The Good Life

Chapter 14

“Marla?” He stopped quickly, moving himself toward her, brushing her hair out of her face. Her eyes were glazed over for a few seconds. “Mar?”

“Yeah? You’re, you’re oh….oh…like really no words…” she responded.

“Well, yeah. I could tell, “ he rolled over on to the side of his bed next to her. “But you…but Marla…you disappeared there for a second…like it wasn’t normal….it was like a seizure…”

“What?” she was stunned by his statement. “Wait….like my eyes were gone and I was all limp?”

“Shit.” she sat up covered in the silk sheets and turned around not looking at him.

“No secrets, baby. I promised you. Trust me. What happened?” He touched her arm. She moved it away from him.

She wasn’t contemplating not telling him, she was just figuring out the best way to tell him. It was an odd subject. Like really weird. Who has epilepsy? But only during their cycle? Why didn’t she think of that? I mean, look at what he does to her. Of course this would happen. Duh.

She had a single tear coming down her cheek when she turned around to look at him. She sniffed. Thank god I didn’t put on make-up, it surely would have run after this, she thought.

“Can we talk about this dressed?” she asked.

“Of course, here…put this on.” he handed her a white and purple v-neck shirt and a pair of his boxers that were laying on the top of his suite case. She savored she clothes as they smelled of cigarettes and cinnamon. She secretly smelled it a little longer while he put on his clothes. “Downstairs?” he asked.

“Yes, please.” She answered. They both walked downstairs with messy hair and no shoes on. It was almost 1 in the morning. She quickly thought, Oh shit, I have to work tomorrow…oh…no I don’t it’s summer.

He sat at the end of his brown couch and took her hand giving her one of the most sincere concerned looks she had seen him given her in the 6 months she had known him.

“Marla, you scared me…” he explained. “What in the world is going on?”

She sighed her signature enormous sigh and started, “I have epilepsy…”

“Wait what?”

“Let me finish before you ask questions…it’s not as weird as it sounds….” she interjected during his reaction. “I have epilepsy. It’s genetic. My aunt has it, but not my mother. She was obviously a carrier and my dad was too, so I was the lucky one. I had the big scary seizures when I was little –even when I was a teenager. I grew out of them. But I still took medication for them. They are mostly gone. But, I’ll get them when I stress out a lot, every once in a while at night, but usually that’s when I stress out, and mostly the week before my period. After the auction, when I was laying down reciting that poem, I was trying to keep myself from having a seizure. There’s small things that can keep them away, but mostly they’ll just pop up. I can tell mostly when they’re coming, like that one…that’s why I pushed you away. I had the seizure that Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t anything major…but…”

“So….soo…that…that’s weird. But you’re okay? Like you’re not sick or anything?” he wondered out loud.

“Oh no, I mean, if you count me taking a pill everyday to make sure I don’t fall on my face in the middle of the day sick, then yeah, but otherwise I’m fine. It’s scary. That was scary. It hasn’t happened in years. Maybe since like sophomore year of college…but I didn’t think it would happen…”

“So what do you do…like…when it happens?”

“Have you ever had a really bad migraine?” she asked him trying to compare the two.

“Like once…Eric hit me in the head with something when I was 13 and I had to go to the hospital. I saw stars and everything was green and red for a while…”

“When I see things are starting to get blue and white, like everything…like your face would be white and the table would be blue…that’s when I know I need to lay down and I’m going to have a seizure. Sometimes it happens quickly, other times it happens it happens hours before hand. This one…I kind of remember your hair getting blue, but there was so much going on that I couldn’t stop it from happening. If it’s a regular day, like the auction I just lay down and wait for it to pass. Angie knows, so I knew she would have found me and would have waited for everything to calm down. She would have driven me home, because of course you can’t drive within 36 hours of having a seizure and I would have had someone pick up my car for me later…or even then. No one would have even noticed. It’s just incredibly normal for me…”

“It’s not normal for me…” he told her sincerely.

“Bruno...it was weird…it was weird for me too. I planned on telling you about it. It was just…it wasn’t right.”

“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t tell me, Marley….” it struck her when he called her Marley. Only those closest to her called her Marley.

“What was I supposed to say? Tell you on our first date….oh by the way…if we sleep together I might pass out if you’re really good? But don’t worry I’ll wake up and everything will be okay?”

“Yes! Exactly!” his eyes lit up with her honesty.

She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

“I just want you to be comfortable. I want you to be able to tell me anything, Marla. And I want to be able to tell you anything too. Like the mole on your right butt check is hot.”

“Bruno!” she punched him and started to laugh.

He kissed her gently and led her upstairs. He set his alarm for 7am.

“I’m tired, B.” she yawned. “Can we just go bed? Today was perfect.”

He stood up and took her hands to take her to his bedroom. He turned off the light and led her to the bed. He wrapped his arms around her, smelled her hair and whispered the lyrics to an unknown song to her. She fell asleep to his voice. He fell asleep to her breathing.