Chapter 8

I wake up with the kind of headache that makes me think I deserve everything bad that’s ever happened to me. The sun’s too aggressive for a Tuesday, or whatever day it is, and there’s a sour taste in my mouth.

I reach for my phone, knock it off the nightstand, groan, fish it out from under the bed like a gremlin, and finally hit play on the voicemail that’s been haunting me for twenty-four hours straight.

"Hey, Char… I need to tell you something. I—”

Click.

That’s it. That’s all I get.

I close my eyes and feel a slow panic blooming in my chest. My heart starts skipping like it owes someone money.

Because what does he need to tell me?

Is it about her?

Is she pregnant?

Am I pregnant?

Did I catch something?

Did I GIVE someone something?

Suddenly, I’m sweating.

He knows I’m obsessive. He knows I spiral. This is premeditated emotional terrorism.

I sit up like my butt is on fire and I blink at the wall. Then I do what every emotionally responsible adult does in times of emergency. I open Google.

Can you get an STI from revenge sex?

How soon do symptoms show up?

Throat STD??

I click deeper and deeper until the words blur and everything sounds deadly. My throat does feel weird now. Like there's a tightness I didn’t notice before. Or maybe I’m just breathing wrong. Or maybe I’m dying.

I fling the blanket off like it betrayed me and start pacing. I need answers, I need penicillin, I need food and a sedative.

There’s only one thing to do: go to urgent care. Somewhere discreet. Somewhere cheap. Somewhere that won’t ask too many questions if I give them a fake name like Elle Rivera, because if I'm going to go down, I refuse to do it under my real name.

Elle Rivera is a name I’d use if I faked my death and opened a candle shop in Maine.

Elle is bold. Elle takes no sh*t. Elle wears sunglasses indoors and gets tested like a goddamn mystery woman.

—

I leave the apartment looking like a fake celebrity trying not to get recognized. Black baseball cap, giant sunglasses, a Burberry trench coat I scored on sale (secondhand, okay, but no one needs to know), and my favorite pair of pumps (impractical, I know).

My AirPods are in but not playing anything, because I need to be able to hear threats approaching. Mentally or otherwise.

In the Uber, I text Callie:

“If I die young, tell my plants I loved them.”

She replies in two seconds flat.

“What plants? The fake one in your office?”

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

I don’t respond. Elle Rivera doesn’t explain herself.

—

The urgent care is... terrifying.

It’s beige in the way old baloney is beige. The air smells like cleaning fluid and dread. There’s a woman sobbing softly in the corner, and a man holding a bag of frozen peas to his face like he’s been in a bar fight with gravity.

I check in. Give them my fake name. Lie about my birthday.

There’s a stain on the wall that looks like dried blood but could also be marinara sauce. Either way, I’m not touching anything.

I sit stiffly in a plastic chair, knees pressed together, Chanel bag in my lap like it’s going to protect me from airborne pathogens. My sunglasses stay on. My trench coat stays wrapped. I refuse to breathe too deeply.

“Elle Rivera?”

I jump like I’ve been caught. The nurse stares at me.

“Elle Rivera?”

I blink once. Twice. Oh. Right. That’s me.

The name sounds worse out loud. I stand up from the creaky chair like I’ve been summoned to judgment.

The nurse asks a million questions, all while typing with the slow, passive-aggressive energy of someone who knows I did this to myself. Which I did. But she doesn’t have to look at me like that.

I pee in a cup. She swabs my throat. I think about throwing myself into the Hudson River.

“We’ll call in a few days,” she says cheerfully.

I flee.

—

There’s a bodega down the block that smells like coffee and wet floor signs. I buy a Lipton iced tea and a slice of banana bread from behind the counter, even though it looks suspiciously moist. I just need something to do with my hands.

I walk. And walk. Until my legs hurt. Until I find a tiny park wedged between two buildings like an afterthought. There’s one bench that isn’t covered in pigeon sh*t, so I sit and unwrap the banana bread like it’s the best think since slice bread.

It tastes vaguely of soap. Perfect.

I open Instagram. Type Axton Rowe into the search bar for the thirteenth time today. Still no new posts. Still no ring on his finger. Still no tagged girlfriend.

Fuck my life.

I zoom in on a photo from last month. His hand on a glass of whiskey. There's a blur of someone in the background, but it could be anyone.

I want to throw my phone but I settle for locking it and shoving it in my bag like it offended me.

—

When I get home, everything feels too bright and too loud and too still at the same time. I throw off my coat, the scarf, the sunglasses.

I dump the box of mac and cheese into a pot like it’s medicine. I stir. Add too much butter and forget to add milk.

I eat it on the floor, cross-legged. It burns my mouth, but I don’t care. It tastes like too much salt and artificial cheese.

The pot is warm in my lap. The light from the window hits the aluminum and makes the whole apartment feel like a scene from a sad indie movie.

I want to cry but I don’t. I just sit quietly.

—

Eventually, I crawl into my office like a raccoon sneaking into its nest.

It’s the smallest room in the apartment, tucked in the corner behind a sliding pocket door that always sticks. I have to yank it open like it’s punishing me.

Inside, it smells like dust and printer ink. My desk is a vintage writing table I found at a flea market in Brooklyn. Mint green with little gold knobs, chipped at the edges like me. There’s a candle I never light. A framed postcard from Venice. Three mugs filled with pens that don’t work. My laptop’s already open, half-charged, judgmental.

The light here is soft and diffused, slanting in through slatted blinds and falling across the floor like a spotlight I didn’t ask for.

I scroll through potential travel locations for my next piece. Portugal? Iceland? Somewhere I can fall in love or be emotionally reborn?

I get lost in it for a while. Enough to forget the itch in my throat and the fact that I’m maybe dying.

I try to work. I really do.

I open a new doc, type “Bali itinerary” and then delete it. I try again with “Top 10 places to eat in Tulum”, and delete that too.

I write and delete and write and delete until my brain just… buzzes.

Everything feels fake. The travel. The job. Me.

Eventually I close the laptop and just stare out the window at nothing.

And then—

BANG. BANG. BANG.

I jump. My laptop nearly flies off the desk. Someone is at the door.

It’s almost 10 PM.

I tiptoe through the apartment, past the flickering chandelier I haven’t replaced because I spent the money on a Jacquemus bag, and peek through the peephole.

My stomach drops.

I open the door.

And immediately regret it.