Chapter 7 #3
Come the fuck on… really? No. I don’t understand anything.
He gives me a look of sympathy, one I’ve seen far too often.
“It’s highly likely you have Transitive Progressive Tyre Disorder.
The hallucinations are due to neuron erosion.
Other symptoms include passing out from exertion, memory issues, short periods of catatonia, and eventually organ function failure. ”
My heart takes a free fall… organ failure…
“That sounds...” I clear my throat. “How long before… ya know, before...” My words fail.
Grabbing his tissue box, he moves around the desk to sit on the side of it, extending it to me. “Would you like us to call your parents and discuss treatment options?”
No tears fall as I sit stiffly in my seat, shaking my head. I don’t want to tell them. Eventually they need to know, but I want to spare them as long as I can.
“I don’t want to give you a time frame, because treatment can slow it… but there is no cure.”
I’m numb as he tells me there is a regimen of hormones, nerve medication, and pain medication to help with symptoms, but I don’t pay much attention. My mind is stuck in a loop. “There is no cure… there is no cure… organ failure.”
Handing me his card with a phone number, date, time, and new passcode to the campus, he says, “I’d like to see you twice a week. I’ll get meds ordered and sent to your address. Be sure to let me know right away if you have any strange side effects.”
All I can do for the rest of the few minutes I’m with Dr. Fraine is nod, because I’m suppressing a scream building inside me. I’m not ready to go. Even if I felt like ending it months ago, I’m not really ready to be done.
Everything feels unfinished.
Siler doesn’t answer when I text him.
It’s my fault for pushing him away since I’ve been here, but I need to hear his voice.
Since being dropped off at campus, I’ve wandered the grounds.
Listless.
JJ would talk to me, but I’m not ready to say anything about my health to him. Our interactions would inevitably become tinged with sympathy, careful words, pity…
I almost text Mya, but delete it. She’d only make me feel worse.
On my walk back to my dorm room, I groan and stop short. I have a test in my Economics class tomorrow, and my notes are in the backpack I forgot at the Art Gallery. I need it.
But there is no way I want to go anywhere near a gallery full of Rockefeller Amherst snobs.
Maybe I shouldn’t care… What difference does failing a test make when my life is winding to an end? In fact, what difference does being here make at all?
Tears roll while I find myself walking toward the gallery, like my feet have a mind of their own. A block from the D’Ornay Exhibits, I stop.
Get a grip. There are still more tests. Maybe this doctor is wrong… the last one was…
I cross the street and go into the bakery JJ gets my muffins from, glancing back at the gallery. The street is lined with expensive cars, the door propped open, and it looks packed inside.
Instead of eating my muffin or drinking a single drop of coffee, I play with them while watching the party across the street, trying to come up with a plan to sneak in for my backpack.
I feel rather brazen sitting in the bakery, stealing glances out the window before ducking back into the corner of the quaint shop lit by string lights.
I don’t want to walk back in the dark, so I have to do something now.
Dragging my feet, I dump my untouched items in the garbage.
Pretending to be caught up looking at the bulletin board full of ads near the door, I keep glancing over to the gallery.
Maybe JJ will answer my text and bring it across the street.
I should’ve thought of that sooner, but blame my preoccupation on the news I was given earlier.
I wait, skirting around customers coming in after their workdays end, with no response from JJ.
A nervous flutter hits my chest when a Bentley parks outside the shop, and three attractive young men get out.
Each one unbelievably wealthy looking. They walk across to the gallery, shoving one another and laughing.
Yeah, I can’t be seen there in my Old Navy jeans and fake cashmere cream sweater. No way .
I rack my brain for a solution when I remember the staff restroom next to the backroom where my backpack is. It has a window that, if unlocked, I could maneuver open and slip in.
Like I’m up to no good, I slip out the back of the bakery into the alley, intent on walking the rest of the block to cross over at the corner and then down the alley behind the gallery. I probably look mental as I run across the street at the corner, nearly colliding with a stunned bike rider.
The alley has more expensive cars in it, likely for the party. I just hope they’re all empty as I stick to the shadows, running behind the back of the buildings.
Thank you, God.
The window is open halfway. The janky screen pops out easily, and I haul myself into the dark, empty bathroom.
Almost there.
I have to nudge the toe of my foot against the black Porsche parked next to the window, but I manage to propel myself into the room, taking a minute to catch my breath. Fear of being caught makes me lock the door quickly.
I almost die on the spot when I hear a snicker outside the window. “What the fuck was that?”
“Shhh… come on, let’s go, man,” another guy says. “We were leaving, remember?”
I crawl to the corner, out of sight of the window, my heart trying to take flight out of my body.
“Leave? Not anymore… this just got interesting,” he laughs. “Let’s go meet the party crasher.”
No, no, no… why couldn’t I just fail the test?
Maybe I can wait until they come back in, slip out the window, and get away. Except as I’m figuring out how to do that, the doorknob rattles and a guy’s voice sings out, “Open up, open up… we know you’re in there.”
Crap. My day started out hopeful, downgraded to monstrously bad, and now this… figures.
I need to get out of here. As more male voices gather at the door, I launch myself out of the window, only to get stuck with my feet off the tile floor of the bathroom. Nothing to push against to launch myself the rest of the way through.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone approaching. Before I can say a word, he grabs me under the arms and pulls me out. Setting me on my feet, he says, “Well, what do we have here?” With a playful laugh, he leans against the Porsche.
While I stand here, with my mouth opening and closing, my sweater sporting a dirty smear of silt from the windowsill, my pant leg ripped on a nail, I survey my…
rescuer… or would it be jailer, since I can’t move around him.
He’s tall, muscular, dressed in black dress pants, a blue button-up, and a black tie.
It’s his face that makes everything in me freeze.
I know him.
But the force of the knowledge doesn’t match a single memory. I can’t force a name to my mouth.
“Are you trying to rob an art gallery, or are you trying to crash Eric’s birthday party? Honestly, both those options sound… sad.”
My thoughts are jumbled, as I keep my words to myself. He shakes his head and lets out a light laugh before adding, “Do you have a name?”
If one Rockefeller Amherst student staring me down wasn’t bad enough, we’re soon joined by JJ, a blonde, agitated-looking guy, and a redhead sporting a goatee. “Biz?” JJ’s voice is drawn out as he takes another drink of his bubbly. “What’s going on?”
“What kind of name is Biz?” Snob number one asks.
The blonde snob’s face twists with disgust, “Were you the one in the bathroom?”
The ginger shakes his head. “This isn’t even the strangest thing to happen tonight.” When all of the guys glare at him, he shrugs and adds, “The damn birthday boy didn’t even show… so…”
I let JJ steer me away from the others, still gawking at me like I’m an alien crash-landed on Earth. “Darlin’, now’s not a good time to be sneaking into a party.”
I’m mortified he’d think I would do that, especially dressed like this.
“Wha–no, no… I needed my backpack, and I tried to reach you. I thought you could run it out to me, but you didn’t answer.
No one’s answering… and I shouldn’t be here.
You’re right. I-I…” Against my will, I choke on a sob.
My hands fly to my face. I want to tell him.
I really do. Tell him that nothing matters much anymore if all hope is gone.
Rock Am snob one walks up behind JJ. In a concerned voice, he says, “Josh, do you know her?”
I let JJ pull me into a hug, supporting the back of my head. He whispers in my ear, “Let’s get that backpack.”
For a minute, I consider ditching the main reason I’m standing here. I just need to get back to my dorm room, regroup, and cry into my pillow until sleep claims me.
All the guys follow us back into the gallery, but the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I catch the mean look from the blonde.
I learn Rippley Maxwell, a friend of JJ's, was the strong one who pulled me out of the window. The cranky blonde is Hart Crawford, another Rock Am student and friend of JJ’s, and the redhead is Soren Bonlowry, also a Rock Am student and friend.
Four astonishingly good-looking men, but I’m not prepared for the shock of walking into the brightly lit gallery.
Milling about the rooms with flutes of champagne in black-tie attire is proof that money can polish up anyone… they all look unreal.
I’m stopped short when I hear a jovial voice to my right. “Hey… it’s Elizabeth. Call me Bizzy.” Turning to see the cutie from the airport, my face flushes hot.
“And you’re… Everett. Call me Rett.” If I sound breathy, it can only be blamed on the assault to my senses.
I stick out like a sore thumb dressed like this. The added lights make me squint, the overwhelming eye candy, the very smell of money, a heady and delicious mix of perfume, cologne, expensive fabrics.
My stomach bubbles dangerously. The reactions I’m having make me desperate to get out of here. I mumble a quick hello before hightailing it to the back room, where my backpack lies by a half-empty crate.