What if I never get better?
My fingers clutched the cool porcelain of the toilet bowl as another wave of nausea hit, leaving me dizzy and spent. Through blurred vision, I could see the pristine tiles of this picture-perfect venue bathroom. The same venue where, in a few weeks, Shelly would be taking photos with her bridesmaids, all smiles and champagne and a happily ever after.
The unfairness of it all hit me like a gut punch. I didn’t need to be rich. Or happy even. I’d settle for just feelingokay. For being able to exist without pain and sickness. Was that too much to ask? Why did some people get everything—looks, money, success—while some of us sobbed on bathroom floors, trembling with violent episodes of vomiting? Why didmybar in life keep getting lower and lower until simply feelingokayfelt as possible as landing on the moon?
Why did this have to be so hard?
I hated feeling sorry for myself though. Anytime I did, I felt like a terrible person because all I had to do was turn on the news and see what other people were going through in this world for me to realize that some people would kill to have the life I had. Feeling sorry for myself was ungrateful.
I was alive. And I would get through this.
After I wiped my mouth and washed my hands, my phone buzzed with a text. One that left me with a kernel of hope that maybe, just maybe, he might have found something that would tell me what was going on.
Blake: Test results are in. We need to talk.
26
BLAKE
I hurled the stack of test results across my office, watching the papers scatter like frustrated thoughts. My intern had printed them out, as if seeing the results on actual paper might somehow make them tell a different story. They didn’t.
The harsh glow of my computer screen mocked me as I read through the list again:
Electrolytes: Normal. Glucose levels: Normal. Kidney function: Normal. CBC: Normal. EKG: Normal. Cardiac enzymes: Normal. Chest X-ray: Normal. Urinalysis: Normal. Liver function: Normal. Thyroid panel: Normal. MRI: Normal.
“Not one fucking test tells me why she’s sick.”
Dr. Johnson stood in my doorway, his disapproving gaze fixed on the mess of papers carpeting my floor. He drew in one of his signature condescending breaths—the kind that made me want to remind him that I wasn’t his resident anymore.
“You’re getting too emotional on this one,” he drawled.
My head snapped up. “She’s a family friend.” I started pacing, deliberately stepping on the scattered reports, each crunch under my shoes feeling like another dead end.
“This is why you shouldn’t treat someone you have a close relationship with,” Dr. Johnson chided. “You need to hand her off to someone else.”
“To whom exactly?” I spun to face him, heat rising in my chest. “Immunology? No markers for immune deficiency. Primary care? She’s exhausted those options. Cardiology’s looking at everything heart-related, but that doesn’t explain the last year of her life. Which specialty would you have me abandon her to?”
The wordsabandon herhung in the air between us. Because that’s what it would be: abandonment. I’d seen the defeat in Tessa’s eyes when she told me about every doctor who’d dismissed her symptoms, every specialist who’d sent her away with a clean bill of health and an implied pat on the head. Every doctor who’d tossed her to someone else when they came up short for answers.
Johnson tapped his fingers against my desk, staring at the screen. “Her presenting symptoms are two fainting spells and cardiac arrest, correct?”
“Most recently. This started a year ago with some kind of flu followed by a viral infection in her chest. A lingering cough.”
He peered at me over his rimmed glasses, his voice taking on that patronizing edge that made my jaw clench. “A cough.”
“And rashes. Hives. Weight loss.” My voice rose with each symptom. “She has circles under her eyes so dark that they look like bruises. It’s like watching the life drain out of her while everyone stands around, saying she’s fine.”
My mentor clicked through screen after screen of test results. The clicks mocked me with each movement of his mouse, and I knew what he was thinking before he even opened his mouth.
“Doctors have been thorough,” he said, finally breaking the oppressive silence.
“Collectively,” I qualified. “One doctor orders one panel, then passes her off to someone else. Collectively, she’s had a lot of tests, but none of them tell us why she’s sick.”
“But it does rule out a lot,” he said, and I could sense where he was going with this too. Every muscle in my body tensed, not wanting to hear one word of it while he stroked his beard, his expression maddeningly calm. “The skin issues could be allergies. The cough and nausea, a cold or flu. Fainting spells often stem from dehydration, which can trigger cardiac events. As for fatigue …” He shrugged. “She’s in her thirties. It comes with the territory.”
Something inside me snapped. This was my mentor, the brilliant doctor I’d looked up to for years, suggesting that being tired was just part of being in your thirties.
“This is exactly what she’s been through for the past year,” I said, my voice deadly quiet. “Every doctor dismissing her symptoms while she gets worse. No one taking the time to step back and see the whole picture. You know how medicine works. We’re all in our silos. The pulmonologist looks at lungs, the cardiologist at hearts, but when something’s cascading through someone’s entire body?—”
