“What’s the brother like?”
“Hot––not your type of hot. He’s all G.I. Joe Navy Seal or something…He’s really nice.”
I can’t tell Veronica about Jordan being ill yet. It feels personal for some reason. I’ve been feeling stupidly protective of him since the news.
“So…,” she starts in a conspiratorial tone. Finished with the cosmo, she places the glass back down on the bar. “Straight into my veins. What’s happening on this week’s edition of Billionaire and the Nanny.”
Some things are impossible to keep from her. She knows me too well. “I’m in trouble.”
Her face puckers. “Oh no, no, no, no, noooo. Have I taught you nothing?” She gestures with her hands. “You do not fall in love before they do. That’s like…rule number one. This is unacceptable behavior. You’ve been a very bad student. F, you’re getting an F for the semester.”
“What do I do? How do I stop it?” She gives me a face that says you poor schmuck.
“You can’t. It’s too late. You gotta go with it.”
“You would tell me if you thought the case was hopeless, right? Cersei said I’m no good for him.”
“Fuck Cersei.” My best friend––I love this girl. “And why would you even say that? Why would you even think it? It’s not like he’s royalty.”
“Because…” A bout of longing hits me. My voice dropping. “Because I barely finished high school and he invents things...that like…benefit humanity. I’m way out of my league here.”
“You know what my grandmother used to say?”
“What?”
“Imma tell you…”
“Say it already.”
“People are people everywhere.”
“I love your grandmother.”
“Yeah, me too.”
My phone dings with an incoming text and I glance at it.
Grim: do we have ibuprofen in the house?
I still have PTSD over the peanut incident. So it’s no surprise that I’m immediately alarmed, every hair on my body standing on end. Now I know why most parents are either overly nervous people, or so fried from years of exhaustion and lack of sleep that they have the motivation of a slug.
Me: yes. Why? Is it the baby?
Grim: no. me. I don’t feel well.
It’s a direct shot to the heart. I jump off the bar stool and sling my messenger bag overhead.
“V, I gotta go. Jordan doesn’t feel well.”
And because she’s my best friend and no explanation is ever necessary she waves me off. “Go. I got this.”
I run twenty blocks home.
For a long time, I thought everyone was going to die. I was a kid and my father died after I was told repeatedly that he was going to, “make it,” and he was going to, “beat it.” Those were two “incontrovertible” facts. And yet he died anyway.
At the time it seemed perfectly legit to me. Why would all these people lie to me? Well, because I was twelve, that’s why. So for a long time after that, I believed two thing: everyone lied, and everyone died.
It took me a long time to get over that. And the only reason I did was not so much for myself, but rather because I didn’t want to become a shell of a person like my mother.
You can try and rationalize that feeling away. You can go to therapy for years. But a small version of it will always remain. Like a wart waiting to come out to remind you that as long as you’re alive it’s still there, needing to be eradicated. That there will always be work to be done.
I run home in a frenzy, the wart making its presence felt. When I get there, I find Jordan on the couch in the living room wearing gray sweatpants, a white thermal shirt, and a blanket wrapped around him. He looks tired and pale. Immediately, my mind goes to the worst possible conclusion.
“How do you feel? Have you taken your temperature?”
“Mmm,” is his articulate reply.
I run into the kitchen and fetch the thermometer and a bottle of Pedialyte. When I return and approach him, he stops me. His hand comes up.
“I don’t want to get you sick. One of us has to stay alive to take care of Maisie.”
“I take zinc and vitamin D every day and you should too.”
“I do,” he nearly growls. He makes a face. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
No words necessary. I race to the kitchen and return just in time with a clean trash can. Bending over it, he empties the contents of his stomach and it’s violent. This isn’t a mild anything. The cold and the flu don’t even hit the stomach that quickly. My suspicion grows.
“Did you go out for dinner tonight?”
“Takeout at the office.” He throws up again and I run my fingers over his scalp, pet his back. Anything to make him feel better right now. I feel terrible for him. Empathy is an actual burden.
“You have food poisoning. I’m almost positive.”
He moans or growls or something.