That time-wasted guilt is pretty fucking real.
22
Marigold
Jamie’s flight left two days before mine.
I took the M60 bus with him to the airport, sitting there crunched into the tiny blue seats with Jamie’s bag rattling between his knees and our hands locked together. Then we said goodbye and I watched him walk into the terminal. And even though I knew it would only be a matter of days before I saw him again, I still felt bereft.
This is the first time I’ve been without him in weeks. That time when we lived separately—hardly seeing each other outside of classes—feels like it happened years ago, now. All my memories now are of Jamie’s touch, his soft voice, his smile.
It’s just forty-eight hours,I chastise myself. Not that it does any good.
The apartment feels extra empty without him in it. And the music, when I play it, feels hollow at first. Once I catch my stride, it’s fine, but…I guess I’m used to him sitting on the couch, listening. Or joining me in a duet. Or smiling at me from the kitchen, buttering toast while I play Brahms.
I try to go to bed early, popping two sleeping pills and curlingup under the duvet with my arms clutching the pillow, a meager replacement for Jamie’s warmth.
But the next morning, I wake up with my right foot on fire.
At first, I think I slept on it wrong. It’s the same kind of feeling: a tight heat, pins and needles prickling beneath my skin. But I stretch my toes and roll my ankle and massage the arch of my foot until it hurts, but nothing changes. My foot feels like a balloon filled with boiling water, swelling to the point of bursting.
When it hasn’t gone away by the time I’ve eaten breakfast and taken a shower, I call my neurologist.
Luckily, he’s able to get me in that same day, where he runs some kind of test to check how my nerves are responding to stimuli and draws more vials of blood than seems strictly reasonable.
“Our first job is to figure out what’s going on. Is this an MS flare, or is it something else? I think it’s most likely an MS flare, and I think it’s important that we get an MRI to evaluate if the lesions we already know about appear active or if there are new lesions. The second thing is to rule out a rare infection that patients on the medications you’re on can get. The treatment would be very different, and you’d have to be hospitalized, so it’s important that we get this imaging done urgently—preferably today. Fortunately you’ve tested negative for JC virus in the past, but you’re overdue for monitoring. We should recheck labs today just to make sure it’s still negative. Regardless, I suspect this is going to require a course of high-dose IV steroids to cut down on your inflammation—”
At which point I’d cut him off, because there was no way I could get to Stockholm in enough time if I was going to be here for the three- to seven-day course of IV steroids he was recommending. He reluctantly agreed to just two days of IV steroids then oral pills, with instructions to message him as soon as I return from Stockholm.
“I’ll also get you paperwork for a medical marijuana card,” he said. “Many of my patients find that THC helps take the edge off.”
Oh, awesome. Things are dire enough that I’m literally getting prescribed weed. Cool cool cool.
It does help, though. Of course, now my troll brain finds a brand-new anxiety to obsess over, which is whether taking edibles will mess up my dexterity.
That afternoon, I record myself playing my competition pieces over and over, then hyperanalyze them, looking for signs that I’ve lost skill. Did I miss that note because I miss notes sometimes? Or because my brain is smoothed over and fuzzy, punch-drunk on meds and fear?
“You can’t predict the future,” Jamie kept telling me before he left, a broken record, but good luck getting my brain to listen. “You can still play. You still sound incredible.”
I do. I know that. But still, I can’t stop circling the possibilities. What happens if the pain stops being just in my foot? What happens if next time I wake up, it’s my hand that’s numb, if I’m onstage playing a nocturne and suddenly my fingers prickle and slide dumbly off the keys?
What happens if this is the beginning of the end?
23
Jamie
When I first wake up, it takes me a second to figure out why. I blink against the streetlight filtering in through the crack between the curtains, casting pewter tones over the unfamiliar topography of my hotel room. The clock on the bedside table says 6:36a.m., which I guess in American time is just after midnight.
My phone buzzes again from the other pillow, and I lurch upright, unplugging it from the wall in my haste to answer.
“Hey,” I say. “Marigold. Are you here? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. Am I overanalyzing it, or does her voice sound tight? I twist one hand in the bedsheets, gripping until my knuckles hurt. “Sorry I didn’t…sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I’ve had a lot going on.”
“What happened?” I say immediately.
Even over the phone, her breath sounds unsteady. “I need to talk to you. Can you…can you come up? I’m in room 427.”
