So yes. Idonegotiate with terrorists.
“Yep. Is it time?” I tap my flash cards against my thighs.
“We’re one agenda item away from the presentation,” Eve says, her combat boots visible next to Mom’s sensible clogs. “How are you feeling?”
My abdomen feels like I’m being squeezed by King Kong. “Good, fine, okay.” After a second, I add, “Excellent.”
“Lots of choices there,” Eve says gamely, though nerves simmer in her tone, too. “Ready to come out?”
I release a deep breath. I feel like a big, smelly dog balking on its leash before going into the groomer’s. Instead of being held down while some college student named Bucky clips my nails, though, I have to stand up infront of the auditorium in a sleek black skirt suit Mom convinced me to wear. And then, I have to be convincing. I have to be fantastic. I have to persuade three out of five council members to approve a cannabis dispensary on Main Street in our picture-perfect downtown.
I unlock the door and smooth my suit.
Eve’s eyebrows lift. “Wow.”
“Is it bad?” I spin to look at my ass in the mirror, as ifit’sto blame. “I feel like I’m in corporate cosplay.”
“No way. This—” Eve gestures to the entirety of me, “—is amazing. I’m listening to you. I’m doing what you say. Have you seen yourself in those shoulder pads?Majortop energy.”
“Yeah?” I ask in a small voice.
“You look great, honey.” Mom smiles, her pride evident. Is this what she wishes I looked like all the time? The stable, well-employed office worker Nomi instead of the chronically ill stoner who hates waistbands?
We walk toward the auditorium’s side entrance. The clacking of my heels against the speckled, faux-terrazzo floors clashes with the beat of my pounding heart, which I both hearandfeel in my ears.
“So… there’s something you should know.” Eve clears her throat.
My terrorist colon spasms against the tight skirt. “What?”
“They added a public debate on the dispensary prior to the vote,” Eve says in a rush. “Julian’s signed up to speak.”
I stop dead in the hallway. “What?!”
“This doesn’t change anything,” Mom says with forced calm. “Give your presentation, and when he gets up to speak about the medical impacts, you’ll refute them with the most recent studies and can even share your own story.”
“I’m not discussing my health problems in public, Mom.”
“Don’t you think explaining how cannabis has positively affected your own quality of life would be compelling? Tax profits are great, buta personal connection touches the heart.” Mom takes my hand, swinging it lightly between us. “I know you don’t like sharing about your Crohn’s disease, but if there ever was a time to show both sides of the cannabis debate—how it could help the town financiallyandchange people’s lives at an individual level—it’s now.”
My skin burns red at the wordsyour Crohn’s disease, this life sentence I can never commute. I glance at Eve, but she’s averted her eyes. It’s such a double-edged sword to have a disease that’s invisible to others ninety percent of the time but horribly, degradingly on display the rest. On one hand, you’re grateful that your pain is private, that you can lock yourself away in your bathroom and emerge later pretending that you’re fine. But then, when the pain becomes too much, when you retreat too often, stay away too long, when you lose weight, then your hair, and even your smile no longer feels accessible… then people start asking questions.
Why aren’t you eating?
Where have you been?
Going home already?
And you’re desperate to have that privacy back to shield you from them, and them from the truth, while the other part of you wants to stamp your foot and cry,I’ve been sick this whole time! I’ve been hurting this whole time!Feeling so angry that nobody really knows you because your humiliating, debilitating pain has become the sum total ofwho you are.
That’s what it feels like during a flare, and until I got my disease somewhat under control, what it felt like all the time. Eventually, the healthy days gave me the strength to claw back some of my identity held hostage by the pain, but the fear of active disease returning is always there. Trying too hard, living too much, or letting go of my privacy all feel like strategic failures in this never-ending war I’ve been conscripted into. I’ve put my neck out enough as it is.
I blink away the tears welling in my eyes, embarrassed yet again (always embarrassed), and huff out a weak laugh. “Nobody wants to hear about my diarrhea.”
“Well, maybe not in detail, honey, but how cannabis kept you out of the hospital and, over time, put you into remission? Yes, I think they would.”
Eve squeezes my arm. “We need to go in.”
“Good luck, baby,” Mom says, resigned. “You’ll do great.”
