Third Degree

by Julie Cross

  “You’re not even listening to me, Izzy,” he says, his breathing labored from the effort. “I hate being rude, but I need you to leave.”

  I feel lost. I feel … I don’t even know what I’m feeling exactly. I lift a hand to my chest and rub away the tightness. “Wait!” I plead, searching for something normal to say. “What about your parents? Shouldn’t you call them?”

  Marshall rests his head against the door frame. “You need to chill out. I’m sick, and yes, that sucks ass, but I’m not dying. There’s nothing here for you to dive in and save. It’s a chronic illness, not terminal cancer. It’s manageable.”

  It’s manageable.

  The words hit me like a smack across the face, like being slapped back to reality. He’s right. Of course he’s right. But I feel off. My thoughts aren’t forming in the order they normally do. The steps I need to take aren’t falling into place.

  I stand in the hall with my mouth hanging open while Marshall crosses the hall toward the bathroom, this time closing the door to his room behind him—a message for me, no doubt.

  But I can’t make myself leave. Instead, I wheel my luggage back to my room and remove my phone, quickly dialing the doctor’s number I’d memorized from the bottles of pills in Marshall’s top drawer.

  Unfortunately, Dr. Janet L. Green is currently with a patient and I’m stuck waiting for a callback. When I hear Marshall exiting the bathroom, I chase him down in the hall again. “Answer two questions for me and I swear I’ll leave you alone.”

  The door frame has become his crutch today. He puts all his weight on it and closes his eyes. “Fine.”

  “Are you having any bleeding?”

  “Yes,” he whispers, “But not enough to need a transfusion.”

  Yet, I can’t help thinking. “How’s your pain?”

  “Five … maybe six,” he says and then he’s back in his room, falling into bed again. He gave in to the questioning so easily this time, he must really want me out of here.

  I follow him inside even though I know I shouldn’t. “Don’t you mean nine or ten? You look like you’re in a lot of pain.”

  My phone rings before he can argue, and I’m so eager to talk to his doctor that I completely forget about the issues Marshall will most likely have with this. “Dr. Green?” I say after picking up.

  “What the fuuu—” Marshall starts to say, but he closes his mouth and resorts to swearing at me silently with his eyes.

  I identify myself, then briefly explain Marshall’s symptoms and current state of health. Marshall’s glare gets more evil by the second.

  “Okay, which hospital has he been admitted to?” she asks, her voice calm and straight forward, the way mine would be if I were on the other end of this call. I’ve been on the other end before many times.

  “He hasn’t,” I say. “I’m a … I’m a …” Marshall’s eyebrows shoot up, challenging me to pick a role. “I’m a friend. But I have some medical training.”

  “I see,” she says. “Well, Marshall knows the drill for his flare-ups—antibiotics, increase his Humira from monthly to biweekly injections, prednisone if there’s no improvement in three to five days—”

  “Why wouldn’t you start steroids now?”

  “No,” Marshall says, burying his face in his pillow.

  Dr. Green must have heard him through the phone, because she laughs. “That’s why. Marshall hates steroids. That’s our last resort. I can only recommend. I can’t force medication on him. He knows his limits pretty well.”

  “But he’s dehydrated,” I argue. “He’s not thinking clearly.”

  Marshall laughs the derisive I-hate-you-right-now kind of laugh. Guilt washes over me, but it’s not enough to stop me. I walk out of the room and head down the hall at a pace that would be way too fast for him to catch me.

  “Sorry, I had to walk away from him. He’s being incredibly difficult.”

  Dr. Green laughs again. “Maybe, but Marshall thrives on being as normal as possible. Every patient with a chronic illness like Crohn’s has to find his or her own method of management. His last flare-up was in the spring. That’s a long stretch of remission, and that tells me he’s doing something right.”

  “But he’s really sick,” I say, not even sure what I’m arguing for or what I want her to do about it. “There must be something else to try.”

  “I doubt you’ll be able to talk him into the hospital at this point.” She sighs. “If you convince him to take some pain meds, that might help relieve the cramping he’s experiencing. But Marshall hates pain meds almost as much as steroids, so good luck with that.”

  Why would he even bring the meds to school if he’s not planning on taking them? Maybe she’s right. Maybe he does know his limits. They’re just a bit farther out than a conservative medical recommendation.

  I hang up with Dr. Green, promising to give her an update tomorrow morning. I glance around and realize that I’m in the common room. I was so focused on running away that I didn’t even pay attention to which room I walked into. I pace for a minute or two and then grab the darts from the board, using Marshall’s techniques to throw a few rounds while I think up a plan for what I should do next.

  When I return to Marshall’s room, he’s curled up in a ball on his side, eyes squeezed shut, pain and tension filling his face. I freeze right in front of his bed, a whoosh of light-headedness sweeping over me. I reach for the desk chair and grip it tightly.

  He must have heard me walk in, because his eyes open. After he assesses me, the anger drops from his face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  Something about Marshall in his current ill state asking me if I’m okay causes a pain to hit my chest. The light-headedness increases, and cold sweat trickles down my forehead and neck. I know this feeling: I’m going to vomit.

  “Be right back.” I turn around and head for the bathroom, flinging open the door to the stall, but once I’m kneeling on the floor in front of the toilet, the nausea decreases. I lean against the wall and put my head between my knees. My panicky breathing slows to almost normal. Sweat continues to trickle down my face, but after a few minutes the sick feeling passes and I can stand up again.

  I lean over the sink, splashing cold water on my face, drinking some of it. I dry off with a paper towel, ignoring my now shaking legs, and head back to Marshall’s room.

  “Did you puke?” he asks, looking concerned.

  “No, I just felt like I was going to, but I’m better now.”

  He pulls himself halfway up to a sitting position. “My mom ends up barfing every time I’m in the hospital. She tries to pretend she’s walking away to get some item nobody needs at the time, but I figured it out like forever ago.”

  “I’m not usually like this.” I turn his desk chair around and sit in it to ease my shaking legs. “Actually, I’m never like this.”

  “I meant it when I said you need to chill out. I know what I’m doing. There’s a reason I’m here and not at home. My mom worries and hovers, and my sisters are loud and they worry, too, and cook things in the microwave that smell disgusting—”

  “Okay, I get it.” I lean forward, resting my head in my hands. “Let’s compromise, then. You take one dose of pain meds and drink one bottle of Gatorade, and I will promise not to call an ambulance or your mother.”

  The glare returns to his face. “That’s not a compromise, that’s blackmail.”

  I lift my head. “I’m sorry. Final offer.”

  He sighs and only looks half as angry as before, like he’s figured out that I would have left him alone if I could, but I can’t. “Fine, but after you watch me take the pills and drink some fluids, you have to leave.”

  “Deal,” I say before jumping up to retrieve the meds from his stash. He refuses to take the Vicodin with crackers despite the fact that without food he might end up vomiting them back up in thirty minutes. It takes him twenty minutes to consume the Gatorade, and by that time the narcotics are kicking in and he’s blinking way more
than normal, drowsiness consuming him.

  After he’s out, it’s like my brain splits into two halves. One is directing me to lock up my room again, put my suitcase in the car, and head home. The other half has swiped Marshall’s room key, ensuring my reentry, and instead of getting on the interstate and heading north, I’m pulling into the parking lot of the local Walmart.

  I’m on autopilot, tossing items into the cart and running through the checkout. By the time I’m back at the dorm, my phone is ringing, my dad calling.

  Shit. My dad. Heart transplant. “Dad, I’m sorry, I’m not coming home. I should have called earlier, but something came up.”

  “Okay,” he says, “Call your mother and let her know, please. I’ve got a patient on the operating table.”

  I have a feeling he’s going to use the “patient on the operating table” excuse a lot to avoid communicating with Mom. And he’s obviously annoyed with me, but he’s hiding it well. Guilt. He may have booted someone out of the OR to let me in. Or else he was worried something had happened to me, and I know he likes to go into every surgery, especially one this risky, with a clear head.

  I’m not in the mood to call my mom. Lately I’m not in the mood to call either one of them, so I send her a quick text: Staying at school this weekend, Dad said to let you know. And then I hit ignore when she calls ten seconds later. I cart the Walmart bags inside the abandoned dorm building. Everyone appears to be gone. I’ve been away for nearly an hour, but Marshall is still completely out, breathing in that way only deep sleep can create. I’m still struggling to get a grasp on my motives, so I busy myself picking up all the dirty laundry around his room and taking it to the third-floor washers. I don’t want to wake Marshall yet, since I told him I’d leave after he accepted my compromise/blackmail, so I strap on the surgeon’s headlamp my dad got me for my birthday last year and roam around his room with a garbage bag, picking up trash. After returning to the laundry room and switching his clothes to the dryer, I wipe every surface in the room down with disinfectant.

  An hour later, the laundry is folded in a basket on Marshall’s floor and I’ve also scrubbed my own room and swept the floor. I don’t know what else to do, so I take a shower and drink some of the Gatorade I bought for Marshall and eat a protein bar.

  Finally, after four hours of sleeping, he wakes up and stumbles toward the bathroom, not even noticing me standing near the closet or the much cleaner surroundings. It’s dark outside now and his eyes are barely open. The bathroom door closes, and I quickly flip the light on and rush over to the bed, stripping the sheets and pillowcase. I found an identical set folded neatly under his bed, and the dirty, sweat-covered sheets in the now practically sterile room were driving me insane.

  I sigh with relief when I hear the shower turning on right after the toilet flushes, because I’m not even half done with changing his sheets. Pain meds with a fever that high would cause anyone to wake up in a sweaty mess.

  Once the bed is made and the lights are out again, I start to panic about him falling in the shower, but luckily he emerges shortly after, his hair damp, a towel around his waist. He fumbles around in the laundry basket, and just when I think he’s about to drop the towel and flash me, he says, “I know you’re still here, Izzy.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say right away.

  He shakes his head. “Just cover your eyes.”

  I slap a hand over my eyes and hear the towel drop to the floor. “I tried to leave, I swear I did.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbles.

  I peek through my fingers and see him climbing back into bed, wearing gym shorts this time instead of boxers. He pats the empty space beside him and my mouth practically falls open in shock. I walk over and tentatively sit down next to him.

  “Let’s have one of our chats, okay?” He’s lying on his side facing me, but his eyes are already closing. The pain meds must be working still. “I’m sorry I yelled at you and kicked you out. If you were sick and I saw you like this, I’d stay and help, too, no matter how much you refused.”

  I sit perfectly still and quiet, waiting for him to finish.

  “But I wouldn’t call your doctor or parents unless you asked me to or unless I thought it was that much of an emergency and you weren’t in any state to handle it yourself.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He opens his eyes and looks me over. “I don’t need a doctor, parent, or constant stream of medical advice.”

  “I know.”

  “But,” he says, taking over the conversation again, “I wouldn’t mind some company, okay? Friendly company.”

  “Okay,” I whisper, afraid to say anything else that contradicts my agreement to keep it friendly and non-medical.

  “And please take that damn thing off your head before I have nightmares that involve you coming at me with a scalpel.” He closes his eyes again, and after pulling the headlamp off, I sit there as still as possible until his breathing gets slow and heavy. Then I grab my laptop, climb back into Marshall’s bed, and begin a night-long research project.

  He told me I couldn’t talk about medical-related subjects—he didn’t say I couldn’t read up on the condition. Or possibly hack into his medical records …

  Chapter 16

  I jolt awake, feeling the weight of my laptop vanish. I rub my eyes and catch Marshall leaning over me, sliding the computer underneath my side of the bed.

  “Sorry,” he whispers. “Looked like it was about to slide off your lap.”

  I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but I check the time and realize I must have dozed off somewhere between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. When the sleep fog lifts from my brain, my face immediately heats up, knowing what Marshall probably saw before closing my laptop.

  “Can’t decide if I’m pissed at you for illegally reading shit about me or impressed that you had the ability to do that all along and restrained yourself until today,” he says.

  “I’m sorry.” I’ve said these words way too many times tonight. I stand up and retrieve a new bottle of Gatorade and two more pain pills for him. Luckily he takes both without any argument. I settle back down beside him, twisting and turning my neck. It’s sore from my having fallen asleep sitting up. “But you have to realize that I’ve looked at thousands of charts. It’s not personal for me. It’s just numbers and data.”

  “You mean like you separate the chart from the person?” he asks, taking a big swig of his drink.

  “The chart is the person.” The words are out before I can fully process them.

  Marshall stares at his hands and peels back the label on the plastic bottle. “That’s what I was trying to get across earlier. I don’t want to be a chart to you.”

  We sit in silence for several minutes, the weight of his words occupying the space between us and pressing on me from all sides. Part of me feels like crying but I can’t decide why exactly. Finally Marshall pats my hand and says, “Thanks for cleaning up my room and the laundry and the shopping and all that.”

  “I shouldn’t have read it.” The dark hollowness is back, reminding me of all my fears, my lack of humanity. My failures. The words Dr. Winifred James, Ph.D., wrote about me. I swallow the lump in my throat and discreetly wipe away a tear that slips from my eye.

  Marshall must sense that I’m upset, because he pats my hand again and settles under the covers, then says, “Well, how about you ask normal questions that eventually fill in all the pieces? We can pretend that no illegal acts took place in order for you to gain those details about my life.”

  “Sure.” I turn on my side facing him. “How long have you been sick?”

  “Since middle school,” he says, yawning. “My first major symptom was joint pain. I played a lot of sports, so it really got annoying. The doctor tested me for rheumatoid arthritis first, then lupus. I’d been having the stomach problems all along, too, but not so severely that anyone put it together. Plus, thirteen-year-old me didn’t want to tell people how many trips I made to the bathroom a day or talk abou
t feeling bloated after eating at McDonald’s, so I kept that to myself longer than I should have.”

  Most of that isn’t in his chart. “What about your surgeries?”

  “First one was in ninth grade, and the second one was the summer after high school. I still don’t understand them completely, except that they took sections of my intestines out.”

  I start to put together a basic explanation for him, but then I decide against it. If he’d wanted explanations, he would have asked someone by now or read up on it. “You got sick during boot camp,” I say. “That’s why you’re not in the army right now.”

  “Yeah, that part blows big-time. It doesn’t matter if my symptoms stay away for years in a row—I still can’t get back in.” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter anyway. Obviously I’m not okay.”

  “But you’ve been in good shape for months, right?”

  “Yep, it was awesome.”

  The wistfulness in his voice, the sadness—they hit me pretty hard. I hate that he’s feeling so bad when he should be bouncing around and driving me insane with his complicated and mostly wrong answers to anatomy-related questions and running backward with flip-flops on.

  “I’m sorry for blackmailing you and reading your chart,” I blurt out.

  “You already apologized, and I accepted that apology,” Marshall says.

  I wipe away another tear, hoping he doesn’t notice. “Maybe you shouldn’t forgive me.”

  “That isn’t your choice to make, Izzy.” His voice is back to the sleepy-sounding tone, and I figure he’s about to drift off, but then he speaks again. “How was your date with Mr. Can’t-Keep-His-Hands-to-Himself?”

  “He’s not nearly as bad in that area as you are,” I point out, and remind him of all the ways he found excuses to touch me.

  “Amateur.” Even in the dark, I can see him smile a little. “I don’t ever do this … letting a girl take care of me, do my laundry, feel my forehead. Just thinking about being that guy makes me nauseous.” He reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze. “But I don’t mind having you here.”