Surge

19

The past twenty-fourhours were fuzzy at best. It was like watching a show on Netflix when your broadband was slow. Nothing around me had had sharp edges. I couldn’t really make out what color people’s eyes were or whether their hair was up or down. I couldn’t see their mouths moving. People had been faceless.

But I did remember consenting to a transfusion. It had been the only staccato moment since being at RI yesterday. A brief adrenaline rush brought me to. What the hell? I needed blood? Weren’t blood transfusions for amputations and hemophiliacs?

I didn’t question for long. I would have done anything to stop myself slipping away any further. I’d hardly felt Maeve in my arms when the doctor came in. I’d have done anything to feel her again.

Not long after they slipped a needle in without me even really noticing, the edges of everything around me began to sharpen. And then I must have fallen asleep again.

I woke up the next morning feeling like a new man. A total miracle had occurred; I’d risen from the dead. I was in a hospital room. Maeve sat in a chair glancing at her phone and hadn’t noticed my eyes open. Her tiny body was curled up into the fetal position, her head rested on the arm of the chair as coiled as a dog in a basket. She looked exhausted.

“Morning, Fairy…”

Her eyes shot to me. The shock at seeing me awake evident. She jumped up and came to my side. I shuffled up the be to seem more awake.

She threw her arms around me. “How’re you feeling, my love? And how do you still smell like deodorant and sunshine? After all of this?”

“I highly doubt that.” I ran my tongue across my teeth. “I need a rain check on a French kiss.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“You been here all night?”

She nodded and ran her hands over her head, smoothing back her bangs. I never really noticed what an adorable small forehead she had or that her eyebrows were so arched.

“You still look insanely hot. Need to get you in a nurse’s uniform…”

“What? Scrubs?” she joked. “I guess you’re feeling better.”

“A lot. What a fucking drama. I honestly barely even remember what happened yesterday.”

“You know you passed out?”

“Yeah. I was on the floor and…” I threw my forehead into my palm. “Shit. Jacinta and Hunter saw me like that? Not a good look.”

“It’s fine. They were worried, not thinking about whether or not it would make the front cover of Vogue.”

“I don’t get how all that could have even happened.” Suddenly, I realized where I’d left everything. “Wait. Shit. What happened with Jay?”

“It’s all done, babe. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.” Maeve ran her finger along my eyebrow. It was a slow, relaxing, deliberate movement and felt good as a Swedish massage. “Drake…” She did my other eyebrow. “…you really haven’t been telling me the truth. About how badly you’re feeling.”

No, I hadn’t. I hadn’t told her. In part because men really didn’t talk that much about this shit, and in part because every day I’d woken up, I’d thought it would be different. “I’ve known it would pass.”

She shook her head, and her eyes lowered. Her chest and shoulders rose with a deep inhale. Her gaze was fixed to the bed. “It’s not going to pass, Drake. Something’s wrong. You needed a transfusion, Drake.” Finally, her gaze met mine again. “You were severely anemic.”

“I’ll eat some steak and have some iron…”

“Drake, I know people who are anemic. They don’t pass out for a whole day. And…”

Behind us there was a rap on the doorframe. “Hey. Knock, knock.” It was a physician with fade top hair in a white lab coat. “You up and at ’em?”

I nodded and pushed myself up further. This was the part about hospitals and doctors I hated. The bed. Sitting in a bed while trying to have an egalitarian conversation just didn’t work. You were the submissive and the doctor was the dominant.

“I’m Dr. Chidozie.” He came over to shake my hand. ”I’m taking over your care from today.”

Maeve and I shared a glance. My care?

Dr. Chidozie looked at a clipboard he had in his hand. “I’m a hematologist.”