The Graceview Patient By Caitlin Starling - 8

And then I met Isobel.

I don’t want to think about this part, but I need to. For her. I owe her that much.

It hurts.

It hurts, it hurts —

I am so sorry, Isobel.

I wasn’t awake for bedside report the second night. I don’t know how she looked, staring down at my insensate body, twitching and swaying under the drugs that were priming me for the next day’s work. I don’t know what Penelope told her about me, or if she knew Adam yet, or much of anything.

I don’t know her last name. Nurse Isobel R. is all it said on the progress notes I could access on my phone, back when I had it.

The first time I saw her was when I woke up sometime after sunset. I was disoriented, and that was still a very new sensation. I didn’t have the tricks I later developed to find myself in the great wash of sensory input, and with the sun set and the curtains pulled, all I knew was that I was in a bed that wasn’t my own, a narrow bed on a slight incline, with pillows that were cleaner than mine had been in a long time, an alien cleanliness. My IVs were barely noticeable, the saline and whatever else dripping into my veins room temperature and unremarkable. Click-click-click went the pump.

I did hurt, though. All over. My joints ached, and that’s how I found my way back to my body that night. I remember that part very clearly. Counting my joints, easing my stiff muscles into movement.

The 1 was still circled on the board in Adam’s hand. I was definitely closer to a five. Whatever effect SWAIL had had, blotting out my discomfort, must have worn off while I slept. Squinting in the low light, I fumbled for the CALL button.

I hesitated, unsure if I should use it. Surely my night nurse would be in soon. The pump by my bedside would start beeping, and it would need to be adjusted. But the bag of normal saline on the pole looked plump and full, and I didn’t see another drip going.

She’ll want to know I’m awake , I told myself, but it still took so much effort to press the button. To ask for help. Does that sound strange? I don’t know. When I first started getting sick, I had this romantic idea of it. I was miserable, yes—but at least it meant I finally had permission to rest. I’d be taken care of, instead of running on empty, all alone. Like a childhood sick day; I yearned for that simplicity, that safety.

Of course, that’s not how it works. There was nobody to take care of me, not in any way I could rely on, and I just had to run on worse than empty. Suffer and grind and try to pay for treatments that only had a chance of helping if I “relaxed.” Year upon year, until I got the SWAIL offer. And this little desperate part of me whispered, It’s time.

And now I was being looked after in the truest sense of the phrase. I could see my vitals on the screen by my bed, I didn’t know what had happened to the day behind me, and that was just fine. All I had to do was rest. Get better. Endure the bad parts. It was like a fairy tale, a dream come true.

Adults don’t get that. And maybe that’s why the louder part of me kept fighting that care. No, it shouted, you need to buck up and deal with it. You don’t get to press a button when you’re hurting and have somebody come to the rescue.

But I did.

And she did. More or less.

“Good evening,” said Isobel, entering the room and wiping her hands down with antibacterial ooze from the dispenser. Unlike some of the nurses, she didn’t smile, instead going to the bedside computer and swiping in with her badge, pulling up every detail she had on me. “I’m Isobel. Can I have you confirm your name and date of birth?”

“Margaret Culpepper,” I said, and rattled off the rest, fiddling with the remote to raise the back of the bed. My fingers were clumsy. It took a few attempts, and she didn’t help. I appreciated it as much as I resented her for it. Either option was another little indignity: the only winning move would have been to not need help at all.

I finally managed to find the right button. I looked up and found her gazing at me with a flat expectancy.

“How can I help?” she asked, with none of Adam’s warmth, or even Penelope’s. Matter-of-fact. She was wearing the standard pale blue scrubs, her pockets noticeably full, though with what I couldn’t tell. Her hair was pulled back, her face scrubbed bare.

I hadn’t realized until then how much Penelope and even Louise softened their appearances.

My throat clenched. I don’t need help , I almost said, but I’d hit the CALL button, and my limbs were heavy with throbbing heat. “My pain is getting bad again,” I said, fingers working at the rough weave of the hospital blanket.

Isobel glanced at the computer screen. “I’ll get you some Tylenol.”

So much for the good stuff.

My mouth was so dry. “Tylenol doesn’t—usually do much. For me.” I knew immediately that I probably sounded pathetic, or worse: like I was showing drug-seeking behavior . “Just ibuprofen would work better,” I added, hastily. “I don’t—I’m not—”

“I’ll get you some Tylenol,” she repeated, and left the room.

I stared after her.

My head was spinning. The drugs were no doubt making the whole situation harder to parse than it needed to be, exacerbating the whiplash. Tylenol was fine. Would be fine. I flexed my toes, wiggling in my bed, willing my body to get its shit together. This was my normal, I reminded myself.

I drank half the water in my plastic mug, which was full and still had ice floating in it. The water helped the pain, and to clear the fug from my head. But that just made it more uncomfortably obvious how long Isobel was gone for. I tried not to stare at the clock, but time marched on anyway. Fifteen minutes. Twenty.

It was almost forty minutes later by the time she returned with a little paper cup. I held out my wrist for her to scan the barcode.

“I was told,” I said, after I swallowed down the two pills, “that I’d be kept as comfortable as possible.” I didn’t bother hiding my annoyance.

“You’ll have to discuss that with Dr. Santos,” she said, her own irritation creeping into her voice. “At this stage of SWAIL, Tylenol is as needed, the rest you’ll need approval for.”

“Well, please mark my pain down as a five,” I said. I ran a hand over my scalp, swinging wildly between feeling like a tantrumming child and being certain my affront was justified. “And let Dr. Santos or whoever’s on call know.”

“You should consider leaving the trial,” Isobel replied.

The words were a blow. I think I made some weak little sound, confused and startled. I hated her in that moment.

“Nothing that you’re on should be causing discomfort,” she continued, not looking at me, tapping something into the computer. “If this is your baseline, you may not be able to manage the next steps. Even with medical support.”

“Shut up.”

She flinched, then looked away, chest rising and falling as she took a steadying breath.

“That wasn’t my place,” she said, after a brief, ringing silence. “I’ll let the doctor know.”

And then she was gone.

I shook for a long time after that. The Tylenol did shit all, like I knew it would, but the rage was a perfect distraction. I reveled in it. I got up out of my bed, shuffled over to the board, and erased Adam’s circle, replacing it with my own. FIVE. Five, I fucking hurt, and it was my fucking pain. How dare she? How dare she tell me to tap out? I was breathing too fast, and I could hear the quick beep beep beep of my vitals rocketing up. I didn’t want her back in that room, so I let the rage wash through me, mellowing out to a soft, comforting smolder.

She didn’t understand how much endurance I had left in me, or how much spite.

I know now, of course, why she said what she did. And I know she was right. But at the time, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t even see the burnout beneath her words, the exhaustion, the overwhelm. I didn’t know what else she was dealing with, that night or any of the others.

I wish she’d told me more plainly what was coming for me.

But I don’t think I would have listened.