Bad Reaction

BAD REACTION

I am violently ill. I’m hunched over the toilet in my bathroom, throwing up some kind of gluey water-bile mixture. It’s the kind of vomiting that involves the entire body. It’s brutal.

I’ve been puking for some time when I realize I’ve been puking for some time. When the fog disperses and the events of last night return to me, when my thoughts become clear.

I called Sam. He told me he has a girlfriend. Sophie came over. Comforted me. Gave me weird mushroom tea. I felt okay for a while, I think, but now I’m hard-core praying to the porcelain God.

When the last bits have trickled out and all that’s left is spit, I deposit a dollop of toothpaste on my tongue, lift a handful of faucet water to my mouth and swish. I don’t have any mouthwash.

When I come out of the bathroom, my eyes shrivel inside my head. It’s bright out. It’s daytime. Not morning. Day.

I scan my apartment. It’s a mess.

What the hell happened last night?

I stumble into my bedroom, where I find my phone on the floor. The screen is shattered. I attempt to turn it on. Nothing happens.

“Damn it!” I croak. If the sound of my voice is any indication, I’ve aged five thousand years overnight.

I fall back on my bed. What was in that tea?

I take a series of deep breaths and must pass out again, because when I open my eyes, it’s cloudy and raining outside, and my phone is gone.

I hear movement in the other room. Sophie humming to herself.

“Sophie,” I call. “Sophie?”

Footsteps.

She pokes her head through the doorway. “Yes, pet?”

“What’s happening? What time is it?”

“It’s three thirty,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

I prop myself up on my elbows. “Pretty bad. What was in that tea?”

She cocks her head to the side. “Was it too strong?”

Images sweat from my subconscious. They’re heinous. Abstract. A collage of Bosch paintings.

“I think I had some kind of trip,” I say, scratching my neck. “Or an allergic reaction. I . . . I might have hallucinated or maybe had nightmares. I don’t know.”

Sophie comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. Her hair is in a long braid draped over her shoulder. She’s wearing a velvet dress with a corset top and long sleeves. She looks great, as always.

I probably look like a hag.

“I may have been a little heavy-handed,” she says, nibbling on her thumbnail. “It’s been a long time since I last made that blend. I’m sorry.”

“I got sick,” I say.

“Oh, no!” she says. “It was supposed to make you feel better. Soothe you. Maybe boost your mood.”

“Well,” I say, rubbing my temples, “I think it was a successful distraction.”

The picture flashes before my eyes. Sam. And Shannon. Shannon. Worse than any echoing nightmare, than any Bosch painting.

“I see you’ve destroyed your torture device,” Sophie says, holding up my smashed phone. She sets it on the nightstand.

“Yeah. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I can’t really afford a new one.”

“You’ll be better off without it,” she says. She stands up. “Let me make you something to eat.”

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” I say, sinking back into bed.

“Why don’t we watch television?”

I think about it.

“Annie,” she says.

“Okay,” I say. “We can watch TV.”

She helps me out of bed and over to the couch, where she settles me under a thick knit blanket.

“I made this for you,” she says.

It’s soft and warm, a pretty baby pink. It smells like lavender. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she says. “May I choose the program?”

I hand her the remote.

“Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?”

“No,” I say. I’m too afraid I’ll throw up again, though there is a sour taste lingering on my tongue I’d like to evict.

“More tea?” she asks. “Different tea? Have I ruined it for you?”

“Maybe,” I say.

“Oh, dear,” she says. She doesn’t seem too bothered. She turns on the TV and selects a series about international luxury real estate properties.

I find it depressing.

But that’s probably because I’m depressed. All I can see is that image. Sam and her. Someone else. All I can feel is the twist of the knife, the slow death of possibility. This isn’t temporary.

I still love him, but he doesn’t love me.

It’s gone. Whatever he felt for me, he doesn’t feel it anymore. Not at all.

I lost it. I fucked up. I wasn’t enough.

“You were right,” I tell Sophie, who’s totally engrossed by this show, now featuring a gorgeous villa in the Italian countryside with its own spa.

“About what, pet?”

“I shouldn’t have called him,” I say. “I wish I didn’t know.”

“Someday you won’t care,” she says. She puts her arm around me. I rest my head on her shoulder and she rubs my back. “Shall I make you a revenge dress? Like Princess Diana?”

“You have to stop with the Windsors,” I say. “And I have nowhere to wear a revenge dress.”

“That’s the thing about a revenge dress, darling. You can wear it anywhere, everywhere, whenever your heart desires.”

I sigh.

“You don’t seem like a vengeful person,” she says. “I am.”

“No,” I say. It seems like the polite response.

“It’s true,” she says. “You should know that about me, Annie. I don’t mean it, like, you know . . . It sounds a bit cryptic. It’s not a threat. I’m just saying it’s my personality.”

“You’d wear a revenge dress?”

She laughs a little. “Among other things.”

“Yeah,” I say. “A bit cryptic.”

She laughs again, then turns up the volume on the TV.

We spend the afternoon like this—side by side on the couch. At some point she goes into the kitchen and comes back holding two caramel apples.

“Where did you get these?” I ask her as she hands me one. It’s on a long wooden stick.

She winks at me. That’s her answer.

I don’t have an appetite, but I eat it anyway. It’s delicious. Worth the risk of getting sick again.

It actually makes me feel better, somehow settling my stomach.

“How do you always know what I need?” I ask Sophie.

“I’ve told you,” she says. “I consider myself very intuitive.”

A memory crawls out of a cobwebby corner in my mind.

“On my birthday, I went out with this girl from my old job, and she insisted on taking me to see a psychic.”

Sophie nods slightly to signal that she’s listening. Juice from her apple streams down her chin. She wipes it with a small black cloth, then tucks the cloth into her cleavage.

I wonder what else she has hiding in there. How deep it goes.

“Yes,” Sophie says. “What happened?”

“Yeah, so we went to this random psychic in the Village. She told me that I had a dark fate or something along those lines. Actually, she said she sensed a darkness. She couldn’t see my fate.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Sophie asks. I thought she’d be more interested in the story.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

She smiles. Boops me on the nose. “You want me to tell you that she was full of shit?”

I laugh. “I guess. Maybe, yeah. That’s what I’m after.”

“She probably was, yes. It’s very likely. Or it could be that your future is uncertain. That you’re in a place where your path diverges, and not even fate itself knows which way you’ll go.”

“Oof.”

“Don’t despair,” she says, running a thumb under my pouty bottom lip. “I’m also full of shit. To be honest, pet, I don’t even believe in fate.”

“No?”

She scoffs, waves a hand in the air. “If it does exist, I’ve eluded it so many times.”

“You’re special, though.”

“So are you.”

Now it’s my turn to scoff.

“Fate is just another invention to trick us into complacency. Inaction. If one assumes that they cannot change their circumstances, they won’t try. When you think about it, really, there’s a myriad of ways we’re conditioned to passivity. Women, especially. Of course, I realized all of this a long, long time ago. It saved me. It could have just as easily drowned me.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Literally,” she says. “They tried to drown me.”

“Who?”

“The townspeople,” she says. Her tone is casual. She’s not looking at me. She’s browsing shows on the TV. The remote is making that bloop-bloop sound as she scrolls.

“When?”

“As I said, a long time ago.”

“In the well?”

“No, that was a different occasion. There were many attempts over many years,” she says. She shakes her head.

“That’s awful,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” she says, “don’t be. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are.”

“I’m on your couch with you watching Netflix!” she says. “And they’re all dead.”

She pats my knee twice. “I should get home. I’ve got so many chores to do around the house that I’ve been neglecting.”

“Busy taking care of me,” I say. “Your sad, pathetic friend.”

“Next time you insult yourself in front of me, I’ll tie your tongue in a knot,” she says, putting her coat on. “Will you come over next weekend, please, pet? I really miss having you around. The ghosts won’t bother you. I promise.”

“I’m skeptical.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“It’s not that,” I say. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be,” she says. Like it’s that simple. “It’ll be fun. Come over, yes? Come Saturday around noon. I’ll make us treats.”

“Okay.”

“Yes! Lovely,” she says. She kisses me on the forehead. “You’ll be all right, darling. Better than all right.”

“Thanks, Sophie.”

“I left food in your icebox,” she says. “Fridge. Whatever you call it. Good night.”

As soon as she’s gone, as soon as I hear the door close, I open my laptop and go straight to Facebook to look at the picture again.

I stare at it.

I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but there’s a nagging evil inside me, a little devil brandishing its pitchfork, compelling me. Punishing me. Its sole mission is to deprive me of any momentary relief I might have if I were to escape the hard evidence of my heartbreak.

Eventually, the screen blurs and my eyeballs recline.

I shut my laptop.

I put myself in the shower. I turn the water as hot as it will go so I can disappear into the steam, let it transport me somewhere else. If I can’t see anything, I can pretend I’m anywhere.

I pretend I’m in the spa of that Italian villa from the luxury real estate show.

I pretend I’m in a Diane Lane movie. I masturbate.

Afterward, I put on soft cotton pajamas and carry a sleeve of crackers and a glass of water into my bedroom. I settle in bed and eat the crackers slowly while staring out the window. I’m too lazy to get up and close the curtain.

It’s a mystery hour. The sun has been setting earlier and earlier. The daylight selfish, sparing. Soon my entire day will be spent in darkness. The drive to work. Teaching in my basement classroom. My drive home after.

Why bother to get up at all?

I put the remaining crackers on my nightstand and roll over. I didn’t brush my teeth today and I can smell my own breath. Acrid. Stale. My hair is still wet from the shower. I couldn’t be bothered to dry it, and I know when I wake up, it’ll be a tangled nightmare. I’m also 99 percent sure I forgot to put on deodorant.

I should just live like this. Abandon my ablutions. Let my teeth go yellow with rot, gums red and receding. Allow my skin to break out, forget exfoliation. Let the dead flakes congregate, create societies of zits on my face. Evil empires.

I should let my hair gnarl together. Form a giant nestlike mass on top of my head. I could keep things in there. Credit cards. Snacks.

I should develop a smell so terrible that no one will ever come near me. Create a force field of stink.

Wouldn’t that be easier? To be left alone in my misery. To lean into what I feel, match my exterior to my interior.

I won’t do it, though. I’ll wake up in the morning and floss and brush my teeth and my hair. I’ll put on deodorant and perfume. A little mascara. Apply some tinted lip gloss.

I’m not brave enough to be who I am.