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Finally, a little heads up for any squeamish readers: this story is Gross. There are mentions of illness, shitting, nose bleeds, my terrible attitude, sex, and the grossest thing of all, love lost.
Ok, enjoy!
I think I have the flu.
Everything hurts.
This reminds me of the last time I had a bad flu. It was March 2016. I was dating Ryan, probably the only boyfriend I’ve had that I actually truly loved. We were long-distance and about to be reunited so that we could road trip together from Nebraska, where he lived, to Texas.
I had been invited to read at SXSW. My dear friend Molly, who you might know, had put together a poetry reading there. I had never been to Texas, nor had Ryan, so we planned the whole thing. I was very much looking forward to it.
Unfortunately, I woke up the morning we were supposed to leave with the worst flu symptoms I’d ever felt. I was so dizzy I could barely sit up in bed. My head was pounding, and my breath was short.
Maybe we shouldn’t go? Ryan had to help me stand up.
No! I wobbled over to the fridge. We are going. I just need a smoothie or something.
So, we packed up the car and stopped at Bakers grocery store before hitting the road. I still remember how awful I felt wandering through the store, under those fluorescent lights, still mumbling something about a smoothie as though that would fix whatever evil was coursing through my veins.
We had barely been on the road two hours when I suddenly and somehow felt worse than before—heart palpitations, sweating, dizzy.
Ryan looked over at me from the driver’s seat.
Do you need to go…to a hospital?
Uhhhhhh, I think so. Maybe? Is there a hospital around here?
There wasn’t. About ten minutes later, I was feeling less intensely, and we pulled into a Wendy’s parking lot to look up directions to a hospital or clinic. I remember taking a completely liquid shit in the Wendy’s bathroom, shivering so much my teeth were chattering. I remember the shoes I was wearing, the feeling of not wanting to get up, and wondering what would happen if I died in the stall.
We mercifully did not end up needing a hospital, though I did get my period on the road early and vicious, a cherry on top.
We stopped at a Texas hotel a few hours away from Austin. We immediately got into the bath, Ryan barely fitting and my sick body piled on top of his.
For a second, I felt better, kind of, though when we tried to fuck later, I was out of breath and feeling dizzy again. I remember telling him he should stop kissing me, that he’d get sick too, and then we’d be really fucked. I gave him a blowjob and went to sleep.
The next morning, we completed the last leg of our trip and rolled into Austin in the early afternoon. I was hopped up on daytime cold medicine and trying to convince myself that I was Better.
The minute we stepped out of the car and into the heat, I got my first-ever nosebleed. My first and last. So far, anyway. Bleeding from everywhere.
I was wearing a very cheap pair of jeans that gave me ridiculously visible camel toe, which I only realized after reading in front of an audience. I chain-smoked like I wasn’t sick and accepted drinks. I was in denial, and I wanted to have a good time. After all, coming here almost killed me; I could survive another day. My fever was creeping back up, and I was ignoring it.
I met up with my friend Noah, who was in town with a band he was playing with. I remember looking up and seeing him run toward me in the gravel parking lot, running toward him in turn and landing in his arms. Dramatic, as always.
He suggested taking me and Ryan out for dinner.
I had no appetite; I’d barely eaten the entire trip. But I wanted to be around Noah, with whom I’d always had a very codependent and obsessive friendship. Neither Noah nor I had any boundaries. While Ryan was generally very okay with this and not usually a jealous person, I remember him seeming annoyed as we sat down to eat.
Maybe it was the fact that his girlfriend, a sickly, whiny passenger princess, was now seeking comfort and attention from another man. I can’t blame him. It is difficult to explain what Noah did to my brain and why he was always my favorite.
I also remember having to excuse myself from the table several times to take more devastatingly bad and watery shits. Sitting in a cramped stall with music blaring, nauseous and feverish, worse than ever, my body kicking me for trying to have fun, I wondered why even in moments of weakness and vulnerability, I was still capable of being such a Fucking Bitch to a man I loved.
Ryan wanted to leave. The traffic getting out of the city will be crazy, but I knew there were Other Reasons. We were flat broke and couldn’t afford another hotel, so we drove around looking for a motel longer than we wanted. By the time we found one, a truly sketchy one at that, I was feeling as bad as the first day.
He barely spoke to me that night except to try to initiate sex, advances I rebuffed with little consideration. I think about that moment a lot, even now, how I should have just fucked him, how ungrateful I’d been this whole time, stealing the show with my sickness.
No one owes anyone else sex, of course, but the man Loved me, loved me enough to drive me here, loved me enough to put up with my weird friendships and constant need to go to the bathroom and then talk about what happened in the bathroom.
There was a red light above the TV that would blink occasionally, and I was mumbling something about hidden cameras as we drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, all we wanted to do was Go Home. I was feeling slightly better, and Ryan didn’t seem as mad, although something was still off. I remember him ignoring me as I pointed to the horses we passed on the road. I had used the word “horsies” in some pathetic attempt to infantilize myself, make myself seem sweeter, more innocent than the contagious and whiny bitch I’d been to him all week.
It did not work.
We were about two hours away from home when Ryan mentioned he felt weird.
Weird how? Weird like you caught it?
Yeah, he said, I think so.
I told you not to kiss me!
To this, he said nothing, just drove on a little bit faster, seemingly rushing to get home and into bed. I felt guilt and pangs of something I would later identify as the first inklings of love lost; love diminished. He loved me less now.
By the time we got home, Ryan was sweaty and feverish. We took a shower together and stood there in silence as I tried to press myself back into his embrace, back into his heart.
Four days later, I flew home, both of us still sick as dogs; our love officially died only a few months later.
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beautiful <3