Lidia sighs, and that tiny little pushing out of air filled with disapproval gathers in my chest. “It seems like you need it a lot, Eve.”
That’s all it takes.
“Yeah, well, I’ve just been through an eleven-hour surgery and had metal rods and a plate welded into me, and half my left rib cage sawed off.”
I watch her face. It has a look on it. A look that says, I win, always, because all I need to do is just sit here. And you lose.
“Problem?” I ask. Trying to hold on. Trying not to fall into her trap. But it’s too hot inside me, a burning pressure expanding, shoving at my casings, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from screeching.
“Forget it, Eve.”
Forget it?
Forget it just means fuck you. It means this is your shit, not mine, thank god, and I can just leave you like this, all balled up and pissier than pissed sitting in your own piss.
That is what it means.
Forget it.
And I don’t fucking forget it. I hold it inside and let it twist itself into knot after knot after knot, filling my belly, smashing my heart against my sternum, forcing itself up my throat and into my skull, until it threatens to explode out the top of my head. But it doesn’t. I won’t let it out. I won’t let her have this one.
She slaps the orange plastic bottle on the table next to me.
I don’t dare touch that bottle. Instead, I close my eyes, and despite the raging storm whipping through me, I say it, calmly, quietly.
“Make her disappear.”
I sit, frozen,
clutching at the round, smooth plastic
of my Roxy bottle. Knowing
I’ve been here before.
The Real One
You wore the fedora.
I wore the visor when,
two hours later, wandering
under the bright lights of the mall,
I finally let it fall
from my mouth.
“I’m having the surgery.”
I remember the
single word that slipped
from yours.
“What?”
Not a happy and excited
WHAT?
But something much smaller,
tighter.
I looked away to give you time—
instantly feeling your anger at this.
Me,
giving you
time.
Me,
knowing you needed it.
Knowing you needed something.
“Two weeks from now,”
I whispered,
watching you
out of the corner of my eye while you
tried to breathe,
tried to respond.
All you managed was a
lick of your lips.
It started then. My babbling.
Anything to cut through
the terrible silence.
Blood draws
MRIs
pulmonary function tests
out of school
for the rest of January and February
and maybe March
better junior year because
college apps
you know
and just think
Thomas the saint will have to do
all the work for
School Within a Freakin’ School, you’re so lucky, Lid,
to be partnered with Ayanna Bilkowski
that chick works harder than a Navy SEAL
maybe harder—
“You’re having the surgery?”
you asked,
sounding
more like I needed you
to sound. Like I
wished you’d
wanted to sound.
“January fourteenth,” I said,
forcing my mouth
into the shape
of a smile, and struggling
to hold it there.
Then… finally
you threw your arms
around me
and I hoped more than anything
you couldn’t feel me panting.
“Good for you, Eve,” you said,
your voice vibrating off the plastic shell
of my brace. “You’re going to be straight, and
I’m going to have two hands.”
You said it like we were going someplace.
But not the same place.
WHEN I WAKE UP, IT’S DARK. I’M STILL ON THE COUCH. Still holding my Roxy. It takes less than a second for the fight with Lidia to flood my memory.
I turn my face toward the window. Close my eyes. Try to breathe slower. Try to return to wherever I was—that quiet, soft place of unconsciousness. But I’ve crossed some sort of awareness line and it won’t let me back in.
I open my eyes. The light coming in from the bay window illuminates the living room. The streetlight throws a stretched-out square across the living room rug and onto the dining room table, where a stack of books and papers sits.
Schoolwork.
In my mind’s eye I see Thomas Aquinas standing in my living room, wearing his T-shirt from Minnesota. I see him opening up his jacket, showing me the words Gophers Hockey. And before I can stop myself, excitement crackles across my chest as I remember how nicely those letters stretched across his.
Then I remember another boy. This one in a black fedora, and I pluck out a pill, stick it in my mouth—swallowing it with a sip from the nearest glass of water. It’s warm. And I can taste the dust floating on the top of it. I have no idea how long it’s been sitting there.
I settle back to concentrate on the Roxy’s effect, absently reaching my fingers into the orange bottle to count my pills. Then I cap it and close my eyes while the dwindling number settles heavily at the bottom of my stomach.
The blanket is twisted around my legs.
And it’s hot.
If only the window were open. I ache for fresh air. I close my eyes and imagine it.
“As you wish,” he whispers.
Cold air slides across my face. My god it feels good.
“So did I just wipe out a few lakes in return for my breeze?” I ask.
“You’ve visited Minnesota’s wiki page,” he says.
“‘The land of ten thousand lakes.’” I recite Minnesota’s nickname, sucking in a huge breath of state-destroying air, drawing it in long and slow. It tastes cold and delicious—yet by the time I’m releasing that very same breath, I see her on the chair, her eyes on my Roxy.
“Take me back,” I whisper, meaning exactly that. Back. To being twisted and bent and hunched and me. Me. How could I have wanted to be anything but what I was? Now I am… this. And I don’t know what this is. It’s like Sowah straightened my spine but left everything else crooked.
“I can stop the pain,” he says.
“Yes,” I beg him. “Please.”
“She didn’t need the hand, Eve.”
My telescope. It’s scary how he understands me.
“Do I need you?” I ask.
He laughs. The sound tingles across my scalp.
But then I see her face… the disapproving look.
I pull out my phone. And text.
Lidia
And then wait, staring at the screen, staring at all the bubbles filled with her name. Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia Lidia
There is never an answer. She is never going to answer.
“Eve,” he says quietly, kindly. “You can stop the pain.”
He’s right. I can.
I dig out another pill. This time, I don’t give a shit how many are left. Though of course I know how many are left. Exactly how many. Not enough.
An emptiness fills me… if that is even possible, to be filled by nothing.
“She didn’t need it,” he repeats. Although that sentence doesn’t comfort me the way it did
two minutes ago.
Why was the hand something we could share, but not the surgery?
The Surgery
That morning felt
more like I was starring
in a movie
of my life, not actually
living it.
I couldn’t stop
narrating
myself.
“Take a shower, Eve.
Scrub with special soap, Eve.
Brush your teeth, Eve.
Don’t swallow any water, Eve.”
Worried that if I didn’t
announce the next move
out loud, I
might not make it.
“Sure you don’t need the bathroom
one more time?” my mother
asked, as she turned to
lock the door.
I shuddered.
Out of all the physical horrors
leading up to this day,
the enema had been
by far
the worst.
You’d think they would have figured out
a better way to get
that done.
I was empty. And I
felt empty,
for more reasons than the
graphically violent last few hours
I’d spent in the bathroom.
Because the fact was
whenever I had imagined
this moment in my life,
and I had imagined this moment
many times,
Lidia was with me.
“Got your bag?” my mother asked.
She could see it in my hand,
but I knew she
just needed to say something.
“Yeah.”
I could see my breath
on the way to the car, but I didn’t
feel the cold. I didn’t feel
anything.
I don’t remember the drive, parking,
or the walk through the hospital—just the
nurse who checked me in.
Name?
Birthday?
Allergies?
Smoker?
One time.
At Junlin Yu’s party last summer
with Thomas Aquinas.
We’d shared it. First his lips
sucking on it. Then mine. Then
his, again.
“We’re cool now, Eve,” he’d joked when we’d
finished. And I laughed. Because it felt
true. We were cool.
Later that night, Lidia smelled it on me and asked,
“Did you smoke?” And I’d said
no. Not because she’d care if I’d smoked
but because she’d care that I’d smoked…
without her.
When the nurse
asked if I smoked,
I lied
again.
It wasn’t until I was
alone in the room
changing into a soft blue gown that my
chest began to
throb with fear.
Was the nicotine
lingering in my lungs?
Would it affect
the surgery?
A second nurse
brought me to a room,
told me to relax,
have a seat.
I didn’t relax, but
I didn’t sit.
Instead, I paced the
little room, knocking into
plugs and wires and
plastic medical devices. Like I’d lost
all sense of spatial judgment, like I couldn’t
be sure I was actually
there.
The room seemed to be shrinking, the walls
closed in around me,
and I became pretty positive
that the cigarette meant everything.
The door swung open.
“Eve Abbott.”
It was Dr. Sowah, followed by a
crowd dressed in scrubs.
“I smoked a cigarette last summer,”
I blurted.
He chuckled.
He was always chuckling.
It slowed my heart rate,
his chuckling.
“Ready?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
My arm felt warm.
Then my face.
The room began to retreat
into my eyes.
“You are going to get
sleepy,” said a voice,
but I was already
sleepy. And moving.
My mother. In a hall.
Cold.
So cold. Though
Lidia is there
holding me. Under the bright
lights. It hadn’t happened yet.
None of it had happened yet.
The Real One
You hugged me
too long.
I let you.
Both of us ignoring the mob of
New Year’s Day shoppers
streaming by.
When you finally pulled back,
your face was a blur. Like
the blood pumping through my head
was pumping it past my eyes.
“Bathing suit shopping,”
you said.
“No, Lid.”
“Yes! A bikini. It’s what you’ve
always wanted.”
“Lidia.”
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t make myself move.
“Come on, Eve,” you begged.
I was about to give in when
he came out of nowhere. Jumping
between us, and making the joke that
you looked tough, and
that I should listen.
He was talking to me.
But he was looking at you.
Of course, his true joke was
that you didn’t look tough—
your slender body
lost in the oversize hoodie.
But the joke was on him, because you
were tough. You’d always been
tough.
Just as you were about to give him
the classic Lidia cold shoulder—a
practiced move used on the ever-growing
number of flirting outsiders—he noticed
the fedora.
“May I?” he asked.
Caught off guard,
you nodded.
Gently, he lifted the hat from your head and
placed it at an angle on his own,
posing with
a grin.
A grin that moved both his cheeks
far to the sides of his face and wrinkled his brow.
A grin that held nothing back.
You stood
staring at that grin,
static electricity floating
strands of your long dark hair toward
the atrium of the mall.
“Keep it,” you said.
He looked straight into your eyes,
that grin still
solidly in place, and
suggested he borrow it.
“Until next Saturday.”
It was a date.
He was making a date with you.
And you
said yes.
His name was Jayden.
Jayden of the grin. And
Jayden of the grin had a friend.
Nick.
Though neither Jayden nor you
asked if this was something
I’d agree to.
Maybe—seeing me twisted and braced, he
assumed I’d agree. Because
what other options did I have?
Whatever he thought—you made the date.
For the movies.
For the both of us.
“Lidia,” I said, the second
he was gone. Instantly,
pissing you off.
Lidia.
Just your name.
But what you assumed
I’d meant by it
was apparent.
You just made a date
with someone who does not know
you have one hand.
And yes,
I admit it.
I did mean this.
But I also meant
You just made me a date
with someone who does not know
I’m twisted as fuck.
The Human Form
CAREFULLY, SO CAREFULLY, I PUSH DOWN ON THE KNIFE. The white pill underneath divides in two with a click… and a bit of fine dust, which I press my finger into and stick in my mouth before I set up the next one.
“It’s a good plan,” she says. “And now when your physical therapist comes, you can tell her you’re down to half your regular dose.”
“Exactly, Lid!” I cry.
It is a good plan, cutting my Roxy in half, doubling my stash, regardless of the fact that it’s my only plan. For right now, it makes me feel better.
I position the knife’s blade in the little nook of another Roxy and apply gentle pressure. The clink of steel meeting the wood of the cutting board is so satisfying—the single pill springing apart into two neat little pieces is like the art of collage, dismantling something old to create something new.
“When I’m done,” I tell her, “I’m going to stick all the halves into a plastic baggie and hide it. I’ll keep the ones in the bottles whole so my mother doesn’t find out.” The thought of all my Roxy neatly packaged in plastic and tucked away into a warm space makes me happy. It reminds me of myself.
“Watch what you’re doing,” she says.
I’ve cut the pill wrong and it crumbles.
“That’s okay,” I say, popping the crumbled pieces into my mouth. “I’m allowed to swallow these parts. That’s the rule.”
“There are rules?”
“Of course there are rules,” I say.
“Who makes them?”
I just smile, and she laughs. Because I make them. Although the need to follow them is strangely unaffected by this fact.