She almost smiled. “Let’s talk about a plan to take that medication every single day,” she said, and then proceeded to talk about mornings versus evenings, and how we could also try to get off the medication and try a different one, but that might be best attempted during a less stressful period, like summer vacation, and on and on.
Meanwhile, for some reason I felt a twinge in my stomach. Probably just nerves from listening to Dr. Singh talk about dosages. But that’s also how C. diff starts—your stomach hurts because a few bad bacteria have managed to take hold in your small intestine, and then your gut ruptures and seventy-two hours later you’re dead.
I needed to reread that case study of the woman who had no symptoms except a stomachache and turned out to have C. diff. Can’t get out my phone right now, though—she’ll get pissed off—but did that woman have some other symptom at least, or am I exactly like her? Another twinge. Did she have a fever? Couldn’t remember. Shit. It’s happening. You’re sweating now. She can tell. Should you tell her? She’s a doctor. Maybe you should tell her.
“My stomach hurts a little,” I said.
“You don’t have C. diff,” she answered.
I nodded and swallowed, then said in a small voice, “I mean, you don’t know that.”
“Aza, are you having diarrhea?”
“No.”
“Have you recently taken antibiotics?”
“No.”
“Have you been hospitalized recently?”
“No.”
“You don’t have C. diff.”
I nodded, but she wasn’t a gastroenterologist, and anyway, I literally knew more about C. diff than she did. Almost 30 percent of people who died of C. diff didn’t acquire it in a hospital, and over 20 percent didn’t have diarrhea. Dr. Singh returned to the medication conversation, and as I half listened, I started thinking I might throw up. My stomach really hurt now, like it was twisting in on itself, like the trillions of bacteria within me were making room for a new species in town, the one that would rip me apart from the inside out.
The sweat was pouring out of me. If I could just confirm that case study. Dr. Karen Singh saw what was happening.
“Should we try a breathing exercise?” And so we did, inhaling deeply and then exhaling as if to flicker the candle but not extinguish it.
She told me she wanted to see me in ten days. You can kind of measure how crazy you are based on how soon they want to see you back. Last year, for a while, I’d been at eight weeks. Now, less than two.
On the walk from her office to Harold, I looked up the case report. That woman, she did have a fever. I told myself to feel relieved, and maybe I did for a little while, but by the time I got home, I could hear the whisper starting up again, that something was definitely wrong with my stomach since the gnawing ache wouldn’t go away.
I think, You will never be free from this.
I think, You don’t pick your thoughts.
I think, You are dying, and there are bugs inside of you that will eat through your skin.
I think and I think and I think.
NINE
BUT I ALSO HAD A LIFE, a normal-ish life, which continued. For hours or days, the thoughts would leave me be, and I could remember something my mom told me once: Your now is not your forever. I went to class, got good grades, wrote papers, talked to Mom after lunch, ate dinner, watched television, read. I was not always stuck inside myself, or inside my selves. I wasn’t only crazy.
On date night, I got home from school and spent a solid two hours getting dressed. It was a cloudless day in late September, cold enough to justify a coat, but warm enough that a sleeved dress with tights could be managed. Then again, that might seem like trying, and texting Daisy was no help because she responded she was going to wear an evening gown, and I couldn’t totally tell if she was kidding.
In the end, I went for my favorite jeans and a hoodie over a lavender T-shirt Daisy had given me featuring Han Solo and Chewbacca in a fierce embrace.
I then spent another half hour applying and unapplying makeup. I’m not the sort of person who usually gets carried away with that stuff, but I was nervous, and sometimes makeup feels kind of like armor.
“Are you wearing eyeliner?” Mom asked when I emerged from my room. She was sorting through bills and had spread them out across the entire coffee table. The pen she held hovered over a checkbook.
“A little,” I said. “Does it look weird?”
“Just different,” Mom said, failing to disguise her disapproval. “Where are you headed?”
“Applebee’s with Daisy and Davis and Mychal. Back by midnight.”
“Is this for a date?”
“It’s dinner,” I said.
“Are you dating Davis Pickett?”
“We are both eating dinner at the same restaurant at the same time. It’s not marriage.”
She gestured at the spot next to her on the couch. “I’m supposed to be there at seven,” I said. She pointed at the couch again. I sat down, and she put her arm around me.
“You don’t talk much to your mother.”
Dr. Singh told me once that if you have a perfectly tuned guitar and a perfectly tuned violin in the same room, and you pluck the D string of the guitar, then all the way across the room, the D string on the violin will also vibrate. I could always feel my mother’s vibrating strings. “I also don’t talk much to other people.”
“I want you to be careful about that Davis Pickett, okay? Wealth is careless—so around it, you must be careful.”
“He’s not wealth. He’s a person.”
“People can be careless, too.” She squeezed me so tight it felt like she was pressing the breath out of me. “Just be careful.”
—
I was the last to arrive, and the remaining space was next to Mychal, across from Davis, who was wearing a plaid button-down, nicely ironed, sleeves rolled up just so, exposing his forearms. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been pretty keen on the male forearm.
“Cool shirt,” Davis said.
“Birthday present from Daisy,” I said.
“You know, some people think it’s bestiality, for a Wookiee to love a human,” Daisy said.
Mychal sighed. “Don’t get her started on the whole Are-Wookiees-people thing.”
“That’s actually the most fascinating thing about Star Wars,” said Davis.
Mychal groaned. “Oh God. It’s happening.” Daisy immediately launched into a defense of Wookiee-human love. “You know, for a moment in Star Wars Apocrypha, Han was actually married to a Wookiee, but does anyone freak out about that?” Davis was leaning forward, listening intently. He was smaller than Mychal, but he took up more room—Davis’s gangly limbs occupied space like an army holds territory.
Davis and Daisy were chatting back and forth about the dehumanization of Clone troopers, and Mychal jumped in to explain that Daisy was actually kind of a famous writer of Star Wars fan fiction. Davis looked her username up on his phone and was impressed by the two thousand reads on her most recent story, and then they were all laughing about some Star Wars joke I couldn’t quite follow.
“Waters for everyone,” Daisy said when Holly arrived to take our drink order.
Davis turned to me and said, “They don’t have Dr Pepper?”
“Soft drinks aren’t covered by the coupon,” Holly explained, monotone. “But also, no. We have Pepsi.”
“Well, I think we can spring for a round of Pepsis,” he said.