I kept my eyes glued to my plate as everyone chimed in with their agreement. Sebastian’s arm slipped off my shoulder. I didn’t know if I was relieved or devastated at the loss of contact.
“I have a question,” Esther spoke up, pointing a sparkly fingernail at me. “Nox said you’re allergic to your tears. How’d you survive being a baby when all they do is cry all the time? No way you’re actually allergic to yourself.”
Shelby sucked in a breath and looked my way with wide eyes. Enoch dropped his hand to my knee in what I guessed was an attempt at comfort or maybe an apology for spreading my personal life to his whole damn family. I should’ve shoved him off but for whatever reason I let him keep his hand there.
“I apologize, Shiloh. I don’t know where her manners went today. Please, you don’t need to answer,” Shelby said as she reached across the table and squeezed my arm.
I could tell she was genuinely sorry and even Esther shrank down in her chair with a sheepish apology.
“It’s fine,” I tried to smile so they knew I wasn’t mad. I didn’t want Esther to get in trouble for having an undeveloped frontal lobe and no filter. “I get asked questions all the time.Everyone is curious. But, um, basically your eye produces three types of tears, and in your tears there’s a bunch of different components like proteins and antibodies, and the chemical makeup is different depending on the type of tear produced…” I paused looking around at everyone’s focused faces. “Uh, sorry, this is probably really boring and confusing. And you don’t need all this information.”
“No, go on. I want to hear it,” Nox said, gently squeezing my knee.
“Um, okay, well, it’s technically called Byrd-Adkins Syndrome. Super rare and doesn’t have a treatment or a cure, and it’s technically not an allergy but an autoimmune response. But it’s just easier to say it’s an allergy because most people don’t know the difference anyways.” I swallowed the rock in my throat and glanced around to make sure people were actually listening. “So, um, my body thinks that my tears, or some component of my tears, the doctors aren’t sure but likely a protein or hormone, um…Sorry. Um, yeah, so my body thinks it’s an antigen and attacks it. So, when I cry it looks and feels like I got maced and it causes my cornea, like the outside of my eyeball, to build up scar tissue. I guess it’s, like, my body trying to protect my eye or something. That’s why they’re all foggy looking.”
I cleared my throat, realizing I got completely off track from Esther’s question. “Uh…right, sorry. Short answer. When I was a baby, and I cried, I would have to have artificial tear drops used on my eyes to help flush them out, and…yeah.”
I avoided the gaze of everyone at the table and smiled at Ruthie who was playing with the mashed potatoes on her highchair tray.
“And we had to put cold packs on your eyes because they would swell shut. Also, we carried you around,a lot. Luz would strap you in a rebozo, even had us kids wear you around when she got busy or needed a break, just so you wouldn’t cry. But thereactions to your tears didn’t start until you were nearly two, so your early baby days were normal.”
I looked at Sebastian with wide eyes, “What are you talking about?”
Sebastian gave me a strange look and glanced back at the table. I realized everyone still had their eyes on me.
“You weren’t born like that, Shiloh. I remember when you were diagnosed. Ask Javi, he’ll tell you.”
I stared at him dumbstruck.The fuck is he talking about? I am positive I was born this way.
“So, there’s no treatment for it? Do you need an EpiPen?” Eden asked.
I shook my head, and I watched a look of pity fall across all the women’s faces. “No, since it’s localized, I don’t need an EpiPen, and even taking a Benadryl doesn’t do much since by the time it kicks in my body is usually already calming down.”
“Gosh, you poor thing, I can’t imagine watching Ruthie be in pain like that so often. Your mom must have been devastated.”
I shrugged my shoulders, “I imagine a good mother probably would have felt that way.”
I didn’t mean for it to come across as rude, but the blanched expression on Eden’s face had me cringing.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine,” I said, shoveling more food into my mouth to hopefully make someone change the topic of conversation.
“I’m allergic to cats. Found that out the hard way when my parents finally let me adopt one and I started wheezing within the first hour of having it home,” Jae said, lifting the tension almost instantly, laughter following suit. His mom dove into a detailed story of how they eventually adopted a dog butaftergetting allergy testing on Jae to ensure he wasn’t allergic to dogs too.
The rest of the meal went on without any further invasive questions, and, to my surprise, Nox left his hand on my knee for the entire duration. He gave it a soft pat before standing and working with Jae and Esther to clear the table.
I tried to stand to offer help, but he pushed me down by my shoulders and told me to just relax. Unfortunately for me, between the massive food coma, sleep deprivation, stress, emotional turmoil, and pain I was in, relaxing was not in the cards. Instead, I found myself picking at a scab on my wrist as I tried to think about where I would go after I left Nox’s house. Eden and Shelby took Ruthie to have a bath as the baby had turned her food into a mashed potato hair mask. Then Dan and Quintin went to the living room, leaving me alone with Sebastian.
“So, you sticking with the car accident story?”
I let out a sigh, my side suddenly deciding to spasm with a searing pain in my lung. I held my breath afraid of the impending pain that it would cause when my lungs expanded with air.
“Shiloh?”
I gripped the table and slowly sucked in enough oxygen so I wouldn’t pass out before quickly letting it out again.
“Fuck,” I hissed, repeating the process of breathing in and out as much as I could.
