Chapter Eleven #3
As Kevin greedily chowed down, she glanced into the refrigerator.
She really should eat something, since she’d had nothing all day.
Her stomach still felt off, but at this point it could have been the emotion or it could’ve been because it was empty.
With a sigh—something she was doing a lot of, apparently—she pulled out a carton of eggs.
Carrying her plate of scrambled eggs back out to the living room, she sat back down on the couch and clicked on the TV.
Something mindless for background would maybe help calm her racing brain.
She played with the remote until she found a true crime documentary that looked interesting, was vaguely amused when the play button said “watch again,” meaning she’d seen it already but clearly didn’t remember, then sat back and forced herself to eat.
The desire to drown her eggs—and her sorrows—in a glass of Pinot Grigio was strong, but she opted for water instead.
Alcohol would only amplify what she was feeling right now, and amplification was the last thing she needed.
Her feelings were enormous enough, thank you very much.
She did need to turn her phone back on, though, or her mother was going to show up at the front door, freaking the hell out. Resigned, she finished her eggs, picked up the phone, and turned it back on.
Thirty-seven texts popped through, one at a time.
Rowan groaned.
A dozen of them were from her mother, a couple that were worried and the rest just telling her random things, making conversation, trying to show that she was not worried.
Nope. Not at all. Rowan couldn’t help but smile as she typed a text back telling her mom she was fine, that she’d just eaten, that she was going to go to bed early and they’d talk tomorrow.
Stevie was better at listening to her when she said she was fine and needed time, but there were three “just checking in” texts. She typed out a text to her.
I’m fine. Just absorbing, you know? My brain is full. (Good thing I have memory loss to make room for new trauma!) She added a winking emoji just for a little levity. Your truck’s in my driveway. Thanks again for that. She followed that up with a heart.
There were also messages from the others.
None of them said anything specific, they simply said they were thinking about her and hoping she was doing all right.
Because really, what could they say? We’re so sorry your girlfriend dumped you because she didn’t think you’d be a good partner for a sick person?
But Rowan had to remind herself that they, too, were absorbing the news of Evie’s illness for the first time. “Don’t be so selfish, Ro,” she said aloud. “It’s not all about you.”
And there was a text from Evie.
She stared at it, stared at her name. She was surprised to see it, surprised she hadn’t blocked her number or even taken her out of her contacts list. But there it was, her first name and a heart—a goddamn heart—just sitting there, staring at her. The text consisted of one line. Three words.
Can we talk?
Rowan stared at the text, at the words.
Can. We. Talk.
A simple request, but Rowan wasn’t ready. Yes, they probably should talk. But not now. Not yet.
She tossed the phone onto the coffee table and lay back down on the couch.
Her head hurt. Truthfully, she was surprised it had taken this long for a headache to kick in, given how much information she’d been expected to take in that day.
Before she got too lazy, she forced herself to get up and root through the bag she’d dropped inside the front door and left there.
Finding her meds, she shook out two and downed them with her water, then reclaimed her spot on the couch.
She pulled the blanket over her, despite the fact it was August and probably still in the eighties out.
Her body was chilled, and the air-conditioning was running because her mother liked to set the temperature somewhere along the lines of “arctic tundra.” She was too lazy to get up again and adjust it, so the blanket was necessary.
She hunkered down on her side to try and focus on the TV.
Kevin hopped up next to her stomach and spent an inordinate amount of time making biscuits before he finally settled his warm body next to hers and began to purr.
It wasn’t long before the stress of the day took its toll on her, body and mind, and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When Rowan opened her eyes, she was still on the couch.
The living room was dark, save for the blueish glow of the television.
She had no idea what was on, as she’d missed the majority of the doc and the channel had simply started up another show.
Kevin always seemed to gain about twenty pounds as he slept and now had her pinned between his furry body and the back of the couch.
Her right arm was asleep, and when she moved it out from under her, she winced at the pins-and-needles feeling, flexing her fingers to get the blood flowing again.
Her phone told her it was 3:37a.m. She’d been asleep on the couch for more than six hours.
With a groan, she sat up, careful not to roll Kevin off onto the floor.
He gave her an annoyed growl, hopped down himself, and sauntered off toward the kitchen, clearly irritated to have had his sleep disturbed, but now probably thinking it was as good a time as any to have a snack.
She toyed with the idea of heading to her bedroom and going back to sleep for a couple hours, but she suddenly felt wide awake as everything from the previous day came flooding back into her head on a wave of memories. Ironic, that.
Her phone also showed her another handful of missed texts, and she realized how hard she must’ve been sleeping not to have heard the device buzz against the wood of the coffee table.
“Yeah, emotional upheaval will do that to you,” she said to the empty room, then pushed to her feet and headed into the kitchen. Coffee. Needed. Now.
She popped a pod into the Keurig and thought for about the fortieth time that she didn’t like the taste as much as she did from an actual pot. Being at the lake house had solidified that for her. She made a mental note to hop on and order a good old-fashioned coffeepot later.
Evie hated coffee from the Keurig.
The memory came out of nowhere, and Rowan closed her eyes, did her best to grab on to it.
Evie thought the pods were weak. She liked a strong cup of coffee, and she always said the Keurig pods tasted watered down, that the coffee was never robust enough, even if she hit the strong button on the machine.
And that’s why Rowan had purchased herself a Keurig.
To spite Evie. Or at least the memory of Evie.
Another new/old memory found its spot in her brain and took a seat.
Huh.
She watched her mug fill, a sad smile on her face.
Another memory recaptured. Another memory that did nothing but make her sad.
Sadder. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t recover her memories, at least not the ones of her split with Evie.
They’d broken her once, who was to say they wouldn’t break her again—or worse—the second time around?
Coffee in hand, she went back into the living room and clicked on a lamp.
Her laptop was somewhere…she stood and glanced around the room until she’d located it, then took it back to the couch, stretched her feet out on the coffee table, crossed at the ankle, muted the TV, and opened the laptop.
She typed into the search bar symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
Holy shit, there were a lot.
She scanned the list. Numbness or tingling in the limbs.
She thought about Evie opening and closing her hand, something she’d thought was just a weird habit she’d never noticed.
Weakness or paralysis in the arms or legs.
Coordination and balance difficulties. She’d noticed Evie stumble more than usual during their few days together.
Vision problems. Pain. Rowan now wondered about all the orange pill bottles she’d glimpsed on the dresser in Evie and Claire’s room.
Muscle spasms and tremors. Hadn’t Evie dropped a cup?
Or a bottle of beer? Both? Fatigue. Her memory tossed her a vision of Evie falling asleep on her shoulder on the boat, just dropping off out of nowhere, and how embarrassed she was when she’d woken up.
The list was longer. There was more. Rowan kept reading; she couldn’t stop.
She suddenly wanted to know everything. She read that MS is an autoimmune disorder, where your own body eats away at the myelin, which is the protective covering of the nerves.
That alone sounded like something out of a horror movie.
She pictured tiny alien-looking creatures with little mouths and sharp teeth munching away inside Evie’s body, consuming her protection, leaving her nerves exposed to the world.
MS was more common in women and usually struck between the ages of twenty and forty.
Evie was thirty-eight three years ago. There were different types of MS, and she wondered which one Evie had.
There was no cure, but there were things that could help, and she went on to read a list of dozens of different medications for various things—pain, fatigue, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, muscle spasms—the list went on and on.
Rowan kept reading because she knew if she stopped, the emotion she was avoiding would clobber her.
Of course, she eventually did have to stop reading, and eventually, it did clobber her.
Slowly, she closed her laptop, her eyes burning, from both the hours of reading and the tears that had been pricking the backs of them for over an hour now. She sat there, dumbfounded at all she’d learned, at everything Evie had gone through.
Alone.
She’d dealt with all of this alone.