The ding of the elevator reverberates through my skull. I wince and a wave of nausea rolls over me so that I have to lean my shoulder against the wall until it passes, while the echo of that sound ricochets around my brain. The doors close again and I only stop them by swinging my bag into the quickly shrinking gap. Something crunches inside as the elevator tries to crush it.
My migraines usually sync up with the hormone drop that comes with my cycle. But stress and fatigue—like finding out my mother has cancer, telling our family for her yesterday—bring them on, too.
I walk forward slowly, silently praying that no one speaks to me, no one needs my help, no one so much as looks at me. Even if they did approach me, I’m not sure I would see them coming. I can barely keep my eyes open. The light filtering through my sunglasses pulses. Waves of pain move through my skull in time with the beat of my heart. Sheer muscle memory gets me past the Pit, down the hall, and around the corner toward my office. Wesley is on the phone as I approach, watching me like one might observe a dying animal on safari.
“Okay. Thanks, Marisol. I have to go. I’ll call you back,” he says, his eyes still on me. He hangs up and rises from his chair, meeting me halfway.
My whole body is a clenched fist. My hair could only manage an anemic ponytail because my usual high and tight updo hurt too much. My shoulders draw up to my ears and no amount of deep breathing can bring them down. My brow furrows no matter how many fingertip massages I give it as I try to calm my nervous system.
I take a sip from my coffee cup and immediately regret it. The smell, the taste, even the temperature of the drink cause a wave of nausea and pain to move through me.
“Good morning,” he says and somehow, blessedly, he knows to say it quietly, softly. The pain only rolls through my head rather than stabbing.
I swallow down the vomit in my throat and manage a small, crooked smile back at him. Gently, he takes the coffee from my hand. My grip tightens around the cup for a moment before the muscles give up, shaking. I’m not sure when the shaking started.
“I’m not sure how to say this without sounding rude but...”
He gives me a rueful smile.
“You look terrible.”
I want to muster up the energy for a dirty look. Throwing out a “mind your own business” seems appropriate. But the most I can do is totter past him without losing my balance. Wesley shuffles around behind me and follows me in. I don’t bother turning on the lights, that would just be self-flagellation. Melting into my desk chair, I prop my head up in my hands, wave him closer, and nod for him to tell me about my day.
“Well, you have a meeting in...” He checks his watch. “Thirteen minutes.”
Shaking my head, I say, “I cancelled that. This morning.” Even my voice sounds deeper and rough. It hurts my own ears.
“Oh.” He frowns. “I didn’t get that email.”
My mouth flattens. “I’m sure I cc’d you.”
I search for my phone to find the email I sent as I lay in bed this morning. He puts his palm over my hand, stopping my feeble patting at my desk. The warmth of his hand travels up my arm, slow and molten. It’s maybe the first pleasurable feeling I’ve had so far today. Still, I pull my hand out from underneath his. The fact that he’s touching me at all feels less inappropriate than the way it makes me feel.
“It’s okay. I’m sure I must have missed it.”
From the look on his face, though, I am sure he did not just miss it and I forgot to cc him. His kindness feels like his hand on mine—both today and yesterday when he comforted me about Mom—thoroughly unprofessional.
And definitely undeserved.
“Do you have a headache? Do you think you’re coming down with something?”
He pauses, waiting for an answer.
“Can I get you anything? I bet Emily has a small hospital in her desk.”
I lean to the side and pull open a desk drawer. “I have my prescription here...”
But I trail off as I rummage through the drawer, picking up an empty orange prescription bottle, shaking it, before throwing it back down and continuing my search.
My panic only serves to make everything feel worse. The tension in my shoulders, the throbbing behind my eyes, increase as I slowly realize that I never picked up my prescription. I sit back in my chair, sliding the drawer closed with a quiet click. My eyelids are so heavy. The pain crushes me. I might implode on myself like a dying star. I kind of want to. At least then I wouldn’t hurt like this.
“Ms. Blunt,” he whispers. At some point he made his way around my desk. His presence beside my chair feels like a huge tree. One I can lean up against, that would take my weight for me for a few hours. “Why don’t you go home?”
I take a deep breath and shake my head. “I can do this.”
“You can barely sit up,” he counters. “And you haven’t given me any shit for saying you look terrible or taking your coffee from you.”
He sets the cup on the desk in front of me.
“It’s just a headache,” I croak. The lie tastes like bile in my mouth. Or maybe that’s actual bile.
“It’s clearly a migraine.”
“I’ll be fine,” I whisper. “I never miss work.”
My throat closes, saliva fills my mouth.
“Are you going to barf?”
The word is a trigger.
My stomach sinks all the way down to my feet, then slingshots back up my throat. I stand and pinball off the wall, my chair, and push open the door to my small office bathroom. I don’t even get the door closed before I wretch into the sink, then stumble to my knees in front of the toilet. The only advantage to feeling too nauseated to eat is there’s nothing to throw up.
I grip the sides of the toilet—something I would normally never touch without rubber gloves—to keep myself upright as I dry heave, again and again. The coolness of the porcelain travels up my arms, a balm to the hot sweat that’s broken out over my body.
When the last wave passes, I stand, facing myself in the mirror, just to confirm that Wesley was right: I do look terrible. My skin is pasty and colorless. My eyes are bloodshot. My sunglasses must have fallen off somewhere between my desk and the toilet. I peer down into the bowl but they’re not in there. That’s all the energy for searching I can muster at this moment. Sweat prickles my skin so I splash some water on my face, my neck, and take a sip in my cupped hands.
Wesley holds my prescription bottle as I leave the bathroom. I stumble around like a newborn foal in these heels. My thighs could collapse at any moment.
“Rizatriptan?” he asks.
“It’s a migraine medication. I forgot it here the last time I had one and I guess... I never picked up my next prescription.”
I try to calculate the days since my last migraine but the numbers swirl together. All I know is that forgetting something like this isn’t like me. I have to stay on top of these drugs to prevent this very thing from happening.
I eye Wesley as he studies the empty pill bottle. I think I know exactly what distracted me: punishing Wesley Chambers. I’ve been horrible to him and he’s being so kind to me. The thought of it makes me want to cry. I stomp my foot and shake my head, trying to physically will away the tears. But all I do is make Wesley jump and send another bolt of pain through my head.
“Ms. Blunt, you need to go home.”
I prop myself up against the desk and nod. Asking for help hurts nearly as much as the drill behind my eyes.
“Would you be willing to drive me home?” I wince. “I need to stop at the pharmacy on the way and refill my prescription.”
He pauses, pulling at the collar of his shirt, twisting his tie around his fingers. “Sure,” he says slowly. “You have that presentation tomorrow...”
I close my eyes, trying to picture my schedule in my head, but it slides by like the credits of a movie.
“The Grimes presentation,” he prompts.
Shit.
“I’ll... I’ll finish it up after I’ve had a little rest.”
I start to sweat at the amount of work I still have ahead of me. If I’d enlisted his help earlier I wouldn’t be here right now. Tears threaten at the corners of my eyes. Again. I turn away. He already knows I barfed. I can’t let him see me cry, too.
“I can...” He pauses. “I can take care of it. If you want.”
“No.” The word is out of my mouth faster than my brain can keep up.
“Why not?” he asks. Instead of pissing me off, the challenge in his tone makes me proud. He makes me want to trust him. This migraine is turning me soft.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask.
He looks down. I follow his gaze. Overlapping pride flags on his socks peek out from underneath his pant leg and something inside of me folds over.
“I just...” He pauses again.
I want to open his mouth and pull the words out so I don’t have to wait.
“I know what it feels like to hear that your mom is sick and I...” He clears his throat. “I know what it’s like, okay? I want to help. If I can. And I want to show you that I’m not the person you think I am.”
Now I look away. “Listen, it was a misunderstanding.”
And I realize as I say it that I do actually believe it. I know I heard him laugh that day but I also know that he’s a good person. So maybe I don’t have all the facts.
Pain like a railroad spike through my eye hits my frontal lobe. Another wave of nausea passes over me and I list toward the desk. He takes a step toward me, concern furrowing his brow, but I hold my hand palm up to stop him. “We can talk about this later. Right now, I just need to go home, sleep it off, and get started on that presentation.”
His mouth twists and he fidgets with his cuff, like he’s fighting the urge to say more.
“Yes, Ms. Blunt.”
His formality rings like a bell in the room. I realize I haven’t called him Mr. Chambers once this morning. Maybe it’s the extreme vulnerability I feel at barfing in front of my intern. Or it’s just the pain, in my head, or in my heart, making me foolish. But right now, I really wish he’d call me Corrine.