again, along with her pink pajama shorts.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” she says. “I know you usually go in early, and I wasn’t sure if you’d set an alarm.”
“Yeah. No, I’m awake.” I’m throw off the duvet and stand. “I’m sorry, Ally, I—”
“Oh, don’t be sorry,” Ally interrupts. “You said some pretty interesting things while you were drifting off.”
Damn. I scrub a hand through my hair and imagine what I might have said. Hopefully nothing too dirty, and nothing to do with her.
But realistically? If I was talking in my sleep, whatever I said was probably dirty, and it probably had everything to do with Ally.
My cheeks feel like they’re on fire, and I steel myself to meet her eye.
And then she giggles. “Relax, Drew. You didn’t say anything.”
I look at her suspiciously. “Really?”
“Yep. You’re a pretty quiet sleeper, actually. Every so often you make a funny little hiccuping noise, but it’s kind of cute.”
I grab a throw pillow and lob it in her direction, but it misses by about a foot.
“But Drew?” she says mischievously.
“Yeah?” I ask, as I make my way to the bathroom.
“At least now you know you don’t snore. In case you ever want to sleep through a meeting.”