Heartsick (11 page)

He nods at Mandy, ignores Zachary, and I introduce him to Rashid. They shake hands over my bed.

“I heard you were Quinn’s hero last night,” Rashid says, voice full of vigor and gratitude. “Thank God you were there.”

“Yeah,” Luke says, but like he’s no longer here. It’s as if he’s talking to us from some murky location. He looks at me as though he wants to touch me again, hug me, squeeze my hand, but he hesitates and finally just nods a goodbye before walking away.

Chapter Nineteen

Rashid takes Luke’s seat. He hands me the daffodils. I’m so happy to see him with his normal brown eyes.

“Thank you,” I say, pushing the petals and scent against my face. Rashid’s dimple creases sharply as he gives me a lopsided smile.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

“Good,” I say. “Except for these weird eyes.”

Rashid shakes his head. “They’re beautiful.”

“How are you feeling?” Zachary asks. “How would you rank your pain level?” I’m struck by the sterile nature of his question.

“Low, I guess,” I say.

He scrutinizes the whiteboard across from my bed. The one with the names of my nurses and my check-in date and a smiley face next to my patient goals and other things of that nature. “So you were on morphine, but—” he spins around, “—nothing now?”

“I guess not,” I say. Rashid’s hand finds mine. It’s still warm from Luke’s touch.

“Well, they could give you some now?” Zachary says.

“Want me to get the nurse?” Rashid asks, his loose grip on my hand transforming into a tight squeeze.

“No, I’m fine.”

Zachary nods. Mandy stands next to me, the tips of her fingers gently resting on my bed. “That’s good. Do you need me to call your parents?”

I hadn’t even thought to call them. They aren’t really the type to fly all the way back from Japan just because I got into a kerfuffle that I’m already recovered from. We have a distant, but perfectly healthy, adult relationship.

“No,” I say. “I’ll email them later.”

Mandy nods, her lips squishing together. She looks around the room. “Sorry we didn’t come sooner. I got caught up.” She tries to keep it in—I can tell by the way her cheeks twitch—

but a devilish smile emerges.

“What happened?” I ask. I can’t help mirroring her expression.

“She hit a few guys.” Zachary looks at the ground.

“What?” I ask, my left cheek squished in surprise.

Mandy waves her hand. “Well, I was trying to get to you, Quinn. But one of those religious guys said I should give Jared space to speak. When I tried to get by him, he pushed me. So I punched him. Then another guy tried to hold me, so I stomped his foot and elbowed him in the ribs.” Her fingers ball into fists on my bed. “I was feeling, I don’t know, powerful.” Mandy’s chest rises as she breathes in. “But I guess the cops couldn’t let well enough alone. They had to have a little chat with me.”

“Mandy,” I say. The beats from my heart monitor speed up. “Why did you—”

“It’s fine. They just made me sit in the station for a while alone until I had to pee real bad. Then I stood in front of the mirror and demanded that they go ahead and charge me with assault for protecting myself against men twice my size.” The smooth smile is back. She shrugs. “They decided to let me go.”

I want to ask her if she talked to Luke, but now might not be the best time to tell her he’s a cop. Plus, Mandy’s biting her lip and wrinkling her forehead. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you,” Mandy says.

“It’s okay. It’s fine and I’m fine,” I say. Rashid’s hand somehow grasps mine even harder. I squeeze back, testing something. He loosens up, but only a little.

“It could have been bad, though,” Mandy says, her face hard.

“Yeah, I know. They said I had internal bleeding, but I guess I’m okay now.” Rashid’s gaze never leaves mine, but his eyes look like they are off somewhere else, thinking through something dark and complicated.

“I think it’s connected to this purple eye thing, somehow,” I say. “Remember your arm, how it cleared up?”

“Yeah, thanks to my mom’s home remedies,” Mandy says, staring past me. Zachary puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Home remedies don’t do that,” I say. “And I was coughing blood just hours ago, and now I’m fine.”

“I didn’t realize you were a doctor,” Zachary says. His voice is hoarse, and his face is red. He takes off his jacket, as though it had been constraining him, and sets it on a chair. He itches his neck. “If you were coughing blood, maybe you just scratched your throat or something.”

But there was bubbly blood on the stage. It started as sprays but ended up being gulps.

A nurse brings in some strawberry Jell-O and a rubbery looking hamburger, which I’ll still devour with glee. Recovering from internal bleeding can make a girl hungry.

“Fine, but what about my arm? It was broken and now it’s straight?” I hold it up and twist it around.

“It was broken before?” Rashid asks, his mouth slightly open. He’s awed. Or suspicious of how much I know what I’m talking about.

Zachary steps forward, his face hard. “Well, maybe it—”

Mandy holds her hand out, sighing. “Stop playing detective, okay? She needs to rest.” Her tone drips authority. “In fact, maybe we should leave.”

I’m about to protest, but they’re all already shuffling out. And I do feel like I could sleep for hours and hours. Well, after I eat.

“Rashid,” I say. He comes back and curves his hands around the base of my bed, eyes wide. “Um, could I talk to you later about something?”

He smiles. “You can talk to me about anything.”

“What about this afternoon?”

He cocks his head. “You think you’ll be out of here by then?”

“God, I hope so,” I say. Aside from a sore midsection, there’s nothing wrong with me. Right?

“Okay,” Rashid says. “I’ll be working in the lab, but you can stop by. I can even give you a tour.”

“I’d really like that, thanks.”

On his way out, he does this thing where, just as he’s about to walk out of my view, he leans his head back and gives me a goofy smile and wave. “See you soon.” It’s so dorky it makes me laugh, which then makes my side sting. I clutch it, take a shallow breath, and then feel fine once again.

When I’m halfway through the hamburger and letting the strawberry Jell-O swish around on my tongue, Zachary comes back. He’s alone.

“Sorry,” he says. “Forgot my jacket.” He grabs it from the chair and starts back toward the door, before pivoting. “And I’m sorry for getting upset. I guess it’s just, Mandy and I have this condition too and—”

“You don’t have to explain,” I say to him. “Everything is sort of weird right now. I get why you’d be worried. And I know how much you care about Mandy too.”

His mouth spreads. It’s not exactly a smile, but it’s not a bad expression. He leaves me to my Jell-O.

* * *

After eating a second hamburger that Bill scrounged up for me, I fall into a deep sleep. When I wake up, Conrad is staring out the window.

“Hey,” I mumble.

“Hey.” Conrad steps toward me. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” I say. “Actually, I feel fine. Hopefully they’ll let me out of here soon.”

“It’s like you’re completely healed.” Conrad’s focus is so intense, like I’m a small bead of something that he has to narrow in on.

“Yeah...” I say. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I think it has something to do with these eyes. Or whatever is causing these eyes.”

He smiles and puts his hands behind his back, his shoulders leaning forward. “I do too.” He takes three steps toward me and looks up as though he’s looking to the heavens instead of a gray hospital room ceiling. “He’s doing it. He’s blessing you.”

“Well, that’s the opposite of what Jared thinks.”

His gaze is back on me. Plain old earthly me. He says it squarely. “They are ridiculous.”

“Well, is it any less ridiculous to think God did this to bless us?” That might be going a little far, but I don’t ask it angrily. I just don’t see why Conrad has such faith. Where does it come from?

I’m no nihilist. I’m not the kind of person who wears all black and smokes cigarettes and gets super annoyed and riled up because the sheep on earth don’t realize there’s no point to any of it. I’m the kind of person who wears a yellow dress with flip-flops while pointing out that if nothing matters, it also doesn’t matter that we’re sheep who are dumb enough to think stuff does matter.

A true nihilist wouldn’t appreciate art, either, or understand its meaning. We view the universe by being present. We give it meaning and we create on top of the canvas things like hope and salvation and joy.

And God. I guess I have no right to take away Conrad’s God. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say you were ridiculous.” My voice is scratchy from sleep and drama and painkillers and hospital Jell-O. Well, maybe not the Jell-O.

Conrad smiles. “There are different kinds of ridiculous.” He kneels down, so our faces are level. “Quinn, stay away from Jared.”

“I don’t know, Conrad, I was thinking of having him over for mani-pedis and martinis.”

While one corner of his mouth tugs up in response to my inappropriate humor, Conrad’s cheeks are stiff. “Seriously. They think they can do anything in the name of God.”

“What, do you mean, anything? What do you think they’re capable of?” I ask.

“That’s the scary thing,” Conrad says. “I have no idea.”

Chapter Twenty

I’m free! The doctors were hesitant to let me go, given the “extent and severity of my injuries” when I first arrived. However, after poking and prodding and running me through a machine, they had to concede that I was perfectly fine. Even my parents’ Cadillac insurance isn’t going to pay for me to stay in the hospital when I’m an impeccable specimen of health.

My first task is to email them. I still haven’t told them about my eyes. A strange cosmetic change to my irises didn’t seem worthy of getting them all riled up while my mom was hobnobbing with Japanese artists and my dad was doing his uber-important job. But being attacked and having a smidge of internal bleeding does seem like something they would want to know about.

Still, with my thumbs on my phone, I decide, since I’m fine, that it isn’t worth getting into all that. So I just tell them I had a minor accident and was in the hospital but am fine, fine, fine.

Between the time difference and their busy schedules, I figure it will take them hours to respond. So when my phone buzzes with a response ten minutes later, it startles me.

Konnichiwa from Japan! Did you get the tea we sent you? You must try the matcha.

Glad to hear you’re fine. Hospitals can be such scary places. Please let us know if you need any additional funds.

Also, you sure you’re okay?

Love mom (and dad)

I dash off another email, letting them know the tea kept me company on a recent all-nighter and that I am fine. Fine, fine, fine.

Actually, I’m not fine. But I know what will fix me. I go to the art studio and work on my current project—a vision of a woman alone in a field, but a trippy sort of field—while munching on peanuts and grapes and popcorn. Good artsy sustenance. It’s not ’til I start to put things away that I realize how many shades of purple I’ve used. A shiver descends my spine.

In the afternoon, I find one of my favorite spots by the river that’s nestled within the woods. I take a pack of watercolors and let the H2O molecules drift and blend with the colors, squirming along the paper into images that are out of my control.

I feel better. Art saves me.

It wasn’t always that way. My mom pushed me. No daughter of hers was going to lack artistic talent. But I was scared of the prim, old art teacher at my elementary school. She made rounds around the room, frowning at the glue-and-paint-covered children.

I always got paint all over my skin too. But one time I carefully painted this picture of a cabin in the forest. She came over, her arms crossed. That didn’t mean much because her arms were always crossed. You had to pay attention to her neck and the way it bent about as far as it could, her face almost perpendicular to the floor as she studied your work.

“Good,” she said. “That is very good.” And the corners of her usually stiff mouth peaked, crescendoing into her cheeks.

That’s when I first knew it. I may not have been the brightest kid in class, but I had it.

I had talent.

* * *

I go home to shower and change before getting ready to see Rashid. I spend too long in front of the mirror deciding which perfume to wear, considering I’m not going to socialize, I’m going to pick his brain and see what I can find out that will help Danny and me.

His lab has a window on the door, so I can see him before I knock. He’s bent over, wisps of black hair descending over his forehead as he mixes something together in a Petri dish. His fingers gently seize a test tube. He holds it up to the light, studying it.

Eventually, I make myself stop being a creepy voyeur and I tap my knuckles on the pane. His head shoots up and his mouth erupts into a smile. He puts down the test tube and walks swiftly to the door.

“Hey,” he says. His hand comes down on my shoulder, his fingers press into the skin near my bra strap.

Labs are such desperate places. Sort of like fancy art museums. There’s a lot to see and “ooh” and “ah” over, but you probably shouldn’t touch anything.

He lets me look into microscopes and explains the bacterium he’s working on. “See how they’re sort of pea shaped and have the fibrils sticking out?”

I nod, even though I don’t know what
fibrils
means. It’s amazing to see these little beings. They exist in our world, yet it seems that they don’t.

Rashid stands behind me, but I feel him get closer, ’til he’s enveloping me. I want it, but I don’t. He has real feelings for me, so it would be cruel. Plus, what about this purple eye shit?

I push back and sway away. “So, are you any closer to curing the rats?”

He rubs his eyes and puts his hands on his hips. He corrects me. “Wood rats, not rats. And yes, we are, which is exciting. But I can’t really talk about the specifics.”

I laugh. “It’s okay, I probably wouldn’t understand them anyway.”

He smiles a knowing, agreeable smile. He wasn’t supposed to agree with me. Even if I was right.

“Well, I’m actually here because I wanted to talk to you about stuff that is way over my head.”

“Like what?” Rashid asks.

“Like, well, about white blood cells and healing and bacteria.”

“Quinn.” He cocks his head. “Bacteria are over your head.”

“Well, I know, but maybe I could understand—”

He grins. “And they’re inside you and inside me and everywhere.”

“Ah,” I say, keeping my voice as serious and wondrous as possible. “Kind of like neutrinos?”

“Ha!” He knocks his head back. I knew this would make him laugh. I watched a documentary with Conrad a few weeks ago on the universe and the speed of light and whatnot, and they had this whole bit about neutrinos. They’re these little beads of things that are everywhere and that dart through you all the time. Kind of like the Force. Maybe.

Rashid’s face slackens, but his eyes stay intense and focused on me. Never a man for subtlety, he takes two steps toward me and brushes a stray strand of hair behind my ear. The thing is, I kind of liked that that strand had been a little unruly. It was free. Then his hand falls to my neck. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss you more.”

He closes his eyes and pulls my face toward his lips. I push against his chest so hard that I bump into a table behind me. I’ll probably earn a bruise. It will be a creepy, fast-healing bruise.

“What was—” Rashid starts.

“I’ve got purple eyes!” After I have some distance from him, I start to pace between the lab tables and tubes and weird-looking equipment. He follows me. He tries to contain me, touching my elbow briefly, then my shoulder, but I’m always turning, always shifting.

“You’re a scientist. Don’t you realize this could be some kind of contagious bacteria? You have to see that, and here you are still trying to kiss me.” Bubbling anger rises in my throat.

He runs his fingers through his black hair. It flops over his confused eyebrows adorably. My face softens.

“I like you, Quinn,” he says. “And so what if it’s contagious? You aren’t sick. A lot of bacteria are good for us.”

He moves toward me. His perfectly normal, perfectly beautiful brown eyes look like they could hold the cosmos. “You aren’t thinking straight,” I say, but partly to myself because I do sort of want to kiss him and have to remind myself I can’t. “I mean, I don’t know much about science, but if this is a disease, isn’t it possible the negative side effects just haven’t happened yet? People can have HIV for years before they develop AIDS.”

His smile is small. “Of course you’re right. But you can’t live your life in a bubble.”

He leans in again. What. The. Fuck?