Chapter 2 #4
If Lucy swallowed audibly, it was hardly her fault. “I,” she said. “Actually, yes.” Because as hot as her face still felt, the dizziness was receding. When she eased herself to her feet, she wobbled but held firm.
The RA’s hand had slipped under her elbow, and the sudden warmth at her arm startled her.
For a touch that was barely there, it was the steadiest thing she’d felt all morning.
“I have a quad staff meeting in ten minutes,” she said, apologetically.
“But I have time to walk you to the shuttle stop. Would that help?”
Lucy smiled, and allowed herself a moment to imagine her arm was being held for nicer reasons. “That’d help a lot.”
So they started to walk. And while Lucy’s stomach still pulsed unhappily every time she tried to look up, the cardigan’s thin protection was just enough to keep her going.
The shuttle was pulling up to the stop by the time they made their slow way out front, and the RA motioned for it to wait as she eased back from Lucy. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Will you shoot me a text later, just so I know you’re okay?”
It was, once again, a question that Lucy wished she was hearing under better circumstances. But even if Lucy was the older one, this girl was still her RA. She probably wasn’t allowed to date residents. “Oh—sure.”
Lucy started to dig for her phone, but the RA quickly motioned for her to stop. “My cell number’s on your welcome sheet,” she said. “Under the name Mila Rostova. Or just swing by at some point. It’s the room closest to the front doors, you can’t miss it.”
“Got it.” Lucy let her arms fall awkwardly to her sides. “Thank you, Mila.” She turned toward the bus, then paused. “Wait, your sweater.”
Mila shook her head. “Bring it back later,” she said. “It looks better on you anyway.”
Lucy managed one final smile, then ducked into the shuttle, where at least she could bury her face in her hands without an audience. The driver barely looked twice at her cardigan hood. Lucy figured he had seen significantly stranger things.
The bottom of her purse buzzed, and sinking into a seat, Lucy fished out her phone. It was Natalie again.
Lucy,
Her stomach curled. Any news that started with her first name was rarely good.
I just talked to my friend David. Before I explain, just try to stay calm, okay? We’re going to figure this out.
It was long past time for Lucy to stay calm. But whether she was ready for this news or not, she needed to hear it.
What did he say?
She didn’t need to ask, exactly. She could guess, just from that message, what David had said.
He came to the party alone.
The world went gray. Lucy took a breath, and she could have sworn she felt the mechanics of it. Felt the fragile tissue of her own lungs fluttering.
Thank you for letting me know.
For the rest of the ride, she didn’t look at her phone again.
A nurse called Lucy’s name within fifteen minutes, and she drifted to the back, still clutching Mila’s cardigan. She hoped Mila wasn’t cold back at Quincey. Then again, maybe all that muscle kept her warm.
“Hop right up here, honey.” The nurse was distracted, but efficient, strapping a blood pressure cuff and oxygen monitor into place before Lucy was fully settled. “What seems to be the problem?”
Good fucking question. And if Mila had to report an assault to the university—Lucy’s brain balked at the word assault, but determinedly continued the thought—the nurse probably did, too.
So for a lack of a good answer, Lucy went for a simple one.
“I went to a party last night,” she said.
“And I didn’t drink anything but seltzer, but I woke up feeling really, really sick.
I think I took something without realizing it. ”
The nurse’s expression barely twitched at that. “Did you leave your drink unattended? Maybe pick up a cup that might not have been yours?” When Lucy shook her head, the nurse said, “Then you’re sure it was straight seltzer? Some of those boozy drinks don’t have the clearest labels.”
“It was definitely seltzer,” Lucy said. She didn’t remember much. But she remembered the generic label from the local store. “And I opened it myself.”
Once again, the nurse didn’t seem fazed. It wasn’t the same easy calm that Mila projected, but she operated like she already understood the situation. Even though Lucy wasn’t entirely sure that she did.
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “let’s check you out just in case.”
It was harder to sit still than she expected.
The sights and sounds of an exam room should have been intimately familiar to her by then: She’d fallen asleep so many nights with the smell of antiseptic still in her nose.
Maybe she’d gotten out of practice since her grandfather died.
Or maybe she just wasn’t used to being the patient.
She wasn’t squeamish, at least. She’d done enough caretaking for each of her grandparents that squeamishness had fallen by the wayside a long time ago.
But it was surprisingly difficult to tolerate the feel of any touch, any external pressure at all.
Maybe it was the mounting pressure of the bruise, which had started to ache.
The nurse took her oxygen—“Normal”—and her temperature—“97.5, a little chilly, but everyone’s baseline is different.” Lucy checked the wall clock at least twice as the nurse pumped the blood pressure cuff along her arm. She didn’t object, just gritted her teeth and waited.
And finally, the nurse did something Lucy both expected and hoped she wouldn’t do. She started paying attention.
“Eighty over fifty,” she said.
Lucy watched the nurse’s mouth, a rapidly thinning line. “That’s bad?”
“It’s…a little low.” Another pause. Another thinning of her lips. “What did you say your other symptoms were?”
Lucy repeated them. The nurse nodded through her litany, her forehead crinkling above her brows. As much as Lucy had wanted her full attention just a few minutes ago, it was hard to feel particularly grateful for it now.
Finally, the nurse said, “Tell you what. I’m going to take a little blood for some labs. And then I suggest you go back to your dorm and get some real rest. If you need to sit out the first day of classes, I’ll write you a note.”
Lucy nodded, automatically extending her arm and shutting her eyes. Needles usually weren’t a problem for her, either. And maybe the sick coil of nausea running through her had nothing to do with the needle, but even so, she didn’t really want to look at it.
As the nurse gently pulled her skin taut, wrapping the latex tourniquet just above her elbow, Lucy let her thoughts flood with whatever was in reach, whatever could distract her from what the nurse was doing.
Natalie’s neon-pink lipstick in the dark.
Mila, holding Lucy’s cell phone. A broad back in a dimly lit kitchen, the blurred face turned toward the sink.
It was surreal how vivid the memory was.
The blackness that would follow just a few moments later was so absolute.
But this, she remembered: a whorl at the back of his sandy-blond hair.
The creased edges of his shirt. A hand a shade paler than her own.
When she stepped next to him, she could remember how his shoulder felt, inches from hers. Not warmth. Just presence.
The needle touched her skin. And maybe it was her nerves, but even with her eyes closed, Lucy felt the blood draw as if in slow motion. The pressure, then the puncture. The queasy shift of fluid in her veins.
But it wasn’t that feeling that sharpened her nausea to a point.
It was the smell.
Lucy trembled as she suppressed a gag.
“Hold still,” the nurse murmured.
“Okay,” Lucy gasped. She breathed shallowly through her mouth, but that just meant tasting it instead. It was a dull, metallic slide down her throat. Like the taste of a penny, but sharper.
Lucy thought she knew what fear felt like. More than most people her age, at least. Growing up with Jillian, she’d become acquainted with its sounds, its colors, its smells. But she had never been this afraid before. She had never once tasted this.
And when the nurse withdrew the needle, pressed the cotton ball to the tiny drop of blood, the smell was snuffed like a candle.
The dorm was empty when Lucy returned.
As the door swung open, the shadows bent, long and jagged, around the light from the hallway. Lucy checked twice for signs of life, for a lump under the quilt or a missing shower caddy. But for the first time since Lucy moved in, Whitney wasn’t there.
Maybe she’d decided to go for a walk. Or maybe she was at the library. Lucy seemed to recall Whitney saying, at some point, that the library was too noisy to get any real work done. Maybe she’d decided to try anyway?
Either way. It should have been a relief to Lucy, to catch her breath in private. But standing there in the quiet, it didn’t feel like much of a relief.
She scrubbed at her face and let her bag slip off her shoulder. Getting herself to the health center had been the one thing keeping her more or less upright. Now that it was over, the last of her reserves were bleeding out. Maybe she could at least take advantage of the relative peace and lie down.
Lucy tugged off her dress, crawled into an oversized shirt. She folded herself onto her creaky, extra-long twin mattress. And she balled Mila’s cardigan up underneath her chin. She’d have to return it later. For now, the acrylic felt cool and soft between her fingers.
She didn’t have to close her eyes. They pulled shut slowly, like weighted shades. The sun was a deep, insistent gold behind the blinds. She wasn’t sure she’d ever slept this early. For a second, she wasn’t sure she could.
But another wave of exhaustion landed hard, tugging at her ankles. This time, she let it take her under.
Four hours later, something that was not Lucy Easting sat up in her bed.