“For what it’s worth, I think this is a good thing,” Winny says. She squeezes my hand. “Even if you aren’t totally sure what you want out of this. You’re healing, Sulley.”
I smile and squeeze back.
“Healing, and having fun doing it.” My smile becomes wicked. “Which, if I’m honest, I’m not sure you’re capable of having. You care too much.”
Winny crosses her arms, affronted.
“I am capable of fun!” she insists. “Besides, when will I havetimeto foster a relationship? Sophie has dance, Science Olympiad, and violin practice, and between mom duties, work, and grant application deadlines, I can barely find the time to cook. Whoever I meet will have to be fine with a little ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ every other weekend.”
“Oh, you’ll definitely be able to findthat,” I say, and we snicker as I guide Winona through my assortment of dating apps—“LMT is my favorite—it’s professionals only, so you don’t have to swipe through bums”—when a text lights up my screen.
It’s from Julian—another picture, this time of my beloved earring dangling over what appears to be the Chicago River.I’m running out of patience, Sean. And Ms. Face is running out of time.
Winona lets out a laugh.
“I swear to god if you don’t text that poor man back, I will,” she declares. Then she props her head up on her chin. “In the meantime, please teach me your ways.”
I do not teach Winona much of anything, on account of having zero game and acquiring the affections of a baddie purely through chance and despite objectively poor behavior. We do create an account for her on LMT, though, and for the next week she sends me photographs of eligible bachelors (Darren, forty-two, engineer, “Proud dad of 2, Go Astros”; Manny, thirty-two, financial planner, “high-value man, first three dates won’t be dinner”; Lawrence, twenty-six, project manager, “My secret talent is getting back my hoodies after you steal them.”)
I respond to approximately half of them. Not out of lack of interest, but because I can hardly muster the energy to get through my clinic day, let alone sufficiently roast some of the creatures she is sending my way (though in the case of Lawrence—whose potbelly and male pattern baldness suggest that he’s either the very rough twenty-six he’s claiming or a still-struggling forty-seven—the jokes write themselves). Since Monday, I’ve been hit with a sudden, deep-seated exhaustion. It feels like I’ve got the flu, though all the rapid tests I’ve snuck from urgent care keep coming up negative. If I hadn’t spent the last five years regularly placing stents into patients on a cumulative two hours of fitful sleep, I probably would have collapsed at the cath lab table.
When I tell Winny, she gets concerned.
“Your flu tests have been negative? COVID too? Had your iron levels checked recently?” she asks, then flips through a laundry list of symptoms—Body aches? Fevers? Chills?I’m exhibiting none of them. I understand why she’s worried; so many of her young female patients showed up first with fatigue before being found to be riddled with cancer. “Keep a symptom journal. And maybe call out and rest?”
The last thing I want to do is call out, and so I ignore her second suggestion but take the first. Every morning before work I scrawl a line into one of my hundred brightly colored notebooks, always the same:Feel like death. Managed to walk Onix before daycare but only went a block. No shortness of breath, no congestion, no pain, tired.Just the act of recording seems helpful in its own right.
As it is, I stay standing, everyone stays alive, and I make it through Friday morning clinic without having to cancel anyone’s long-awaited appointments.
“Dr. Sullivan,” my medical assistant says, popping her head into my office as I finish up clinic notes. “Um…there’s someone here for you.”
I push my chair back from the table and give her a weary look.
“What time was their appointment?” I ask, rubbing circles into my temples. It’s a moot question; we both know that I’ll see them anyway.
“They…aren’t a patient,” she says. She looks outright delighted, and I squint with suspicion, which only mounts when she follows me out to the front desk.
I see Julian’s admirers before I see him—a room full of brightened cheeks and shyly averting eyes. He looks out of place in our standard-issue clinic chairs, like a grown man sitting in a plastic playhouse seat. My body’s reaction is instant, a sudden wash of delight, like I’m thirteen again and my crush has just shown up at my volleyball game.
Julian stands to greet me.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, aghast.
“I’m returning your earring,” Julian says, pulling out the gold wire face from his pocket as if that is explanation enough. He’s wearing a white shirt under an olive-green cable knit sweater, and the getup makes him look like someone’s sexy professor. In contrast, I look like I’ve been hit by a truck.
“Ah yes, and that’s a totally normal reason to show up at my place of work,” I mutter. It’s the kind of boundary-breaking behavior that I know I shouldn’t tolerate, that’s cute now but might get worse. But I’m also self-aware enough to admit that I kind of like it.
If Julian is bothered by my lack of enthusiasm, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he gives me an inscrutable smile, like he knows something I don’t.
“Well, to be fair, I’m not here just for you. I was in the area for a meeting, so I figured I’d stop by, see if you were too.”
The burning humiliation in my cheeks I expect. The despondentdrop in my stomach at the realization that Julian is just here by coincidence and not because he has been chasing me down I do not.Get yourself together, Sean, I tell myself, willing the misery away.
“Oh,” I say, hoping to sound casual. “Well, you know what they say about assumptions.”
Julian’s expression softens.
“You didn’t make assumptions,” he says. Then he bends to pull something out from under his chair: a crisp, large white paper shopping bag with golden rope handles. “For you.”