This Is My Brain in Love

by I. W. Gregorio

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” I hiccup as the woman stands up.

  “Don’t apologize! Take care of yourself,” she says, and turns to make a rotation around the room, bouncing the girl up and down to soothe her.

  Somehow, that little kernel of forgiveness calms me down. It only ends up being a three-tissue cry.

  Once I’m all cleaned up I draw in a shaky breath. “I don’t know why I’m so fucking insecure all the time.”

  Priya doesn’t laugh, or say, “Me neither.” Her silence is worse than that.

  This Is My Brain on Recovery

  WILL

  I’ve only been at the hospital for five minutes when my mom makes her entrance. I, and probably everyone in the ER, can hear the moment she walks through the door. Her voice cuts through all the background noise like a hot knife through butter. Sometimes I think she missed her calling as the female James Earl Jones.

  “Hello, I am Dr. Ogonna, ob-gyn. I would like to know what room my son, William Domenici, is in. Sixteen-year-old male here for syncope. Oh, hello, Eric.”

  If I strain, I can hear a male voice mumbling something about lab tests. I barely wince when the nurse putting in my IV knots a tourniquet around my arm, but I have to steel my expression when my thin privacy curtain parts and my mom strides in.

  “Oh, thanks be to God, William.” She comes immediately to my side and whispers a silent prayer before touching her forehead against mine.

  As it always does, my mom’s presence fills the enclosed space. It’s not that she’s that big of a woman, although she’s not tiny, either; it’s that she carries so much kinetic energy within her that everyone else seems slower and less significant.

  She glances up at the monitor and nods. “I was so afraid when that man called. What was his name? Venkatram? He said something about you losing consciousness.” The questions keep coming before I even have time to answer. “Tell me what happened. Were you inside or outside? Was it the heat? Have you been drinking two liters a day like I told you? Did you have a seizure?”

  The entire ambulance ride, I tried to get my story straight. I wasn’t planning on lying, exactly—I’m a journalist. I’ll give my mom the facts and make her fill things in. So I tell her that I’d had a long day at work, and then I’d gone straight over to Priya’s to do some video-editing work. The girls had gotten into an argument, and I’d started to feel light-headed. I was probably hyperventilating as I tried to resolve the conflict. And then I fainted.

  “These girls.” My mother emphasizes “girls” the same way she stresses words like “problematic” and “supposed.” “One of them is the daughter of the A-Plus owner?”

  “Yes. Jocelyn.” I make sure to keep my voice as neutral as possible. I know how to keep my cards close to my chest when I need to.

  “Eiiyaah!” my mother murmurs, shaking her head. “That is unfortunate. It will take some time for you to recover in their eyes, no?”

  I know without asking that my mother doesn’t mean physical recovery. The last time I had a panic attack this bad was years ago, at an Ogonna family picnic. We’d set up in the biggest gazebo in our municipal park, and you could probably hear us from the town over. Nigerians are not known for throwing quiet parties.

  Just after the grilling had started, while most of my cousins and I were playing soccer, a police car pulled up in the parking lot closest to our gazebo. A blond-haired officer sauntered over, and he eventually had a “friendly” conversation with my uncle Akunna about local noise ordinances that led to some not-so-friendly shouting, and my aforementioned panic attack.

  Except my mother never called it a panic attack. Instead, she made a big fuss about my being dehydrated and scolded my cousins for not having Gatorade before playing. She whisked me away to our car so I could sit in air-conditioning and “rehydrate,” at which point she made sure I knew that under no circumstances was I to mention to any of my cousins, aunties, or uncles that I was seeing Dr. Rifkin, or that I had been diagnosed with anxiety.

  “People from Nigeria, they are not as understanding about these issues as people here,” she explained. I remember thinking it strange that she never used the phrase “mental illness” when she talked to me. “They consider anxiety and depression American diseases.”

  I’m pretty sure that Mr. Wu would agree with my uncle Akunna, so maybe my mom’s right. Maybe I’ll look like damaged goods in his eyes, the way his son does. The way his daughter would if he could see what is right in front of him.

  The curtains slide open with a metal screech, and Dr. Warren, the doctor who did my initial exam, walks in. “Ah, hello, Eric. Thank you for taking care of my son,” my mother says graciously.

  “Of course. I’m happy to say that there wasn’t much for me to do. His labs and EKG look great. Everything seems to have stabilized.”

  “Does that mean I can go home?”

  Dr. Warren turns to speak directly to me for the first time since he walked in. “Pretty soon. I just wanted to ask you a few more questions to figure out what kind of follow-up I recommend, then I’m going to print out all your discharge instructions.”

  I nod, and Dr. Warren’s eyes flicker over to my mother briefly before coming back to me. “So, Will, when I took your history you mentioned that you’d had something like this happen before, and that it usually presents after some external stress, with some hyperventilation, visual changes, accelerated heart rate. That sounds a lot like a panic attack to me.”

  I lick my lips and reflexively look at my mom, who gives me a single nod.

  “Yeah, that’s about right,” I say.

  “Have you ever seen any school counselors about anxiety? Or your pediatrician?”

  “I see a psychologist over at the college.”

  “Oh, good, I’ll make sure that gets documented in your chart.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mom stiffen the tiniest bit. Not enough that Dr. Warren would notice. Just me. “As I’m sure you know, panic attacks are uncomfortable but rarely dangerous. Have you ever been on any medications for anxiety?”

  “No. For the past few years I’ve been okay with breathing techniques, mindfulness, that kind of stuff.” I shift around in the hospital gurney. My whole body aches. No specific muscle group. Just overall, like someone’s wrung me out from head to toe. “I have a heart-rate tracker on my watch. That helps. I haven’t had a… an episode in a while.”

  “He’s been through CBT, if that’s what you’re asking,” my mother tells Dr. Warren. “William gets a full evaluation every year and it’s never been determined that medications are necessary.”

  My mom’s crafting her story the same way I did. It isn’t quite true that no one’s ever told me I should take meds. Dr. Rifkin’s always been clear in telling me that I could take meds, if I wanted to: “The choice to start medications is a very individual one. If you’re struggling I can make a recommendation, but every drug ever made has potential side effects. In the end it’s your choice.”

  Here’s the rub: If you leave the choice up to an anxious and avoidant person, there’s a high probability that they’re going to come up with reasons not to decide. So I did nothing, by default.

  I don’t tell this to Dr. Warren, who’s nodding at my mother, all smiles, as if relieved that he can go ahead and write my discharge. “Well, nice to see you again, Rose, and wonderful to meet you, William. There’s still some paperwork for you to do, so it will be a minute. The nurses tell me you have some friends out in the waiting room. Would you like me to let them in?”

  I glance over at my mom, who must have called in my buddies. She just shrugs. “Sure, you can send them in.” Maybe Manny and Tim brought me some new comics to distract me. Or actually, it’s probably Javier. He’s not fazed as much by medical stuff, so he wouldn’t mind coming to a hospital to see me.

  But when my curtain opens, it’s not the guys. It’s Jocelyn and Priya.

  All of a sudden, I’m acutely aware of how thin the hospital gown I’m wearing is, how it doesn�
��t quite close up completely in the back. My monitor goes off, shrill and insistent, and when I glance over I can see the spikes in my tracing getting tighter and tighter. My mom notices, too, her eyes narrowing as she flickers back to look at Jocelyn and Priya.

  “Hey, you feeling better?” Priya’s the first to say something. Jocelyn’s hanging back, her gaze tracking everywhere except to me.

  “Yeah, they’re going to spring me soon. Thanks for coming,” I say weakly. “Sorry to ruin everyone’s evening.”

  That gets Jocelyn to look at me. “Don’t you dare apologize,” she says, almost angrily. “It’s not your fault.” She looks miserable, and I know whose fault she thinks it is.

  “Okay, it’s no one’s fault except my brain’s, then,” I counter.

  Priya barks a laugh. “You could say that about every disaster in the history of the world. It wasn’t my fault, it was my brain’s!”

  “If the shoe fits.” I shrug.

  This Is My Brain on Tropes

  JOCELYN

  We don’t get to see Will for that long before he’s discharged and sent home with his mother with strict instructions not to work until he makes a follow-up appointment with his pediatrician and psychologist. It’s not enough time to apologize to him, to try to begin to make amends. It’s barely enough time to see that he’s well enough, and that he already blames himself for what happened.

  So when Priya and I go back to the waiting room and wait for Mr. Venkatram to bring the car around, I feel like a shaken-up soda bottle, with so much pent-up emotion that I just want to scream.

  “Will looks like he’s going to be okay,” I say, to break the unbearable silence.

  “Okay enough,” she answers. She doesn’t even try to hide the blame in her voice.

  “I said I was sorry,” I blurt out, both wanting to scream that it’s not my fault and wanting to cry because it is.

  “Just saying you’re sorry isn’t going to cut it, Jos. You have issues. You need help.”

  “I know,” I whisper. “I swear… I’ll talk to someone.”

  And I mean it. I just don’t know who.

  I’m staring at a muted video of a protest in Eastern Europe when Priya nudges me with her elbow.

  “That woman in the pink cashmere shirt,” she whispers. “Society wife whose son had a football injury. What she doesn’t know is that he’s just faking it so he can quit the team and try out for the school musical.”

  I close my eyes, feeling them prickle with tears of relief. “He’s read up on all the signs of a concussion, and he’s going to pretend that he can’t remember what happened and stumble when they make him walk in a straight line.”

  “We could pitch it as Friday Night Lights meets Glee,” Priya says. “Oh, there’s my dad. He’s at the front.”

  On the way home, I take my seat in the back and am surprised when Priya waves me over and slides in next to me.

  “Dad, can you put on some Bollywood music please? We need something upbeat.”

  As Mr. Venkatram fiddles with the stereo I turn to Priya and whisper, “So, is this the ‘Third Act Misunderstanding’? The ‘Mistaken for Cheating / Not What It Looks Like’ trope?”

  “Of course,” Priya whispers. “I’m not a jerk. Yeah, I put some makeup on. Sue me if I don’t want him to think that I’m a schlub. He’s not interested in me, though, so no, there’s nothing for you to be jealous of.”

  She makes it sound simple, but deep down I know it’s not. There are layers there that I’m going to have to pick apart some day when I can see more clearly.

  For now? “I can’t believe that I’m re-creating bad romantic comedy tropes in my life.” I sigh.

  “It’s normal,” Priya reflects. “Tropes resonate because they play on our hopes and fears, and if we see them over and over again it becomes part of what we expect in life.”

  “That is so messed up,” I moan. “I guess if you recognize the pattern, though.…”

  “Yeah, knowing is half the battle and all that.”

  I guess half is better than none.

  By the time I get back to Priya’s house, grab my bike, and get home, A-Plus is completely dark. I slink up the stairs, and my father is asleep on the love seat, newspaper in his hand, while my mother watches house porn, aka HGTV, aka swooning over lifestyles she’ll never be able to afford. It’s her one pleasure at the end of a work day, and I hate to ruin it.

  “Xiao Jia?” She’s shocked to turn around and see me setting down my helmet. “Ni hui zai nali?”

  “Duibuqi, Mama,” I say. “Will was in the emergency room. I was too distracted to send you a text.” It’s kind of the truth?

  “Ai yo!” My mom’s mini-scream wakes my dad up, and he snorts and startles, his newspaper falling to the floor. “Baba, ni tingdao mayo? Nege Will, ta qu jizhenshi. Xiao Jia, shenme yang?”

  “He passed out. He was totally unconscious.”

  My mom’s eyes open wide, almost a parody of horror. My dad makes a loud “tsk tsk,” and I use this sympathetic opening, because it’s the only thing I’ve got to work with. “Mom, Dad, I’m going to try to go over there during lunchtime and maybe bring some dumplings for Will. I know you’ll be busy with the restaurant”—in fact, I planned on it—“but I think I should go support him. Obviously, he’s taking the day off tomorrow.”

  “Of course, of course!” My mom starts babbling about how she’ll also make Will her special medicinal soup and goes to our kitchen to rummage for goji berries and red dates.

  Which leaves me with my dad, who glares at me once, then leans down to pick up his newspaper and starts to read.

  I go up to my room and send Will an e-mail saying that I am sorry, so sorry for acting so weird tonight and giving him a heads-up that I’ll drop by for lunch tomorrow. After I send it, I catch sight of the e-mail I ignored from earlier, the one with the video clips that started this whole mess. It’s the least I can do to actually watch them. But before I can open them up, my laptop pings with a message from Priya.

  Just FYI, here’s what I’ve done so far with the videos. I think it’ll really draw some customers in. It’s honestly one of my favorite pieces ever.

  That’s when I remember that I didn’t actually tell Priya that my dad is ready to give up the restaurant.

  My mouse arrow hovers over the link that Priya sent for almost a full minute before I finally click on it. It takes me to Priya’s Vimeo channel, where the thumbnail image for her video comes up—it’s a close-up of Amah’s liver-spotted hands holding one of her picture-perfect pot stickers. It’s the background that catches my eye—I’m in it; I recognize the hot pink of one of my favorite T-shirts. The focus of the shot isn’t me, it’s the dumpling, so you can only see my head from the nose down, but you can see most of my smile, and that I’m angled toward my left, where there’s another, darker set of flour-covered hands, and another fragment of a smile.

  This is going to hurt, I think as I click on the play button.

  This Is My Brain on History

  WILL

  The day after my panic attack, my father gets permission to work from home so he can babysit me.

  “I’ll be fine by myself,” I insist. “You don’t need to take time off.”

  “I should drive you to Dr. Rifkin’s this morning,” he says. “Just in case.”

  I huff in frustration. “I don’t get panic attacks when I’m alone in the car,” I say.

  “I get it. I still want to come. Aren’t I allowed to get some quality time with my son?”

  The funny thing is, I actually believe him. Unlike my mother, he usually doesn’t have an ulterior motive other than just spending time with me.

  Except that this time he does.

  We’ve just left our neighborhood when my father starts up. “I feel like we haven’t really had much time to just talk lately, Will.”

  The thing is, my father did a lot of stuff with us growing up—he took me to movies and baseball games and kiddie water parks where he was the lo
ng-suffering father who sunscreened up and did double-person tube rides with me when I was too afraid to go on them alone. He was a participatory dad in every sense of the word, and he was the one who really diagnosed my anxiety and got me into therapy. But it’s been years since I’ve confided in him. I have Dr. Rifkin for that, and it’s a good thing, too, because there are a lot of things I just wouldn’t want my father to be worried about.

  “It’s been a busy summer,” I say, because it’s the best excuse I can come up with. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Hey, isn’t that my line?” He chuckles ruefully. “In all seriousness, I know that part of the definition of being a teenager is that you start to develop an identity that is separate from your parents. Your mom and I love that you’re getting more independent. But we also want you to know that we’re still here for you. Whatever you need, anytime you have questions about anything, we’re here.”

  “I know.” And I’m not lying. Deep down, there’s a core of security there, even among all my fears. Doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to hear it said out loud.

  “Did your mom and I ever tell you what happened when we first started dating?”

  “I know about the instant noodles.”

  He gives me a crooked smile. “Your nne nne always likes to play that up, doesn’t she? It’s her moment of drama, her time to shine. It also allows her to throw shade on your mom without talking about the real reason she disapproved of our relationship.”

  “Why? Because you were a poor grad student?”

  “No, Will.” My father gives me a sad, indulgent grin. “Because I’m white, of course. Or perhaps more accurately, because I’m not Nigerian.”

  I can feel the veracity of his statement in my gut, but it takes a little longer for my brain to make sense of the more complicated strands of truth. It’s important that my dad pointed out that my mother’s family would probably have had the same suspicion of anyone who wasn’t Nigerian, even if they were black. It’s a prejudice born, I guess, out of a combination of memories of colonization and the fear of further loss of tradition.