1There's a murmur that thumps one pulse behind her heartbeat; when the doctor pauses and the shadow of a frown ghosts across his mouth, she thinks he's heard it. But he pulls the stethoscope away and smiles- a clinical gesture, flicked on and off- and tells her, "Good news. Your ticker's in working order."
He's one of those doctors that doesn't use clinical terms with his patients. She guesses he wants to seem friendly, but she wonders if he's used that word so often- "ticker"- that he imagines the heart as a clock nestled between muscle and bone. She wonders if he's dealt with so many of their failures and attacks that he hears a ticking time bomb when he listens.
She tries to laugh at herself, to reassure the world that she's not crazy. She tries to remember how she never paid attention in Biology. She has no idea what's happening underneath her skin, that thin dividing line between her and the atmosphere. She can't tell the difference between what's normal and a body that's been thrown off-kilter. She's imagining some echo in her ribs; the ache there is so real that she feels as if it must be appearing in her body somewhere, something you could read on a screen.
All of this is true. The rest of the world believes it, but she can't.
She thinks about the strange intimacy of it, that this is the closest she's been to anyone in a long time. It's been just a few weeks, maybe, but time has stretched elastic around her. In some places it swallows the grains in her hourglass, roaring through the seconds so days pass by in one blink. Sand falling through her eyelashes, pooling in the hollow above her collarbones. Other times it stretches so long she can see it in front of her, razor-straight and dark like a desert highway. It's been only weeks, but it still feels foreign, the press of metal through the fabric of her shirt. The doctor leans in close; he has to, the short reach of the stethoscope like an umbilical cord left behind. A path between his ears and her heart, like any parent or lover would kill to have.
His face isn't attractive or ugly. It's too forgettable to be either. Black hair going white, muted gray eyes, pale skin where wrinkles have begun to feather away from the corners of his mouth. He looks blank, like he wipes his features away every night and lets the day draw new ones on. He's leaning in and she itches to do the same, frustrated with the sense of forward motion that's been frozen. They tremble with potential energy like they're waiting for someone to press "go".
She looks at the crisp white of his coat and thinks of how nice it would feel to sleep with her cheek against it. The body underneath is inconsequential. She's sick of softness, the plush of pillows and sheets that have been washed too many times to get rid of a smell that's not her own. Anything solid will do.
When he's done she slides off the chair; the paper crinkles with the sudden absence of her weight. He turns down the narrow hall and his shoes squeak when they hit the dingy tile. She goes to pay at the counter. Everything feels heavy, like she can feel gravity's press for the first time. The woman doesn't look at her when she scans the insurance card, not even when she pulls the crumpled bills from her pocket and slides them under the glass partition. The woman's face is blurred behind it, but she can see the thin lips pressed together while the woman moves like a machine.
She tries to remember why the money was loose in her pocket. She realizes she slept in these clothes and wonders if people can tell; it startles a laugh out of her, but it's hollow and she doesn't mean it. She emerges into the gray December afternoon and blinks hard, hoping that will get rid of the flashes of yesterday that keep glinting on the backs of her eyelids.
The crimson tablecloth and the muted light, the wine that still clung to the edges of her empty glass. His face out of nowhere, like he'd emerged from under dark water, drifting until he reached her chair. He'd held the table's edge, the knuckles going white, but she doesn't remember what he'd said. "Hey, I'm sorry" or something like it, something simple and final that he thought up when he laid in bed at night and stared at the ceiling, his arm going numb underneath the woman asleep next to him.
When he'd gone, she wondered if maybe it would happen like she sometimes read in books- if she'd realize she was crying, salt water cutting trails through her makeup. She wondered if she'd be startled to find the tears there, if the old sting at the corners of her eyes would be missing. But she lifted a hand to her face and it was just bones, just skin, nothing there.
She'd pushed the other glass to the far side of the table so no one would know she was alone. They would think he had gone for a moment- to the bathroom, to pay the bill, to get his jacket from the car. She let herself imagine it for a moment- that he would soon be settling back in across from her instead of driving down the freeway, watching the asphalt roll out from beneath his tires, yellow lines blurring in his headlights.