Page 5 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
Unbidden, my free hand comes to rest low on my abdomen. When Cole and I started dating, a degree of pain had already been a standard part of my cycle. He’d been so patient and understanding during the stretches of days I’d be “out of commission,” murmuring gentle words as he held me on the floor of whatever bathroom he’d found me doubled over in, soothing me in waiting rooms and doctors’ offices. When I’d finally been diagnosed with endometriosis and given a treatment plan, it had been a relief for both of us.
But there’s no curing the condition. Barring surgery, which my insurance isn’tquiteconvinced I qualify for, the most anyonecan do is mitigate its symptoms. With the potential for pain lurking in the background of every intimate encounter, it became harder to connect physically. Add to that the fertility issues that are common with cases as severe as mine, the distance that accompanies the possibility that you won’t be able to provide what your partner wants in the long term, and the unspoken awareness that you’re only staying together out of convenience and respect for a lease agreement, and you have yourself a dealbreaker stew.
“I’m not sad,” I insist, but there’s a sliver of dishonesty in the words. “Or, maybe, for some past version of us.” Or just the past version of myself. The me that hoped that Cole would be different from the guys I’d dated since my symptoms started. We’d make it because he cared enough about me to stay, despite my traitorous body. I’d be enough to make him care. I could do enough and ignore enough and accommodate enough. But it really was only a matter of time.
“Oh, Ellie.” Mark turns my name into a sympathetic coo. “Fuck that guy.”
“But where are you now?” Heather repeats, inconveniently attuned to my earlier evasion.
“I’m looking at a room that’s available to rent. Near Hyde Park,” I add, hoping the allusion to the stately Austin neighborhood north of the university will inspire confidence.
“How did you find the space so quickly?” Mark asks.
“I saw the sign for it on Monday.”
Another loaded pause.Shit.I fall back onto the mattress, the plastic cold against the bare skin of my shoulders and back. Heather’s never outright expressed her dislike of Cole, but she never had to;her face always did it for her. So I am unsurprised when she asks, “Andwhywere you noticing rental signs Monday?” with particular venom.
“When I came into the kitchen that morning, I was still trying to figure out what was going on. So I had my hand over my left eye.” I demonstrate, even though they can’t see me, and my field of vision is reduced to the sliver I’ve retained in my periphery. I drop my hand, bringing the ceiling back into view. “And when Cole saw me, his reaction was ‘Now what?’”
The rumbling of disapproval over the receiver is deeply satisfying.
“Ellie!” Mark says. “Why didn’t you tell us then?”
“I was half-blind and no one knew why,” I remind him. “It wasn’t a priority.”
“Ellie.”Heather’s voice is a warning.
“Why didn’t you just go to our place tonight?” Mark cuts in. “We’re not even there!”
A fair question. They’re at a teaching conference in Houston and won’t be back until tomorrow. And I had considered their address when I opened the rideshare app outside of the restaurant, but I’d dismissed the thought just as quickly.
I don’t know if it’s the buffer of the phone call or exhaustion— or, again, the beer—but I fess up. “Because you get an alert any time your front door’s unlocked, you’d see that it was my door code unlocking it, and then one of you would call and I’d have to have this conversation. And I really,reallydidn’t want to have to talk about this—any of this—tonight.
“It’s not you,” I assure them, because it isn’t. It’s everything else. “I’ve been being handled with kid gloves for years now, andI’m tired of it. Constantly getting asked how I am and being told that I’mso brave, when what goddamn choice do I have?”
My voice rises as I talk, and I pause, forcing myself to reel it in. “Either my vision will come back, or it won’t. Either I’ll end up with MS, or I’ll be okay, and we can add this episode to the list of shitty, weird things my body is so fond of throwing at me.” I sigh. “And… yeah. Screw Cole. I’m not spending another night in that apartment. That was his plan, by the way. That I move into the room I use as my office, and we’d reassess in six months.”
Mark sucks in a breath. “Like, your exact diagnosis window, those six months?”
“The very same. In this scenario, I presume, I’d be waiting for my vision to go out again—if it comes back in the first place—or for a tingling sensation in my limbs, or sudden lightheadedness, or some other symptom in the packet of maladies the doctor handed me today, and Cole would be chilling in the next room. He—” My next breath hisses in through gritted teeth. “He actually thought I’d accept that. That I’d be desperate enough—”
“No.”Heather’s voice is hard. “You’re done with him.”
“And he was done withme,” I remind her, hoping to undercut any point she might make about my having settled or me being too good for Cole. Because it wasn’t enough.
“Ellie—”she starts anyway.
“Any improvement on the eye front?” Mark interjects, like he’s trying to defuse a squabble between cast members but will tell us to “use it” in our performance.
I take the out. “It fogged up in the shower this morning. My neurologist said that’ll happen with extreme heat or physical exertion.”
“At least it keeps things interesting?”
“You know how I love surprises,” I grumble, which gets a laugh out of both of them. If there’s anything I’m known for, it’s my absolute resistance to surprises. Ditto disorganization, stretches of unstructured time, and substandard levels of cleanliness in any context. As far as people go, I might not be the best time, but I’m always guaranteed to be on time!
“Thank you for checking on me,” I say. “You should go back to your mandatory fun.”
Mark groans. “Ellie, the deejay just played a version of ‘Hey Ya!’ with lyrics aboutcell division. It’s unbearable! And you’re not even here to provide commentary!”
