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“No, I-” I cry out. “I can’t think. I can’t see.” The black dots are creeping over my vision again.
“Okay,” she loops her arm through mine, “the hospital is a block away. Can you walk it? Or do I need to call an ambulance?”
“I can walk.” I nod. “Just don’t let go.”
“I’ve got you.” She squeezes my forearm comfortingly. While we walk, she chatters about her baby, a little girl with a pink bow in her hair and ballet shoes on her socks. “What’s your name, sweetie?” she asks when we get up to the reception desk.
“Claire Volkov.” At least I can tell them that much in this fog.
The receptionist asks me some more questions, but I can’t answer, I just shrug and fight back tears. I don’t cry. I hate crying, I know that much. After another few questions, we take a seat in uncomfortable plastic chairs, the kind that pull your hair when you stand up. The whole time this kind woman sits with me, occasionally patting my knee or rubbing her baby’s bottom.
“Claire Volkov?” a nurse calls from the double doors.
I stand up and look back at this amazing human who brought me here, “Thank you so much.”
“Of course,” she says as tears swim in her eyes, “I’d want someone to do the same thing if it were my daughter on the sidewalk.”
I nod and turn, following the nurse back to a curtained off room. I’m slowly starting to come out of the fog, enough to explain what happened and that I have MS. She nods as she types notes into the computer. She asks about the lady with the baby, and I tell her she was just a kind soul who stopped to help me.
The nurse steps out and says a doctor will be by in a few minutes just to give me a quick check before I leave. I grab my phone, thinking of the comfort that Griff gives me, but I realize that I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to worry him. I don’t want to share this with anyone; it’s my burden to carry.
I swipe at hot tears as they slip down my cheeks, grateful that at least I’m alone in this tiny room, so I can let them fall in peace. My mind wanders back to the woman, and I realize something. Is MS genetic? Will I pass it down to my babies?
The doctor walks in just then, a balding middle aged man. He’s nice enough as he goes through my chart and asks me questions about what happened before the flare, during, and after. He instructs me to make another appointment with my specialists.
“Can I ask you a question really quick?” I say as he stands to leave.
“Of course.” He leans against the counter while he rubs hand sanitizer into his palms.
“Is MS genetic? Will I give this to my babies?”
“Possibly, but most women with MS, especially when diagnosed so young, end up being infertile.” He pushes off the counter nonchalantly, like he didn’t just shatter the last remaining hope for anything normal in my life. “Anything else?”
I shake my head and grab my things. My hand shakes as I text Marco my location. Infertile keeps playing in a never-ending loop in my mind while my chest feels like it’s been split in half with an axe. I walk out of the hospital dazed, leaving pieces of my bloody, broken heart like a trail of breadcrumbs.
I don’t really remember anything during the drive home except for a few of Marco’s furtive glances in the rearview mirror. I didn’t even say good night to him as I walked, dazed, to the elevator from our private garage to the residential levels of the building. Thankfully I didn’t run into Con or Lilith in the hall. I love them so much, but seeing her gorgeous pregnant belly would kill me right now.
I drop my bag right by the front door, leave my phone on the island, and walk into my bedroom. I contemplate just crawling into bed and crying for the rest of the night, but I smell like a hospital, and I need to scrub every bit of evidence of today from my body.
I walk into my bathroom, a sleek white and chrome masterpiece. The combination shower and steam shower has five different shower heads. Each designed for me, hitting my body in targeted zones to provide relief for my aching body. I turn the water on full blast and high heat, I don’t care if I look like a lobster by the end of the shower. I just want these feelings of despair gone.
I strip, looking at my body in the mirror for a minute. I used to love this body that carried me gracefully across the stage. That could leap high into the air and land light as a feather. I was proud of my dancer physique, even though most of my bones protrude and my muscles are sharply defined, though lean.
Now I just see the vessel I’m at war with. The body that will eventually break down. The body that will betray me and let me fall. The body that will need a cane, then a wheelchair. The body that won’t bear children for me. I watch my hand cover my flat belly as the tears start to fall again.
What’s the point?
You’re broken.
Just give up.
The thoughts circle around and around inside my head until I finally turn away from my reflection. I’m so disgusted by what I see there, I want to pound my fists into the mirror and rage at the unfairness.
I walk into the shower, welcoming the burn of the hot water as it assaults me from all sides. As the rivulets of water run down my body, I think of Griff. How much I want him to hold me, to fuck me, to make me forget. I want to escape this reality in which I’m desperately searching for a handhold but can’t find one.
