“She said bitch and tough cookie in the same sentence?”
“I think those were her scientific words.” He gently pulls me in and lays a soft kiss on the top of my head. “And you are. They were able to get most of it out, so they’re hopeful you’ll feel some relief soon.”
I pull the info pamphlet out, nodding in a trance. I don’t know how to process any of this; it’s the answer to my prayers, and if I hadn’t passed out, if Jack hadn’t reacted and sent me to the hospital, I may still be waiting for it.
A list of symptoms sits on the second page of the brochure and I devour it, curious to find what of my mystery symptoms it’s responsible for.
Everything—it’s responsible for everything—how is that possible? How have they missed this diagnosis for so long when it seems so obvious? Painful periods, chronic fatigue, digestion issues, severe pain passing bowel movements, rectal bleeding, shoulder pain, pelvic pain, painful intercourse, and severe bloating.
None of my symptoms have been left uncovered after looking at this list.
With his arm still wrapped around me, Jack whispers into my hair. “Where’s your mind?”
“It’s—” Tears rip out of me in an uncontrollable sob. “It’s everything I’ve ever complained about, and they told me it was in my head—even the damn shoulder pain.”
Jack’s arms encompass me in a warm embrace as I heave. The heaviness in my abdomen strengthens. I need to get these sobs under control before I flare my pain more. “I need to stop crying.”
“No, it’s okay, let it out. They were assholes.”
“I know—but this fucking hurts.”
“Oh. Right. What can we do to distract you?”
I wipe at my tears, chest heaving and pain pricking with every slight hiccup. I don’t know if anything can get my mind off of this. After ten years, this revelation might be too much too soon. I’m angry at the doctors who made me feel silly when I was right. How dare they? How dare they dismiss me when it seems like the answer was there all along.
“Do you think Gus would lend us his Nintendo so we can play Mario Kart?”
“Sure, we can do that.”
When he disappears, my eyes return to the pamphlet in front of me. The big complicated word sits on the top of a glossy picture of an abdomen with barbed wire wrapped around it—endometriosis.
Ten fucking years of horrible pain, buckets of tears shed, and more shitty doctors than I care to remember.
And there’d been a name for it all along.
ChapterThirty-Two
Jack Parker
Play:R U Mine by Arctic Monkeys
Papers rustling in the dead of night wake me from an otherwise peaceful sleep. Every sleep next to Aulie has been tranquil.
I reach over to her with a grunt, and my hand comes up empty. Blinking my eyes open, the commotion continues. A small desk light illuminates a hunched-over figure.
“Aurelie Lunette Desfleurs. What the hell are you doing up?” I groan. Aulie’s shoulders raise with tension at the sound of my voice, and she freezes, shuffling through—wait, is that her planner? Oh, hell no, I hid that in the guest room.
I know I was a near-impossible patient this summer, constantly pushing the boundaries of what I could and couldn’t do for the sake of rehabbing for the season. Still, since her surgery one week ago, Aulie has been ten times worse than I ever was.
She never asks for help and always tries to do everything herself.
Constantly saying in her sweet honey voice, “I don’t want to be a burden.”Like that will assuage my irritation with the situation.
It’s frustrating as hell that she doesn’t understand how much I enjoy taking care of her. None of this is a chore to me. I want to be the one who makes her PB&Js, settles her into bed, and makes her cozy.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d try to catch up on stuff for the Emy’s Halloween Birthday Party this weekend, because I’m wicked behind.”
Pushing up from the mattress, I stand, motioning for her to hand me her planner.
