twenty two
The doctor comes in to see me.
She does the normal work - checking my heart rate, checking my blood sugar levels, giving me the nutrients I need to survive. But toward the end of her shift, she comes back in and takes a seat in the plastic chair by my bed. She doesn't touch me.
"Come on, Sarah," she says. "Don't let them down."
I try to open my eyes. I try to for the sake of everyone who loves me. But I can't.
"Do you know what? When I first met you in the meeting room, I thought for sure that you were faking it," she says. "Everything in your body was perfectly normal. Every test we took came back saying you were fine. But you got headaches and blacked out, and I thought maybe - just maybe - you were doing it all for the attention. Maybe you liked to just lie on the floor and be a pain to everyone in this goddamn town. Make everyone feel sorry for you. Get their sympathy."
I hear her take a deep breath. "I took you on, Sarah, despite everyone thinking you didn't matter. Everyone else thought the same thing as me. You were faking it. Of course you were, what other logical explanation can there be?"
She took my hand and ran her fingers over my veins. "There's blood flowing through these veins. That heart is beating, keeping you alive. Logical explanations don't always exist. The mind is an unexplained phenomenon. It can accomplish unthinkable things. You are a puzzle, Sarah Jacobs, and it's time you figured yourself out."
She dropped my hand and touched my hair, gently, lightly. "You've got to remember."
