I woke up and stared at my ceiling. Something was wrong … something … but I couldn’t figure out what it was. A weight pressed down on my chest. The kind that comes when you feel dread, but you can’t quite place your finger on why. Five minutes, twenty minutes, two minutes, seven minutes, an hour. I have no idea how long I lay like that, staring up at the ceiling … not thinking. Then I rolled onto my side and a nurse’s word came back to me: discomfort. Yes, I felt discomforted. Why? Because I was raped. My mind recoiled. I’d once seen a neighbor boy pour salt on a snail. I’d watched in horror as its tiny body disintegrated on the pavement. I’d run home crying, asking my mother why something we seasoned our food with had the power to kill a snail. She’d told me that salt absorbs all of the water that their bodies are made of, so they essentially dry out or suffocate because they can’t breathe. That’s what I felt like. Everything had changed in a day. I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but it was there—between my legs, in my mind … oh God, on my couch. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I rolled over, reaching for the inhaler in my nightstand and knocking the lamp over. It crashed to the floor as I struggled to sit up. When had I even come back to my bed? I’d gone to sleep in the bathroom, on the floor. A second later, Dr Asterholder came crashing through my bedroom door. He looked from me to the lamp, then back to me again. “Where is it?” he barked. I pointed, and he was across the room in two steps. I watched him rip open the drawer and rummage around until he found it. I grabbed it from his hand, biting down on the spacer and feeling the albuterol fill my lungs a second later. He waited until I’d caught my breath to pick up the lamp. I was embarrassed. Not just about the asthma attack, but about the night before. That I’d let him stay.
“Are you all right?”
I nodded without looking at him.
“From the asthma?”
Yes. As if sensing my discomfort, he took leave of my room, closing the door behind him. It jerked into place as if it didn’t sit against the seam so well anymore. I’d locked the door the night before, and he’d managed to get in with a hard shove of his shoulder. That didn’t make me feel very good.
I showered again, this time forgoing the Brillo pad for a bar of plain, white, soap with a bird cut delicately into its skin. The bird irritated me, so I scratched it away with my fingernail. My skin, still fresh and pink from the night before, tingled under the hot water. You’re fine, Senna, I told myself. You’re not the only one this has happened to. I dried off, patting my tender skin, and stopped to look at myself in the mirror. I looked different. Though I couldn’t put my finger on how. Maybe less soul. When I was a child my mother would tell me that people lost soul in two ways: someone could take it from you, or you’d surrender it willingly.
You’re dead, I thought. My eyes said it was true. I dressed, covering every inch of my body in clothing. I wore so many layers someone would have to cut me out of them to get to my body. Then I walked downstairs, flinching at the discomfort between my legs. I found him in my kitchen sitting on a barstool and reading the paper. He had brewed coffee and was sipping out of my favorite mug. I don’t even get the paper. I hoped he stole it from my neighbors; I hated them.
“Hello,” he said, setting his mug down. “I hope you don’t mind.” He gestured to the coffee setup and I shook my head. He got up and poured me a mug. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Neither,” I said. I didn’t want coffee but I took it when he handed it to me. He was careful not to touch me, not to get too close. I took a tentative sip and set my mug down. This was awkward. Like the morning after a one night stand when no one knows where to stand and what to say, and where their underwear is.
“What type of doctor are you?”
“I’m a surgeon.”
That’s about as far as I went with questions. He stood up and carried his mug to the sink. I watched him rinse it and place it upside down in the draining rack.
“I have to get to the hospital.”
I stared at him, unsure why he was telling me this. Were we a team now? Was he coming back?
He pulled out another card and set it on the counter. “If you need me.”
I looked at the card, plain white card stock with block lettering, then back to his face.
“I won’t.”