The Pisces(28)

I went back inside and fell asleep cradling Dominic. I had given my power away to Garrett and I didn’t like the feeling. It reminded me of the past year with Jamie, only Garrett was someone much stupider. It was like I had taken that longing for Jamie and transplanted it onto the next closest body. How had I ended up here again?

When I woke up in the middle of the night I had to pee like a motherfucker. I raced to the toilet and sat down, but nothing would come out. I squeezed out a few drops and they burned. Uh oh. I crawled back into bed hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was. But then I had to pee again ten minutes later.

“Jesus fuck, why?” I whimpered, curling up in a fetal position.

Dominic licked my cheek. He seemed to understand that I was hurting. He whined a little. I whined back at him and we whined together.

I wanted to pretend it was just irritation, maybe the dawning of a mild yeast infection, which could be snuffed out with a bit of Monistat. But this was no yeast infection. It was a goddamn urinary tract infection. I hadn’t had one in years, but the feeling was not one you forget. The dull ache in the pelvis, the urgent need to pee, the burning. After my first three UTIs I had learned the secret at my college infirmary: always pee after sex. Pee immediately, within ten minutes, if possible. But I wasn’t about to pee in front of Garrett.

I thought about how I was taught to wipe, as a little girl, after I’d gotten my first UTI.

“From now on you’re going to wipe from front to back,” said the pediatrician. “Do you understand?”



When Garrett tried to stick his dick into my asshole, and then abandoned the mission for my vagina, I did, for a split second, think, This can’t be good. Back to front.

I tried to sleep but it was no use. I knew exactly what I needed: Pyridium to take the pain away and Cipro to kill the bug. I started moaning little things out loud in a deeply self-pitying way, like “Noooooo” and “Why meeeeeeee?” Part of me was reacting to the pain. But another part of me liked being melodramatic, babying myself.

I managed to walk Dominic and then summon a car. The closest hospital was in Marina del Rey, not far.

“Be good,” I said. “Mommy is very, very sick.”

I heard myself talking to the dog, and it reminded me that I existed. Existence always looked like something other than I thought it would.





22.


Somehow, at five in the morning, there were three families ahead of me in the ER. Did children only get injured at dawn? One of them was a boy with a soccer uniform on and one sneaker off, crying. I didn’t understand why he was playing soccer at four in the morning. Was he playing in his sleep? His mother and father seemed so concerned about him, comforting him and stroking his hair. I wanted someone to stroke my hair. I thought about texting Annika, who would definitely be awake in Europe, but didn’t want to worry her. I didn’t want her to ask how I got the UTI.

Instead I texted Jamie.

Hi

just seeing what you are doing and how you are?

He was an early riser. I saw the dot dot dot of him responding. Then the dots stopped. Nothing. I bet Megan the scientist was in bed with him. Immediately I regretted it.

Then I texted Adam the wolf-monkey. I sent him a picture of my hospital bracelet.

Look where I am…hospitalized!

I needed to feel seen by someone, even someone I barely knew and did not like. I’ve always hated doctors’ offices or anything having to do with medicine, because I’m always afraid they’re going to tell me I’m dying. If I’m going to die, I would rather just die and never know about it in advance. Even at my most suicidal I feared the dying process.



I was exhausted so I lay down in my cloth hospital gown on the little bed. It felt like some kind of surrender, a sweet womb or coma. I curled into a fetal position and rocked myself a bit. Then I felt a little wetness between my thighs and realized I was dribbling pee. My inner thighs felt chafed and irritated, from the sex and from the urine. But everything was going to be fine. I wanted to just lie here forever. I wanted kind nurses to take care of me. Books were nothing in this world. Academia was nothing. Forget about boys swimming up to you in the ocean and graphic designers stabbing at your asshole.

The doctor’s name was Dana Ward. She was blond with a severe ponytail and had definitely never made a mess in her life. I imagined that she went to Cornell and had always been self-contained. She had a nice engagement ring—not gigantic—but big enough that she could flash it and make other women feel shitty. She was a left-hand gesturer. I bet she used the word fiancée.

“Let’s see here,” she said. “It looks like you think you might have a urinary tract infection?”

“Yes, I know for sure that I do. I just need Cipro and Pyridium,” I said.

“I’m going to have you leave a urine sample and that will take some time for us to get tested. In the meantime I can start you on those medicines. Do you get them often?”

“It’s been years.”

“Anything different that might have caused this?”

I wanted to say, Well, I tried to have anal on the floor of a hotel bathroom. It was not a bathroom in a hotel room—just a bathroom connected to the hotel bar. Also, the guy was a stranger. Also, I’m in a group-therapy program for sex and love addiction. But clearly it’s not working.