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The doctor’s office.
He nodded at her phone. “Who’s that?”
“It’s a text.” She looked at the clock and tried to figure out if the doctor’s office was still open.
“I can see that.” He stepped closer to the kitchen island. “I’m trying to figure out why you look pale.”
“My doctor wants to see me on Monday. I’m supposed to call first thing.” In the history of time that never meant good news.
“Which doctor?”
Okay, that was annoying. “I had some tests done. Blood, urine. You know, an annual physical sort of thing.”
Harris frowned. “When?”
“Doesn’t matter.” When he started to say something, shetalked over him. “He says he wants to have a follow-up appointment and that I should check the notes in my client file.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Harris’s voice rose loud enough for Nathan to turn around and look at him for a few seconds before going back to his game.
“Our medical files. We each have an account. You sign in and can get test and billing information.” She went to the app and put in her security code. “I handle all of this, so you’re excused from knowing.”
“Why did you go in for the tests?”
She thought about lying and saying this was a routine thing, but it wasn’t and the weight of the lies wore on her over time. She didn’t need one more thing to feel crappy about. “Because of the dizziness and nausea.”
“You said that was a twenty-four-hour bug. Are you really sick?” He came around the island to stand next to her. “What are you doing now? I’m trying to talk to you about your health.”
“Reading the doctor’s note.” She read it a second time because the concerns raised by the doctor didn’t make any sense. “My tests suggest I’m taking high blood pressure medicine and he wants me to immediately stop.”
“You have low pressure.”
“He asks if I took your medicine by accident.” They had so few pills in the house, and none for Harris.
He shook his head. “I only take a vitamin.”
“Yeah.” She started reading out loud from the doctor’s note. “‘The medicine, especially when mixed with your anxiety medicine, can drop your blood pressure. With your bloodpressure already being extremely low, this likely caused the complained about dizziness and headaches.” There were a few other comments about not taking other people’s medication, as if she would ever do that. “He wants to discuss all of this as soon as possible.”
She thought about the last few weeks and the mysterious moving pill bottle. It appeared in the kitchen twice despite it being kept in the locked safe in her bedroom drawer. She couldn’t connect the dots.
“Did you get the wrong pills? Do we need to speak with the pharmacist?” Harris asked.
All valid questions. “I haven’t gotten a refill recently. The ones I do have look exactly the same as always.”
She knew because she stared at the pills every morning. For so long taking them felt as if her body had let her down. Other people survived terrible things and moved on. Why was she one of the unlucky ones who got stuck, whose life quietly unspooled as she sat there defenseless to stop it?
Those were the questions she wanted to ask a new therapist. She hadn’t dared before, but listening to Shelby talk so clearly about trauma and knowing she didn’t do anything to invite it made Elisa wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could try again. She’d viewed the anxiety and panic attacks as punishment. To Shelby they were livable illnesses that so many battled with daily. Nothing to be ashamed of or to fight against with rabid denial.
Elisa wanted to believe.
“How would the pills get in your system?” Harris shook his head. “I really don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Me either.” Her mind shut out the possible horrors but a few got through. Someone mixing up her pills or giving the wrong pills to her without her knowing. That kind of coldness, the idea of being medicated against her will, made her stomach heave. It could be a mistake, sure.
A person out there hated her enough to hurt her. She wasn’t sure how to live with that.
Chapter Forty-Nine
They had fifteen minutes the next morning before Nathan needed to be at his friend’s house then they’d head over to see Rachel and Josh. A thousand questions ran through Elisa’s mind. She wanted to take Rachel aside and ask them all, starting withwhat the hell?
