32

A seizure gripped her right hand and shook it, making it wobble like a boneless thing. Vee squeezed her eyes shut, willing the spasms to stop. The wave undulated through her arm and crashed into her chest, setting her pectorals off in involuntary jerks. Keeping her eyes closed, she sucked in huge breaths and focused on the finger clamped on her pulse. Ninety-five beats per minute and climbing. One hundred and five. She kept breathing, forcing her mind to drown out the soft patter of rain outside, the music coming from the stereo and whir of the fan heater circulating warmth in the bedroom.

Ten minutes and she eased closer to normal again. I can’t have a seizure now, she thought, going back to folding clothes out of her closet. It had been weeks since so much as a whisper of the fits. Her confidence in the workings of her body was back and she’d got slack with the medication. In truth, she’d stopped altogether. A brain on drugs wasn’t for everyone.

The white box of Cipralex taunted from the night table. Vee shuddered at the strip of blue-and-orange-striped pills. She’d done her homework on the vile concoction: prescribed for forms of major depression, in her case it targeted generalised anxiety disorders. Two genial chats with a doctor was apparently enough to write her off as a moody head case. She thought of the sweet Dr Neethling and wondered if he still had an opening. After her performance at the party, probably not.

I will not have a seizure today. She folded another shirt, fighting to keep her hands steady, and flung it into the box designated for charity. Her body replied with a jolt that had her swaying like a drunk for several painful minutes. The fit unclenched, and she hobbled to the dresser and snatched the box. Fingers shaking, she grappled with the pills. Just one for today, before the fury rolled in and swallowed her whole.

The doorbell screamed, its chime a stab in her ear. She started and her finger popped a tablet out of its foil casing. Ripples tap-danced down the back of her neck and shoulders as she watched the pill arc into the air, spin and roll under the dresser. Vee groaned and got to her feet, relieved the lower half of her body was still functional. Visitors weren’t welcome on Sundays, but she didn’t have the energy to pretend to be out.

‘Hi,’ Joshua said cheerfully.

‘Hey.’ Can’t deal with this right now.

It had been almost a week. She hadn’t called or made any plans with him, and he hadn’t forced the issue. Vee smoothed a hand through her hair, a huge, soft pouf of frizz she hadn’t bothered to blow-dry after she’d washed it. Her jeans weren’t the cleanest pair she could’ve thrown on either. Her breasts tightened and prickled as the chill in the air nipped through her sweater, reminding her she was braless. She crossed her arms over her chest, glad she’d at least showered and cleaned her teeth.

‘Thought I’d pass by and check on you,’ he ventured after a spell. ‘The new you. Y’know, the one who practically raped me and then vanished. Really classy.’

‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t …’ Tendons in her neck and shoulders spasmed. ‘I thought it was best if I made myself scarce for a while. I didn’t want to make it weird.’

‘Nothing’s weird.’ She said nothing and Joshua chuckled. ‘Can I come in, at least?’ Drizzle as fine as icing sugar settled like drift onto his coat and shaved head. She noticed a bag of shopping in his hand. She bit her lip. He said, ‘That’s not what I came for. Give me some credit.’

Vee unlocked the security gate. ‘What’s all that?’

‘Food.’ He dumped the shopping bag on the kitchen counter and started unloading. ‘We went about things in the wrong order. First, you share a nice meal together, and then–’ He stared. ‘What’s up with your face?’

Her hand flew up to cover the twitching. The skin was burning. ‘Sometimes it does that. I don’t think it healed properly,’ she lied. A hundred, maybe a hundred and ten beats per minute, without having to take a pulse. Any louder and her heart would drown out the thunder.

‘You got hit on the left side.’ He narrowed his eyes and walked over, held her chin and tilted it up to the light. ‘That doesn’t look good. You’re blinking like a Christmas tree. You talk to a doctor about this?’

Vee wriggled away and rushed to the door. ‘Gimme one minute,’ she called.

She closed the bedroom door, eyes watering as she scanned the room. The Cipralex box was nowhere to be seen. It had grown legs and walked away. She struggled to her knees, legs shaking uncontrollably. Where the hell was it? Was the box in her hand when she went to answer the door? Was Joshua picking it up now, reading the insert with mounting horror? Breath frantic, she gave up on the box and focused on the single runaway pill, peering and stretching her fingers under furniture as far as they could go. Nothing.

Shit. The attack was in full swing. Sweat ran into her eyes and stung. She wrapped her arms around her body and fell against the charity box, taking deep lungfuls of air. The room reeked of male cologne. The muscles of her throat clenched violently and pain pummelled her chest. Cowering on the floor, Vee groaned long and low. The air thickened and closed in.

It felt like the agony and disorientation of being born. Minutes passed unmeasured. Or perhaps hours – she had no clue. Sounds were squashed and far away, two-dimensional. The sound of frying – had to be rain. Whirring of the fan heater. Footsteps and a knock. Arms around her, trying to lift her. Words, no sense.

A flash of silver and black came to Joshua’s ear. As he dialled emergency, Vee took a swig from the dregs of her energy reserve and lunged for his cell phone. She missed, tried again and missed again, her fingers slippery sticks of butter brushing his.

‘What’re you doing?!’ Joshua asked. ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’

‘Don’t. Please,’ Vee begged.

*

‘You’re right. You shouldn’t have told me. You should’ve taken this to your grave.’

Vee buried her face deeper in her palms. ‘I really don’t feel like playing right now, Joshua Allen …’

‘Great, because I’m not. Hearing you’ve been dealing with these attacks all by yourself, thinking unicorn dust once a day and wishful thinking’s gonna make it stop? And oh, ha ha, my favourite part, hearing you’re being, what … fuck, I can’t believe I’m actually gonna say this …’ He scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘Haunted? Stalked by the dead? What’re we going with here?’

‘Do you think this is easy? I heard myself say it. I watched your face as I heard myself say it. And …’ She hugged her arms round her midriff. ‘I’m glad I did. I feel like a fucking fly in a closed jar. I haven’t been able to breathe, in every sense of the word.’ She lifted her head. ‘Do you believe me?’

He gave a long, aggravated grunt. ‘Of course I believe you. I have to. This is the part in the horror movie where the hot girl’s, like, “Do you believe me, Billy?!” and it goes one of two ways. Billy’s crazy about her so naturally he says yes, and they fight the dark forces together and live to see the end credits. Or he’s a loser and laughs in her face, and in the next scene the evil shitmonster rips his face off. I’d like to see our end credits.’ He smiled. Vee drilled him with a glare of diamond. ‘Yes, Voinjama Johnson, I believe you! You’re quite the imaginarian but even you’re not this preposterous.’

Vee sagged, the stone rolled away. She kissed his shoulder and leaned on him for a few minutes, then moved back to the dresser where her plate was. Pancakes, bacon, sausages, eggs. The skidmark of hormones left behind by an episode made the comedown less than pleasant. She’d zonked out and woken up to food and more tenderness than she was used to getting from Joshua. Breakfast in the afternoon and sandwiches were his specialty … more like the only things he knew how to make.

He watched her eat, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening with every passing minute. The silence got creepy. Vee finally put the utensils down.

‘I’m listening.’

‘Four months, Vee. You sat on this for that long. You need to see a therapist. Some kinda professional. You’re carrying a lot of crap around that you need to unload …’

‘Joshua …’

‘You can’t really think that glossing it over is healthy. You got caught in a civil war when you were ten, for Chrissake. You had to fight for your life, you had to pick up a weapon and–’

‘STOP!’

‘All right. Okay, okay, no more.’ He raised his hands and slapped them down on his thighs. They glared at each other some more. Vee pushed the plate away, not that there was much on it, and came back to sit on the bed beside him. ‘You scared the shit outta me, okay. I thought you were having a heart attack,’ he said.

She twisted her fingers around in her lap. ‘That’s what it feels like,’ she said quietly.

‘There has to be a trigger. What’s the first thing you feel?’

‘Nothing. I’ve stopped writing it down because I couldn’t see any connection. They come on anywhere.’

Joshua looked around the bedroom. He rose and walked over to the box of old clothes, lifted out a T-shirt. ‘Men’s extra large. Yours?’

Vee snatched it, tossed it back into the box, and kicked it away. ‘That’s Titus’s junk. He’s had enough time to pick it up, so I’m donating it to charity. Should’ve burnt it all.’

‘Bitter much?’ Joshua shook his head. ‘How can you not see a link here? When else?’

Vee froze. Their favourite music, the food he loved, wearing his cologne to work. She’d packed and unpacked these clothes a hundred times under the pretence of throwing them out. They used to jog on Rondebosch Common together and he’d teased her by zipping ahead, leave her laughing and panting in his dust. A myriad ways she subconsciously attempted to recreate her old life with Titus. Every single one of those incidents had preceded a seizure. It was a punch in the gut.

‘Well. There were other times that had nothing to do with that. It’s a terrifying feeling, don’t think I haven’t been fighting it. I’ve fought so hard to stop it coming back and every time …’

‘Then don’t. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen.’

She reeled. ‘It feels like I’m being murdered. How do I not fight that?’

Joshua shrugged. ‘If you know it’s inevitable, then let it happen. Struggling and pushing back hasn’t worked, so flip the script. Go with it. Sounds crazy, but what’ve you got to lose?’ He gave her one of his sage looks. ‘Fighting isn’t the only way to win.’

‘Where’d you hear nonsense like that?’

‘I dunno. Kung Fu Panda. Point is, it’s poignant and true.’

Vee mumbled under her breath but didn’t press the point. She wasn’t always a fan of Serious Joshua. Serious Joshua held her feet to the flames, got a bit too wise and intense.

‘So …’ she said. By this time their chitchat would wind down and he would do his flirtation bit and head out. They had crossed the veil now, and she wasn’t sure how their thing worked on the other side. Did he want to leave? She didn’t want him to. He knew everything there was to know. He’d fed her and changed her music from the ‘depressing garbage’ she’d had on to a playlist on his phone. Kings of Leon belted out a bluesy-rock ballad she hadn’t heard before.

‘So …’ He kissed her. Vee kissed him back.

‘Wait.’ She pushed him away. ‘This isn’t what you came for, remember.’

‘Screw that. You just shaved a decade off my life, jitterbug. You owe me.’

‘Smh, I’hn owe you nuttin,’ she laughed.

‘We’ll see.’