All's Well(77)

“She has been working herself up a lot, haven’t you dear?” her mother adds. “She hasn’t been able to sleep.”

“BECAUSE I’M SICK! And I’ve never been unwell before! I’ve never been sick!”

“Apparently, she’s not sick now either,” her father adds.

“Jim,” Briana’s mother hisses.

Briana looks at him, eyes flashing with betrayal. She could kill him, strangle him, her own father. Right here, right now, with her small, frail hands.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” her father continues, unfazed. “How many doctors has she seen now. Six?”

“Seven,” her mother says, patting Briana’s greasy hair, but Briana shakes her off.

“Seven.” He looks at me. “We’ve had all kinds of tests done. They all say there’s nothing wrong with her. That she’s healthy as a horse.”

“No one’s said that!” Briana protests.

“They say that maybe she had some kind of virus,” he continues, talking to me and the dean now, “but that stress is what’s keeping her immune system out of whack.”

“What about my leg, then?” Briana demands. “What about my back?”

She’s looking right at her father, pleading, but he’s a wall. He continues to address me and the dean.

“They say her back is probably just messed up because she’s been in bed for so long. That her leg is messed up because her back is messed up.”

“Only one doctor said that! And he was an idiot. He didn’t even listen to me!”

“But it makes sense, doesn’t it?” her father presses, looking at us.

“A domino effect,” the dean says happily. “Absolutely. One time, I hurt my ankle. Next thing it was my shoulder. Next thing I knew I had a headache. That’s your domino effect.”

My phone buzzes in my lap. I look down. Hugo, sending me texts.

Last night my god

Can’t stop thinking about it

Jesus ur fucking hot. my god.

Meet me in wkshp now?

I hide my phone under Briana’s sick glare.

“All compensatory,” the dean is saying. “Weakness begets weakness. And stress can play terrible tricks on us.”

“Sure it can,” says her father. “That’s what we’ve been telling her.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here! I hate when you do that! I’m right here! Right here in this room!” Her voice is wavering wildly. She looks less angry, more desperate. Her sweaty white face punched in with self-pity and fear, real fear. Fucking look at me! Am I invisible?

How many surgeons, physiatrists, doctors, have I looked at like this? Only to have them address themselves instead to Paul sitting beside me? Paul would nod along solemnly with the doctor and then look over at me, at a loss. Did you see how he just talked to you again? Did you see?! I’d ask in the car after we left.

I saw, Paul said.

Am I invisible? What the fuck was that about?

I don’t know, Miranda, okay? he sighed. Calm down.

And then after our split, when I went to the doctor alone, they still wouldn’t look at me. They would direct their questions, their diagnoses, to the corners of the room or to the medical table or to the diagram of the skinned body on the wall. As if these objects were somehow more trustworthy, more reasonable.

“I’m here,” Briana says again. “Right here.”

“Of course you are,” the dean says.

“And I’m not stressed, I’m sick! SHE made me sick.”

“No one’s saying your pain isn’t real, sweetheart,” her mother begins. “But remember that video they showed us? About pain and the brain?”

Briana looks at her mother like she could smack her. Then tears fill her eyes again. I recall Mark’s face in the SpineWorks basement. Looking at me like he understood me, like someone finally understood me. I have a video for you to watch, Miranda. I think it would help you. That it would be a great place for us to start. The sense of betrayal that welled up in me later as I stood crookedly in my apartment, watching the anthropomorphic brain wander a sad gray world of its own design.

I wonder where Mark is, if he’s watching that video now. If it’s helping him.

“The brain is so powerful, remember, my love?” Briana’s mother says now. “Sometimes we just get so upset we can literally keep ourselves sick, can’t we?”

“Absolutely,” the dean and her father say at the same time.

“Well, Miranda should know all about this,” Fauve says, looking at me and smiling. Little snake in the grass. Slithering, slithering.

“After all, she was unwell just like Briana here, weren’t you? For a while there, Miranda, I wasn’t sure if you would be fit to continue. I was actually prepared to step up and fill in. Not that I’m a Shakespeare person by any means—I prefer musicals, so much lighter and uplifting and accessible—but anything for the students.”

Slither, slither. All for the sake of her sad career, her sorry survival.

“So noble of you, Fauve,” I say, smiling too, still smiling through all of this. “So selfless.”

“But now look at you, Miranda. You’ve recovered so spectacularly. Just in the past month. Just after Briana came down with this condition, as a matter of fact.”