“It’s a tiny little wood spider. I think I’ll live,” I wave her discovery away and take in the glowing sky, pulling her into my side.
“I think it’s a brown recluse,” she says.
“I grew up in the Bronx. I know cockroaches and water bugs. Can you elaborate?”
“They’re poisonous,” she says.
“So, what do I do? Suck out the venom? Find an EpiPen?” I pull out my phone and start to google the little devil. “Ninety percent of bites aren’t medically significant,” I read off of the website.
“But the ones that are can be life-threatening,” she fills in.
“Says to ice and elevate.” I pull her in for a hug and wrap my arms around her in a very non-brotherly way. I snag an ice cube from a glass of lemonade and rub it against the spot.
“Careful, Heath. We’re still at school,” she whispers.
“Fuck it. We graduated. We don’t need anyone’s approval,” I whisper into her ear as I hold her even tighter. “We’re finally free of all of their bullshit.”
Kat eventually lets go about the spider after safeguarding it in a Ziplock bag and tucking it away to look at against her field books later.
We dance together as the sun goes down and give up on keeping up appearances for the sake of not alarming our teachers at school. We’re no longer at the mercy of pleasing others or trying to pretend we’re something we’re not. We don’t have parents to hide from or even Henry to make us tiptoe on eggshells.
We kiss openly under the expansive ocean sky and feel like we’ve finally made it.
Then the night took a turn neither one of us saw coming.
The last thingI remember is riding to the emergency room with Kat at the wheel of our hatchback, driving like a bat out of hell, berating me for blowing off the spider bite.
“I told you it was poisonous, Heath. We should have gone straight to the hospital!”
My throat is swollen to the point of asphyxiation, or I’d respond. I reach out and squeeze her thigh to reassure her I’m okay.
It’s a fucking spider bite, not a gunshot wound. I didn’t want to ruin our graduation night and have some stupid insect reaction overshadow our hard-won achievements. I try to let her know, but the walls seem to be closing in on me, and darkness clouds my vision, wiping out my view of the woman I love.
“Kat, don’t worry about me,” I try to tell her.
It comes out unintelligible, and she takes her eyes off the road to look at me, her expression full of worry, cornflower blue eyes stricken with panic. Pain rips through my body like a streak of white-hot lightning. Who knew a little spider could take down a full-grown man on one of the happiest nights of his life?
Then my wholeworld goes black.
* * *
When I wake,my airway is blocked, and I immediately try to rip the tube out of my throat that seems to be suffocating me. The gesture sends multiple alarms into high gear, and then a nurse is hovering over me, trying to explain to me why I’m here.
Her pleasantries do nothing to calm my fears, and I grab for the IV in the ditch of my arm and rip it out. Blood squirts out everywhere.
The hospital room floods with light and medical staff, and soon someone injects me with a sedative that immediately puts me out.
Hours later, I open my eyes again to find myself bound to the hospital bed in four-point restraints.
“Where’s Kat?” I ask in a scratchy voice that doesn’t sound like my own.
“Miss Shaw comes nearly every day,” the nurse tells me. “She should be here around four. You’re lucky to have such a supportive sister.”
“How long have I been here?”
“You came in early June, I believe. It’s November now, Mr. Clifton, almost Thanksgiving. Five-ish months, is my guess. Hopefully, you can be home with your brother and sister for the holidays.”
I cringe at this woman calling Henry and Kat my siblings, but I try not to let it show.
