I barely even notice the silence playing in his car because we spend almost the whole ride discussing dinner, particularly my family members and their not so inconspicuous looks at each other. After we imitate looks and nudges, impersonating all the different people from Dad to Jared’s girlfriend, he suddenly switches to a more serious tone.
“I guess we should have a better definition for us, for what we are exactly, before I attend another family gathering with you.” He says it quietly as he looks ahead at the road in front of us.
Say more. Say more. Say more. What do you want us to be?
Nothing. Guess I have to respond.
“Yeah, you are probably right.” I also look ahead as I respond, kind of grateful that he is driving during this awkward discussion.
This is where the silence comes back at full volume; for the next ten minutes or so, until we pull up in front of my house, neither of us says anything. He meets me as I step out of the car and walks me to my front door.
We stop on the porch, and he wraps his arms around me. After a slow, lingering kiss, he pulls back slightly so he can meet my eyes.
“I want you to think about your treatment—where you want to go with it and what we should do.” He pauses as he runs a hand over my hair. “I also hope you’ll think a little bit about us and what we’re doing here, what you want. If you’re ready for a relationship with me…”
I start to open my lips, but he puts his finger over them. “Don’t answer tonight. Think tonight.” He starts to rub his finger slowly across my bottom lip. “I know how difficult it is for me to think clearly around you so I’m going to go in case it’s the same for you. Besides, Mandy will probably be back any minute—with plenty of questions, I’m sure.” He smiles and presses another light kiss on my mouth. “I’ll miss you tonight.”
“Me too.” Me too. Me too.
“Good night, Callie. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Aiden.”
Chapter 21
day six
{THE SCAN BUTTON HAS BEEN pushed, and I’m hearing a new over-the-top love song every three seconds.}
Maybe his scent on my two-day old pajamas triggers the medley. Or maybe it’s because his words from last night have been tumbling through my mind for hours. I guess it could also be part of my anticipation about going to see him today—to give him my answer to the question I needed no time to consider. I even have a plan for his first, less interesting, question about my therapy. A plan that might help. A plan that might improve our therapy. But he’ll find all of this out when I surprise him before my obligatory appointment with Dr. Spencer.
For now, I need to get moving—time for class in a few hours. On your mark. Get set. Morning Routine.
1:00 P.M. I LEAVE CLASS, RELIEVED to have turned in my paper and already thinking about my Jane Eyre assignment. Not for long though. As I get into my car and start to drive toward the therapy office, my stomach starts bouncing around. Nerves? Anticipation? Both, no doubt.
I arrive twenty-five minutes before my appointment. That leaves me with plenty of time. Before I get out of the car, I grab the little pack of tissues I have stored in my glove compartment. I pull out three tissues and shove them into my coat pocket. Just in case I need them. Then I head into the office as another person is leaving. She holds the door open for me. I slide into the waiting room without brushing up against her and without having to use my emergency tissues. Score.
Rather confidently (for me), I go right up to the front desk and ask to see Dr. Blake for a short meeting. It is only at this moment, as Annie starts to fumble around with her computer and an appointment book, that I realize I have no idea what his schedule is today (or any day, for that matter). He might have patients booked all day. It’s not like I can just barge into his office. I guess I could leave a note to tell him I was here to see him, but then I really—
“Dr. Blake is out this afternoon. He will return around four o’clock.”
Oh. There goes my plan. Clearly, I pretty much suck at surprises. I thank Annie, move a little to the side, and stand to wait for the next twenty-five minutes to be called in for my appointment. Annie doesn’t say a word.
Time to think of another plan. Different options run through my head. Calling him. Texting him. Asking him to meet me somewhere to talk. Boring. I could try to surprise him later, but I work until mid-evening, and he’ll probably be gone by then. I could go to his house, but I have no clue where he lives, and I’m pretty sure Annie isn’t going to hand over an address. Hmm…if I could—
“Miss Royce, Dr. Spencer will see you now.” Annie is holding the door open for me.
Impressive. Guess I’m getting some perks now that I’m seeking treatment with two of the doctors in this office—that must be close to a quarter of the practice, after all.
Annie waits for me to pass through the door and then takes the lead again. No long walk this time. We stop at a door in the middle of the first hallway. Annie opens the door and presses her back against it.
“Miss Calista Royce, Doctor Spencer.”
“Send her right in.” Dr. Spencer’s voice. I recognize it from that very first day in this office. Before…well, before everything.
Annie, who must be feeling terribly generous today, waits until I step into the office and then takes the time to grab the handle and pull the door shut behind me. Thank God I brought emergency tissues.
“Miss Royce,” Dr. Spencer greets me from behind his desk. “Won’t you have a seat?” He nods toward a flowery couch to his left. It looks like it was made in the seventies. It’s probably been here, in his office, since then too. Hundreds and thousands of patients have sat on it, I’m sure.
“No, thanks.” I get right to the point, remaining rigid in the doorway, him looking at me amusedly from his desk chair. “Dr. Lennox wants me to talk to you about a prescription.”
“Yes, that’s right. Are you interested in starting a medication treatment?”
Here goes my new plan to fix our therapy. I silently pray that a certain someone doesn’t refer to my plan as a “medicinal bandage.” Then I pray twice more. And finally, I speak. “I am. I’d like to try it in combination with the therapy I’ve been doing with Dr. Blake—if you think that’s okay.”
“Definitely. Blending medicine and therapy is a very healthy, effective way to face and control your OCD symptoms.”
“Good.”
“So you feel you are making progress with your therapy plan then? Dr. Blake hasn’t sent me any information since…” He thumbs through the paperwork on his desk. “Since your medical examination.”
Wow. Wasn’t that a lifetime ago?
He’s looking at me, waiting for an answer.
“Um, yes, I think I, we, are making some headway. But I think I need more, and I want to do more to help the therapy succeed. If the medicine just takes some of the edge off, maybe I can make it through tough situations or even just everyday events without losing it right away.”
“Well, yes, Miss Royce. The medication is designed to do just that—it should calm you somewhat and make things a little less unbearable.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes while he pauses. Like he’s given this speech three million times and is bored by it. “But I do have to warn you that the pills won’t work miracles. You won’t just pop one and be ‘cured.’ You also won’t really begin to feel the benefits until the medicine has some weeks to build up in your system.”
“I understand,” I mumble. Dr. Blake warned me of this at our first appointment. But it’s okay—maybe we can delay the next part of our immersion treatment for a couple of weeks. Maybe we should even start the twelve days over once the medicine is working properly in my system…
“Since I already have your initial diagnosis from Dr. Lennox, and your consultation and medical examination paperwork from Dr. Blake, I can get you started right away.” Dr. Spencer makes some notes in my chart. “I have only a few standard questions for you first.”
D
ear God. I look down at my purse and pray he doesn’t use the same list of questions as Dr. Blake.
“Are you currently taking any other medications?”
“Nope—just a daily vitamin.”
“Any known allergies to medications?”
“Not that I know of, no.”
“Okay. Great.”
Already?
“Today, I am giving you a starter pack of pills. You punch out a pill every day for the next few weeks. The starter pack helps your body ease into the medication—you’ll notice that you are on a low dose for the first few days before you begin what will be your larger, standard dose.”
I nod. As usual.
Dr. Spencer excuses himself to go to a closet where he retrieves my starter pack. When he comes back, he hands me the medicine. He says that I should start tonight when I eat dinner because I might experience some painful side effects if I don’t take the pill with a meal. He also wants to see me in a few weeks to check on my progress and to write out a prescription if things are going well. Lastly, he says he’ll type up the information from this appointment and get it to Dr. Blake in a couple of days. I don’t bother to tell him that Dr. Blake will already know in a few hours. Instead, I thank him and tell him that I will call to schedule my next appointment.
When he turns to go back to his desk, I grab the emergency tissues from my coat pocket and use them to get out of his office, out of the door to the waiting room, and finally out of the building. I throw the tissues away in my usual trash can, go to my car, and drive home.
I DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME at home, but I try to make the most of it. I start by sending a text to my Unknown Number.
Can we meet tonight after I get off work? Just for a little—I have a lot of homework, but I have some stuff to tell you :)
Count. Send.
After downloading Jane Eyre, I make yet another attempt in my poetry notebook. No luck, as usual. Tonight is going to be a very long night if I’m actually going to get this portfolio done for tomorrow. And I will…because I never turn assignments in late.
I stop not writing poetry to grab an early dinner. Salad with croutons and dressing. Around four hundred calories. Plus one pill from my starter pack. Hopefully no calories there. At least none to speak of.
When I finish eating, I begin my thirty-three checks and then leave for work. My phone buzzes while I’m driving. I wait…not very patiently…to check it until I get to work. As soon as I pull into a parking spot, I yank my phone from my purse. One message from him.
Count. Open.
Sure. I’ll meet you at the writing center at 7:00 p.m. I have some results to show you…
Already? Wow. Guess that’s where he was when I wanted to surprise him earlier.
Since work starts in three minutes, I don’t bother to ask what strings he had to pull for the super fast results. Instead, I hit reply and type.
See you then :)
Count. Send.
In to work.
MY HEAD STARTS TO POUND around 4:30 p.m. Fortunately, there are only a few people here. Brittany is sitting in her usual chair, but she hasn’t sent me any tickets yet. Neither have the other students.
I grab some aspirin from my purse and swallow the pills with a mouthful of saved up saliva. Resting my elbows on my desk, I prop my head up with my hands, trying to keep still, trying to shut down my brain. Every time a new song comes into my head, I try to squelch it, but it doesn’t work. Each song stops abruptly with that nasty sound you get when recording on a tape player, and then another song begins immediately.
{First note of a song. Nasty scratching sound. Another song. Scratch. Song number three. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.}
Ugh.
After a half hour of scratchy music, I still don’t have any tickets. My head continues to pound, but I can’t concentrate on that anymore because I’m too worried about the hives starting to appear up and down my arms. They look (and feel) just like the ones I get when a cat is nearby. I really don’t think there is a cat in the writing center, and I haven’t been close enough to anyone’s clothing to have come into contact with any lingering cat hair.
My skin is really itchy though. Not just on my arms, but on my legs, my back, and my eyes. Especially my eyes. I can tell that they are starting to swell. Great—I don’t have any Benadryl with me.
My full out panic begins about ten minutes later when I not only start to feel dizzy, but I also notice my skin turning a shade of blue.
What is going on?
I close my eyes to try to stop the dizziness, but it doesn’t help. When I open them again, I can only see a blurry, jumpy mess of computers, chairs, and college students.
I try to blink my vision back to normal, but it only gets worse. After a few more blinks, I can’t even distinguish between the different items in the room. If I didn’t already know where I was, I would have no idea how to identify any of the objects in front of me.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Gotta get this under control. Very slowly, very cautiously, I start to stand up, pressing my hands onto the top of my desk for support. Before I can even make my way to a full standing position, I feel my legs buckle beneath me, and I begin to fall almost in slow motion.
Voices yelling, a jumble of activity, and the hard, cold floor.
And then nothing.
I DON’T WANT TO OPEN my eyes. I don’t want to know what I am lying on, whose soft hand is gripping mine, or when the writing center installed loud siren sound effects. A slew of other questions flail through my mind as well: Why is part of my face covered with some sort of plastic device? What is the material covering me? Are either of these items clean?
I hear voices above and around me, but I can’t quite catch what they are saying. Only one of the voices sounds vaguely familiar although I can’t put a face to it.
The rumbles of unfamiliar pitches and inflections join forces with my overall disorientation, and I’m thrown back into unconsciousness.
NOW I REALLY DON’T WANT to open my eyes. Sterile smell. Beeping noises. Cheap sheets under me. I know I’m in a hospital.
Please don’t let me have a gross roommate. Please let these sheets be clean. Please don’t stick any needles in me. Please don’t expose me to a disease. Please don’t expose me to a disease. Please don’t expose me to a disease.
My pleas suck up the last of my energy. I feel myself fading away once again.
I CAN FEEL AN IV in my arm. I try to open my mouth, to beg someone to remove it, but I can’t get any words out. I can’t pry my eyes open either.
“Stop fighting, Miss Royce. Please, stay still.” The somewhat familiar voice from the ambulance. “Miss Royce, it’s me, Brittany. Try to rest and save your energy.”
Brittany. From Computer 7. The voice from the ambulance. The soft hand holding mine on the way here.
“Th-th—” I try to get out some words of gratitude.
“It’s okay, Miss Royce. No talking right now. Just rest.”
If you want me to rest, get the needle out of my arm. At least cover it up so I don’t have to worry about seeing it, if I ever open my eyes again. Get this mask off of my face too.
Please. Please. Plea—
“CALLIE? CAN YOU OPEN YOUR eyes?”
{Cue Boston’s “Amanda.”}
“Callie. Try for me. Try to open your eyes.”
Eyes. Won’t. Open.
“Callie, Mom and Dad will be here soon. You are going to be okay. The doctors said you got here in time. That one of your students came with you.”
Please let me open my eyes. Please let me speak.
Please tell me where he is. Call him. Tell him I won’t be able to meet him. Tell him I’m here. Tell him to hurry.
“Callie, it’s okay. Stop trying so hard. Rest, just rest.”
“I’M HERE, CALLIE. ABBY WANTED to come too, but she was too young to be in the ICU. She sends hugs though.”
Hi, Mel. Please get this IV out of my arm.
“Can you open your eyes for me
, Callie? The doctors say you are going to get through this. They say you should show some improvement once the medication starts to leave your system. Whenever that will be…”
Medication?
“Why didn’t you tell me you were starting medicine? Did Dr. Blake ask you to take it? He will have to really research other medications and allergic reactions if you are going to try another—”
Dr. Blake. Yes. Keep talking about him, Melanie. Where is he? When is he coming?
“—and I guess you still need more rest. Keep resting, Callie. I’ll be right here all night.”
Chapter 22
day seven
“GOOD MORNING, CAL. ARE YOU going to open those eyes for me today?”
I’m trying, Dad. I’m trying.
“Your mother has been in here with you and your sisters all night. She will be back in with Jared soon.”
Mom. Jared. Such a long trip to get here. I’m sorry. I’m—
“Cal, stop struggling. You’ll be able to talk soon, I know it. Just sleep for now. We are all here with you.”
Thank you. Thank you. Thank—
Dad, where is he? Please go get him. Please go get him. Please go get him.
“ALL RIGHT, HONEY. MY SHIFT doesn’t end until morning so I’ll be in to check on you throughout the night. I’m going to push in a rollaway so your mom can stay with you and maybe get some sleep tonight. Sound okay, honey?”
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