Chapter 2 #2
“When I came into the kitchen that morning, I was still trying to figure out what was going on. So I had my hand over my left eye.” I demonstrate, even though they can’t see me, and my field of vision is reduced to the sliver I’ve retained in my periphery.
I drop my hand, bringing the ceiling back into view.
“And when Cole saw me, his reaction was ‘Now what?’”
The rumbling of disapproval over the receiver is deeply satisfying.
“Ellie!” Mark says. “Why didn’t you tell us then?”
“I was half-blind and no one knew why,” I remind him. “It wasn’t a priority.”
“Ellie.” Heather’s voice is a warning.
“Why didn’t you just go to our place tonight?” Mark cuts in. “We’re not even there!”
A fair question. They’re at a teaching conference in Houston and won’t be back until tomorrow. And I had considered their address when I opened the rideshare app outside of the restaurant, but I’d dismissed the thought just as quickly.
I don’t know if it’s the buffer of the phone call or exhaustion— or, again, the beer—but I fess up.
“Because you get an alert any time your front door’s unlocked, you’d see that it was my door code unlocking it, and then one of you would call and I’d have to have this conversation.
And I really, really didn’t want to have to talk about this—any of this—tonight.
“It’s not you,” I assure them, because it isn’t. It’s everything else. “I’ve been being handled with kid gloves for years now, and I’m tired of it. Constantly getting asked how I am and being told that I’m so brave, when what goddamn choice do I have?”
My voice rises as I talk, and I pause, forcing myself to reel it in.
“Either my vision will come back, or it won’t.
Either I’ll end up with MS, or I’ll be okay, and we can add this episode to the list of shitty, weird things my body is so fond of throwing at me.
” I sigh. “And… yeah. Screw Cole. I’m not spending another night in that apartment.
That was his plan, by the way. That I move into the room I use as my office, and we’d reassess in six months. ”
Mark sucks in a breath. “Like, your exact diagnosis window, those six months?”
“The very same. In this scenario, I presume, I’d be waiting for my vision to go out again—if it comes back in the first place—or for a tingling sensation in my limbs, or sudden lightheadedness, or some other symptom in the packet of maladies the doctor handed me today, and Cole would be chilling in the next room.
He—” My next breath hisses in through gritted teeth.
“He actually thought I’d accept that. That I’d be desperate enough—”
“No.” Heather’s voice is hard. “You’re done with him.”
“And he was done with me,” I remind her, hoping to undercut any point she might make about my having settled or me being too good for Cole. Because it wasn’t enough.
“Ellie—” she starts anyway.
“Any improvement on the eye front?” Mark interjects, like he’s trying to defuse a squabble between cast members but will tell us to “use it” in our performance.
I take the out. “It fogged up in the shower this morning. My neurologist said that’ll happen with extreme heat or physical exertion.”
“At least it keeps things interesting?”
“You know how I love surprises,” I grumble, which gets a laugh out of both of them.
If there’s anything I’m known for, it’s my absolute resistance to surprises.
Ditto disorganization, stretches of unstructured time, and substandard levels of cleanliness in any context.
As far as people go, I might not be the best time, but I’m always guaranteed to be on time!
“Thank you for checking on me,” I say. “You should go back to your mandatory fun.”
Mark groans. “Ellie, the deejay just played a version of ‘Hey Ya!’ with lyrics about cell division. It’s unbearable! And you’re not even here to provide commentary!”
I smile. We interned at the same high school while we got our teaching degrees and were offered contracts there after we graduated.
It hadn’t been smooth sailing for any of us, but Mark stuck with it after being offered the coveted drama teacher position, and Heather found her footing with the science department.
I’d bowed out after my single-year contract expired, focusing instead on the part of the experience I’d enjoyed: writing lesson plans and designing units of study.
My business is still gaining traction, but I’ve landed some big projects; my online bundle for instructing The Odyssey was recently picked up by an entire school district in Denver.
A welcome boon… even if it’s going to be consumed by my deductible.
“Just don’t commit to a place tonight, okay?” Heather implores. “Go to our place, put on some comfies, and veg out until we get back tomorrow. We’ll plan from there.”
“Which is to say that we’ll come home to a spotless apartment and review the plan you’ve already come up with,” Mark amends. “You’ll humor our suggestions, then execute your original plan because you’ll come up with the best solution, anyway.”
“True,” I laugh, but throw them a bone. “The comfies are a great call, though.”
“See? We’re helpers.” Heather sighs. “Hang tight, girly. I’m so sorry we can’t be there.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” they chorus.
“You’re right. It really, really isn’t.”
Something in my voice must betray how close I am to tears, because Heather’s voice is uncharacteristically gentle when she says, “We’ll see you tomorrow.
I love you!” Mark sends his love as well and offers me the last of the exfoliating mask concealed in the butter penthouse of the fridge.
I end the call as Heather gripes at his betrayal; he’d been hiding it from her.
While the screen is still illuminated, my eye lands on the bright pink icon of the rideshare app.
I glance at the door Grant left through, then turn my head to look at the one that leads outside.
It would be rude, but I could leave. I can pop over to my friends’, ditch the boob tape, don some pjs, and start making lists in a desperate attempt to maintain order in my crumbling life.
Not too different from a regular Friday for me.
I grimace. God, that’s grim.
A text from Cole appears at the top of my screen. I’m at home. Please come talk. I glare at the message. Home. If there’s anything I am sure about, it’s that the two-bedroom apartment we’ve been overpaying for over the past two years is no longer my home.
A tentative knock sounds from the door to the rest of the house. “Hey…Ellie?” It’s Grant. I unpeel myself from the mattress and rise with a crinkle of plastic. When I open the door, I find him and Diego shoulder to shoulder in the hallway, Alistair behind them. Diego waves.
“We, um…” Grant clears his throat. “We worried that you might be sad—”
“Do you want cheese?” Diego interjects, shouting over his roommate.
“Do I…” I blink. “What?”
The shorter pup thrusts his arm forward, hand up in offering. Resting on his palm is a single package of string cheese.
I stare at the offering. They have brought me cheese.
“We looked online for what helps girls when they’re sad,” Alistair explains, his expression guarded as he waits for my reaction. “Cheese was the only suggested thing we had.”
My chest gives a little squeeze, and I press my lips together, blinking furiously against a week’s worth of tears. They brought me cheese!
Three pairs of eyes go round in horror.
“Oh, no!” Grant’s voice is pure panic as he shakes his head. “If you don’t like cheese, we can find something else? We just don’t have much in the kitchen. Maybe a banana? Or we’re about to go out—” He grabs at Diego’s still outstretched forearm.
“No! The cheese is great. Thank you.” I relieve Diego of the string cheese, and his hand drops to his side, his frame going slack with relief.
“I’ve had a rough week. And this”—I hold up the package—“is the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me since I woke up Monday.
” I dab at my good eye, where a tear is threatening to fall. “These are gratitude tears.”
The guys let out a collective “Ah!” of understanding.
I peel open the package, revealing an inch of shiny, off-white mozzarella, and take a bite. The three watch me in silent satisfaction at a job well done, Alistair craning to see from behind the other two.
I swallow. “Thank you, really. And you’re right. I’m kind of down.” I frown, accepting the gauntlet of questions I’m about to endure. “My boyfriend broke up with me tonight.”
“Oh, shit!” Grant’s brows are high. “That sucks.”
Diego shakes his head, all empathy. “I’m sorry, Ellie.”
I nod, waiting for a follow-up. Seconds pass. That’s it. Once again, no prying. No prodding for gory details. Just an acknowledgment: This sucks, and they are bummed for me.
“Well, he tried to break up with me,” I continue, curious how long this suspension of inquiry will hold. “He started it, and I finished.”
“Sounds more like a tie,” says Alistair.
“That—” I consider the reframing. It’s almost cheering. “Thank you, I’ll take that.”
“You’re welcome.”
I smile and help myself to another bite of cheese.
I’m ravenous, I realize. Before my appointment I’d been too nervous to eat, and after, it hadn’t been a priority.
I think back to the menu I’d been perusing before Cole brought up his bullshit “break.” I was going to order the burrata. I could kill for a burrata right now.
Grant’s shoulder rocks forward from a shove from Alistair, and he clears his throat. “If you want to take some time to decide about the room, that’s no problem. But if you think that more cheese would be good, we were gonna go get pizza? If you wanna hang out?”
“And we’re having kind of a party later,” Alistair adds. “No big deal, just some friends.”
My instinct is to decline, but before I can find the words, a tendril of something I can’t quite identify winds through my rib cage. There’s a charge to it, a call to action.
I pop the rest of the cheese into my mouth and chew, using the oversized bite to buy myself time to think. I am hungry. And it’s not as though I have anything else to do. And if I discount the sheer farce of me hanging with a trio of college bros…
Why the hell not?
I swallow and then grin, the expression feeling foreign on my face. Foreign, but welcome. Made even more so when all three of the guys beam back.
“Can I get another beer before we go?”