Page 77 of Friends with Benefits

Not because she almost shit herself in search of a functioning bathroom at JFK.

Not because a kind grandma-aged woman in a green tracksuit helped her swipe her subway card afterfive failed attempts, then introduced herself as Evelyn.I’m Evelyn, too, she said. Grandma Evelyn replied,Of course you are, hon, then took her hand and led her to a map. With a chipped lime-green-polished index finger, she traced the line to West Fourth Street.

To Theo.

She follows Grandma Evelyn’s instructions, earbuds in but music muted because she’s more interested in the sounds of the subway. Rusty brakes scream as they approach a station. Static conductor announcements her ears strain to hear. Conversations among friends, lovers, strangers. Evie wipes a furious tear from her cheek because just a year ago, she was so certain that this cacophony would be hers. Daily.

But then she fell.

Evie doesn’t remember hitting the ground, just the sound of her scream.

Knowing it was bad.

Theo carrying her into the emergency room, where she was admitted for a fractured ankle. A nurse entering her curtained-off “room” with vials. So many vials. Resisting. Not understanding the need to draw blood with such an obvious injury. Pep’s assurance.It’s just protocol, Sweets. Theo’s hand in hers as the needle pierced her skin.

Evie hates needles.

The bloodwork came backfunkyand that necessitated more bloodwork that kept her in the hospital for two weeks of tests, scans, and a colonoscopy that ultimately led to a diagnosis. Crohn’s. A chronic inflammatory bowel disease. It explained so much. Stomachaches so painful that she’d regularly be sent home from school. Pain that her pediatrician attributed tomenses, even when she explained that these pains were sharp and random and not at all in sync with her cycle. Sleeping in until two every Sunday but always fading in class come Monday… and believing that was normal because doctors insisted she washealthyand wouldn’t anyone who spent at least twenty hours a week pushing her body to its limit always be bone-tired?

Evie learned it was not.

Normal.

Losing dance, the stillness that was required of her body to heal, was already painful.

Adding an autoimmune disease on top of it?

Well.

It was so much.

So.

Evie isn’t in New York because she couldn’t be.

Not physically.

Not financially.

Summer was two surgeries to reconstruct her ankle. Evie opted to start classes at UCLA in the spring. Gave her body, her brain, herhearttime to heal. Rendered what should’ve been her first semester of college a monotonous blur of physical therapy and various cocktails of medications to reduce the inflammation in her colon paired with so many supplements because her body has trouble absorbing a lot of critical nutrients. She started seeing Jules, a therapist Dr. Griffith referred her to. Pain ebbed and flowed. Pain that Dr. Griffith and Jules validated. Pain that Evie now understood was not a normal part of being a person but would continue to behernormal.

One moment from last fall is burned into her brain.

Theo’s voice pressed against her ear, soft and tentative through the phone.

“I’ve been thinking… maybe I’ll transfer next semester.”

“What?”

“It makes more sense. UCLA. It has an amazing education program. In-state tuition. I’d be there for my mom. We would—”

“Theo.No.”

“What?”

“You have to stay.”

“Evelyn—”

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