The Dirty Truth
I think about it all night.
But mostly, I think about her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ELLE
I’m paging through an out-of-season Christmas issue of Better Homes and Gardens in my neurologist’s waiting room when a text from Tom pings my phone.
TOM: Okay, something weird is going on.
ME: What’s up?
TOM: Head honcho is here . . . for NO reason . . . and he brought catered breakfast . . . from Beauvais.
ME: Maybe he just wanted to do something nice for a change?
Sounds like someone took my words to heart last night . . .
TOM: We’re clearly not talking about the same person.
ME: Stranger things have happened.
TOM: Someone overheard him making SMALL TALK with Anita’s assistant. Just random small talk. Like it was completely normal.
TOM: I feel like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe. Is this real life??
ME: Enjoy it!
Closing out of my chat with Tom, I shoot West a text.
ME: So freaking proud of you.
Within seconds, he responds.
WEST: No idea what you’re talking about.
ME: Liar.
“Elle Napier?” A young nurse in bright-pink scrubs calls my name from the door beside the reception desk. Tucking my phone away, I head back for my checkup. “Let’s grab a quick weight on you.”
She stops at a scale, and I slip off my shoes and close my eyes before climbing on. A year ago, I’d have cared about the number and based my entire day around whether it was within a certain range. I’ve since learned I have more important things to worry about, and I’ll be damned if I let a number put a damper on a perfectly good day.
“Okay, we’re going to head back to room number three,” the nurse says.
We settle into a small room with salmon-pink walls and a portrait of a buck in a forest.
“Just going to get a blood pressure on you,” she says as I perch myself on the edge of the exam table, paper crumpling beneath me. A minute later, she jots down a number. “Perfect, perfect. Any questions or concerns you want to bring up to Dr. Breckenridge today?”
“None at all.” I lift my hands before clapping them on my lap. “Everything’s been going really well. I had some fatigue those first few weeks at home, but it seems to have resolved in the past month.”
“No headaches, eye pain, dizziness, blurred vision . . .”
I shake my head. “No, none of that.”
She taps a few notes into her laptop before shutting the lid and packing up. “All right, the doctor will be with you shortly.”
I rest on the edge of the exam table, my shoes barely scuffing the footrest, as some elevator music version of a Taylor Swift song pipes in from above. A few minutes later, a knock at the door is followed by the man of the hour.
“Dr. Breckenridge,” I say. “So good to see you.”
“And you as well, Ms. Napier.” He offers a honey-warm smile as he washes his hands and settles into a rolling stool. “So what’s the latest? How’s everything going?”
While Matt’s wife was the one who called 911 after I collapsed, it was Dr. Breckenridge and his team who saved my life when I got to the hospital. They were the ones who quickly figured out what was happening and prepped me for emergency surgery after I ruptured and coded in the exam room.
“Any changes since the last time?” he asks, retrieving a penlight from behind his ear. “Blurred or double vision?” He shines the light into my left eye, then my right.
“None.”
“Any new numbness or tingling or weaknesses?”
“Nope.”
“And your fatigue?” he asks.
“Better.”
“And how’s work? You went back the other week, right?”
“Yeah. Two weeks ago. But I quit last week.”
His gray eyes search mine. “Wait, why? They wouldn’t accommodate you?”
During my recovery, he told me it was crucial for me to avoid stress or anything that could raise my blood pressure, and he wrote me an order not to work long hours anymore. Though I suspect the order was more for me than for HR.
“No, it’s not that,” I say. “It just wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore.”
He exhales. “Yeah, that’s one of the side effects they don’t write about in textbooks. Sometimes after traumatic or life-altering experiences, people make huge life changes. A lot of times their loved ones will chalk it up to a personality change from brain damage or something like that. Everyone always wants a medical explanation. But most of the time that brush with death was their tipping point to do the things they’d always wanted to do or live a better life than the one they’d had before. Looks different for everyone, of course. But it’s completely normal.”
“Yes,” I say, pointing. “That’s exactly it.”
“You’re a very fortunate young woman,” he says, pushing up from his stool. He told me the same thing in the week that followed my surgery, and he informed me that 60 percent of aneurysm-rupture patients have some sort of permanent disability afterward. “One of the lucky ones, that’s for sure.”