Chapter Eight Julian #3
She assesses me a few seconds longer, then glances at the clock on the wall, one of those cat types with the swinging tail and moving eyes.
“It’s really late. Whatever you’re still feeling, you’ll sleep it off by morning.
Drink this.” She hands me a tall glass of water and watches me gulp it down, then disappears.
My heart pangs at the cold spot at my side, where a few seconds ago, her warm body had been.
When she returns, it’s with another glass of water, a big, fluffy pillow, and the softest blanket I’ve ever felt.
I nuzzle it against my face, breathing in the smell of Nomi’s laundry detergent, and exhale, feeling magically better.
“I’m in there if you need anything.” She points at her bedroom door. She must sense the angst building in my chest at her leaving because she adds, kindly, “You’ll be okay, Julian. I promise. And… thanks.”
“For what?”
“For cheering me up. I—was having a pretty rough night, until you came along.”
“You’re welcome,” I sigh happily as I snuggle under the blanket, smelling of her. “I’ll come anytime you want.”
She rolls her eyes and looks at me, bemused, as if she also cannot believe that I’m sprawled out on her couch. She turns off the lamp, the last source of light in the living room, and leaves, her bedroom door snicking softly shut behind her.
I can’t wait to see her again.
Something is profoundly wrong with my mouth.
My tongue creaks in protest as I rip it from my palate, glued there by the vestiges of my dried-up saliva.
It feels too big, coated in sandpaper, and when it finally wrenches free, it makes a sound like Velcro.
Moving it triggers my gag reflex, and I shoot up from the couch, whose couch am I on, and grab at the glass on the coffee table.
Fuck, it’s empty! I stumble-run for the hall bathroom, filling the glass from the tap then gulping it down. I finish, breathless, then blink until my tear ducts release some moisture into my bloodshot sclera.
The image in the mirror is blurred at the edges, where the fuck are my glasses, and utterly unrecognizable.
My hair is a mop of bedhead, completely flat on one side, a bouffant on the other.
My respectable clothes are gone, cruelly replaced by a pair of silky pink sweatpants that cling to every crevice and end at midcalf.
Likewise, the tiny T-shirt someone has dressed me in ends in a bare midriff.
I peel it up to read the words screaming in hot pink: Kiss we are filled to capacity.
I urge you to vote against Ms. Wyeth’s outrageous business endeavor (truly, has anything appropriate ever happened in a so-called “lounge”?) and amend the agenda to allow a public debate immediately following Ms. Wyeth’s presentation next week.
I will then educate the council about the evils of marijuana and expose Ms. Wyeth as the wolf in sheep’s clothing that she is.
Sincerely,
Dr. Julian D’Angelo, BS (Hons), MS, MD, ABEM
Board Certified Emergency Medicine Physician
Lead Physician, Philadelphia General Hospital, Level 1 Trauma Center (Currently on Research Sabbatical)
Physician in Residence, Dr. Srinivasan’s Family Care and Urgent Clinic
Chief Resident, Yale University EM Residency Program
PoCUS, AIME, ATLS, ACLS, PALS, ALSO Certified