Third Degree (30 page)

Marshall’s thumbs press into the ball of my foot and slide downward, causing me to groan in ecstasy yet again. “I like your boots,” Marshall says quietly, flashing me a smile.

Marshall and I are sprawled out on the bed, with Kelsey and Carson at the small table near the windows of our room. There’s plenty of pizza and alcohol.

From the corner of my eye, I see Kelsey reach for a second slice of pizza from the box. She says, “I’m never having kids.”

“Why not?” Marshall and Carson both say.

I sigh and nod. “Probably a great idea. Because they end up turning three and then getting not one but two very rare and potentially fatal diseases at the same time. Do you know what the probability of that is? Like so small you need a high-powered microscope to see it. And then you spend all your months in hospitals watching over your child and feeling guilty, wondering what you did to cause this, even though it’s probably just genetics. Maybe passing on your genes is enough guilt.”

Marshall looks up from my foot at the mention of genetics. Yeah, this isn’t just about Justin’s patient.

“Yeah.” Kelsey waves a semi-drunken finger in my direction. “What she said. Exactly.”

“That’s grim,” Carson says.

I crane my neck, trying to see what he’s drawing. From here, it looks like Kelsey with a slice of pizza in her hand, but I’m not positive.

“Hey, Izzy … can I play Weird Carson for a minute and ask you an intrusive question?” Kelsey asks.

My eyebrows lift up. “Do you really call him Weird Carson?”

She shrugs and tosses her remaining half slice of pizza into the box. “In my head I do.”

“That’s funny, ’cause I call him Shirtless Carson in my head.” I turn sideways slightly and reach for my cup of rum and Diet Coke from the nightstand, taking another large gulp. I don’t need any more alcohol, but whatever. I’m not driving. I’m already in bed.

“What do you call me in your head?” Marshall asks, setting my foot down and picking up the other one.

The alcohol is giving me a nice warm fuzzy-headed feeling. “Superman.”

Marshall rolls his eyes. “Right.”

“Well, you did defend her honor today,” Kelsey says before turning to me again. “But back to my intrusive question … what’s it really like inside your head?”

Marshall’s hands freeze in the middle of rubbing my feet, his eyes on me.

“Hmm …” I stare up at the ceiling as I think how I could explain. “It’s … it’s loud.”

“Loud?” Kelsey says.

“Loud,” I repeat. “Like city traffic. Like New York City traffic.”

“I like city traffic,” Marshall says. “Sitting somewhere people-watching, with commotion all around—it calms me.”

“Sometimes it’s like that for me, too. Sifting through pieces of information inside my head can provide a lot of comfort.”

“But …?” Kelsey prompts.

I exhale and my gaze drifts from the ceiling to Marshall. “Other times it’s like seeing through the traffic, following a cab and seeing the crash that will happen twelve blocks away. And then not being able to explain it to anyone else.”

“There’s no off switch,” Carson says, his hand still sketching furiously and his eyes on the page.

We all look at him because he hasn’t said a word for several minutes, including when we mentioned our nicknames for him. Carson finally looks up. “What? I get what Izzy’s saying, that’s all. Writing is like that for me. I wrote nine novels in one year. I know what it’s like to feel trapped inside your own head.”

Wow … now that’s a surprise. But I suppose that, like with me, there has to be some root for Carson’s weirdness.

I glance at Kelsey and see that she’s mesmerized by the guy she’s pretending not to like. Carson catches on, drops his pencil, and says, “I’m tired. Are you tired, Kels?”

Marshall snorts back a laugh and watches both of them fall over each other to get out the door and up to their third-floor room. When the door clicks shut, Marsh drops my foot and stretches out beside me.

“So … do you really call me Superman in your head?” he asks. “If this is some kind of fantasy, I’d be happy to look into costumes.”

I laugh and roll onto my side, laying an arm across his stomach. “You in tights and a cape? Sold.”

Marshall smiles and leans in to kiss me, but I suddenly place a hand between us. “I ate pizza. I’m not kissing you until I brush my teeth.” After reluctantly sliding off the bed and getting a rush of dizziness from all the alcohol, I finally make it to the bathroom and my toothbrush. I’m quickly joined by Marsh.

“Sorry, I’m an idea stealer,” he says, swiping my tube of toothpaste. “And I still can’t believe you ate pizza. That’s up there with french fries. I’m impressed. You even ate twice as much as me.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ve been eating three times as much as you for a few weeks now.”

He spits in the sink, rinses, and then lifts his head, a more serious expression on his face. “I know.”

The lighter tone and talk of superhero sexual fantasies has quickly shifted to a heavy subject, and both of us are silent until we’re stretched across the bed again and Marshall says, “Can I ask you something?”

I bite my lip and nod, trying to hold his gaze.

“How long do I have before I’ll need surgery again?”

God, not this
. This is what alcohol, pizza, and being in Nashville more generally was supposed to distract me from. “I can’t answer that.”

One eyebrow arches up. “Can’t or won’t?”

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Both, maybe.”

“Izzy … it’s just a question. You must have some kind of answer for me. Maybe an estimate?” He slides himself a few inches away from me, as if giving himself room to study all of my body language.

“It’s not that simple, Marsh.” I can’t look at him anymore. I roll on my back and resume analysis of the ceiling. “The answer includes an opinion—my opinion. And things that are somewhat elective for you at this point.”

“Okay.” He exhales. “I want to hear it. You should know by now that I’ve accepted the being-sick part; I just want to know what to expect in the future. I’ve already had two surgeries, and they seem to be on some kind of schedule. Next year I’ll be doing my student teaching and looking for jobs …”

“You’ve had resections before—the surgeon cut out portions of your small intestine,” I say, and Marshall nods, encouraging me to continue. “Well, there’s only so much intestine that can be removed. If your symptoms worsen—and I think they will, because that’s what’s happening right now—your best bet is the J-pouch surgery.”

His forehead wrinkles. “That’s the one where they remove your colon, right?”

“Yes, but not just that. It’s a two-part surgery done with at least three months of healing time between. The surgeon creates a J-shaped reservoir to collect waste with the end of the small intestine, and that’s connected directly to the anus—”

“Since I won’t have a colon anymore.” His jaw flexes, but I can tell he’s working hard to appear calm.

“Right. And while the pouch is healing, you’d have a hole in your abdomen that connects
to a colostomy bag,” I finish.

“A poop bag.” Marshall nods and then flops onto his back. “Great. That’s … great.”

“But the bag would be temporary, and then after the second surgery, there’s a chance you won’t need steroids or Humira injections anymore, or at least much less often.” I sit up and take in his pensive expression. My stomach sinks. This is not what I wanted to do to him tonight. I crawl across the bed and swing one leg over him, straddling his lap. “Enough sad faces, okay? Nobody’s operating on you tonight.”

A grin spreads slowly across his face. He drags his thumbs under my shirt, skimming the length of my sides. “I’d feel much happier if you removed your clothes.”

I lean down to kiss him. “Not if … 
when
.”

My shirt gets tossed aside and then Marshall is gliding his finger along the lacy part of my bra. “I like this one. It hooks in the front. Easy access.”

“You know …” I shove his shirt up and move my hands over his chest. “I saw this naughty-nurse uniform at a costume shop last week. If you do decide to have surgery, I could get into uniform and take care of you. Could be fun …”

His mouth forms a thin line. Then he lifts me off of him and sits up. Cold air rushes into the space between us. “Izzy, that’s not something I’d want to experience together.”

His words sting. They shouldn’t really, but they do. I shouldn’t have let myself give in to the noisy traffic in my head. The subject had been dropped and I picked it up again. “I’m not going to be scared off by colostomy bags and incision scars.”

“No, you won’t,” he agrees. “But aren’t you trying to get away from here? Isn’t that your goal? Have some normal experiences and go back to your real life?”

I sink back onto my heels, the weight of his words pressing hard on top of me. “Marshall—”

He turns to face me, blue eyes staring right at me. “You haven’t changed your mind, right? You still want Johns Hopkins?”

Silence fills the space between us. I bite down on my lip again, unable to say a word, because he’s right. I haven’t changed my mind.

Marshall tears his gaze from mine and drops his head into his hands, scrubbing his palms over his face. “This is why it’s so complicated for me to—” He stops talking and shakes his head. Then he’s on his feet, snatching the room key from the desk and heading out the door.

I sit there listening to my heart pound inside my ears, my mouth hanging open in shock, my eyes glued on the door where Marshall exited. A vibration followed by a loud pop song nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I crawl across the bed and pick up Marshall’s phone, staring at the name across the screen:
Tracy
.

I don’t know exactly what I did to piss Marshall off, but I’d rather not be the reason for
him missing some family mega-crisis, so I answer his phone.

“Hello?”

“Izzy?” Tracy says. “Oh, God … this
is
Izzy, right? Because if you’re another girl, I just created a big giant mess.”

I laugh, but there’s a hint of nerves in it. I might be crossing another line here. “It’s Izzy.”

“Hey, how are you? Where’s Marsh? Can I talk to him?”

“He’s … he’s, uh—”

“Shit. He’s in the hospital again, isn’t he?” Tracy says, all amusement dropping from her voice.

“No,” I answer quickly. “No, nothing like that.” I blow out a breath and decide that it’s okay to be honest with his sixteen-year-old sister. “He just left the room. I think maybe … he’s mad at me, I don’t know.”

“Oh, okay,” she says with a whoosh of relief. “Marsh doesn’t really get mad at people. He gets frustrated, walks away, and then he comes back and everything is fine.”

Maybe that’s how it is with his sisters, with any of his family, but I’m not family. He doesn’t have to like or forgive me. “Well … that’s good to know.”

“Stop worrying,” she says with a laugh. “He’s totally in love with you. Ten bucks says he returns in a few minutes with ice cream or chocolates.”

She goes on telling three different stories about how she drove him crazy and he forgave her, but I can’t really listen because the words
He’s totally in love with you
repeat over and over again in my head until twenty minutes later, when the door finally opens again.

“Hey,” I whisper to Tracy. “He’s back. I’ll tell him to call you, okay?”

“Okay, cool. No hurry.”

I toss the phone onto the nightstand and watch Marshall reenter the room carrying a brown paper bag. Was Tracy right about the chocolates and ice cream? My heart pounding, I wait for him to say something.

Instead he flops onto his back sideways across the bed and reaches for me, pulling me into his arms. “Let’s start this activity over, okay?”

I close my eyes, sighing with relief as my cheek presses against his cotton T-shirt. “But you’re right, I do still want Johns Hopkins. I don’t know what I was thinking—”

Marshall touches my lips with two fingers, quieting me. “I know. It’s okay. You care about me. I feel the same about you. That’s enough right now.”

“But—”

He lifts my chin, our eyes meeting. “I don’t want you to worry about anything else. That was completely unfair of me to plant those seeds. I’m sorry.”

I can’t help the small laugh that escapes. His sister knows him very well. “What’s in the
bag?”

He hooks a hand behind my neck and brings our mouths together, kissing me long and slow before pulling away.

My eyes are still half closed, but I have to know. “What’s in the bag, Marshall?”

“Cupcakes.” He flips me over onto my back and then leans down, undoing the clasp on the front of my bra with his teeth. “We’re about to get creative with frosting. Are you in?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, raking my hands through his hair. “Totally in.”

Chapter 24

@IsabelJenkinsMD:
Humans share 98.4% of our DNA with chimps—and 70% with slugs.

Mom reaches around me, unties the apron I’m wearing over my jeans and festive burnt orange sweater, and tugs it over my head. “You’re done with cooking duties. Marshall’s here.”

“What?” I dive for the door of the hospital kitchen. “Why didn’t you say something? Did you talk to him already? You did, didn’t you?”

She suppresses a smile and shakes her head. “I just said hello. That’s all.”

“I don’t believe you.” I continue to glare at her as I back slowly through the door. When I fully exit the kitchen and glance around the cafeteria, I spot Marshall across the room pouring apple juice into a red Solo cup while talking to my dad.

Great. Just great.

I close my eyes and count to ten before heading in their direction. Dad catches my eye, smiles, then turns back to Marshall and says, “I totally agree—the Bears and the Cubs are overrated. I’ve lived in Chicago all my life, so that’s saying something.”

“Well, West Coast teams are way overpaid and overhyped, but Chicago and New York aren’t much better,” Marshall says, all calm and casual, like this isn’t the most awkward event ever.

“You’re talking about sports?” I say to Dad. “You don’t even like sports.”

He shrugs. “But Marshall does.”