I BLAME STRESS for the fact that I wake up on Friday morning drenched in sweat and completely incapable of breathing through my nose.
I've had my flu shot. I'm up to date on all my vaccines. And I never get sick-not even freshman year when a nasty strain of strep swept through our dorm. So I shower, even though there are black spots in my vision when I move my head too quickly, and I put on jeans, even though my bones ache and I want nothing more than to curl up in sweatpants, and I force myself to sit at my laptop reading a PDF essay on feminist literature while my temples throb and my eyes burn.
I'm in Denial City, population me.
It isn't until my trashcan is full of tissues and my head feels like it's splitting open that I finally admit to myself that there's no way I can make it to any of my afternoon classes, much less my night shift at the library. I text Joy and Jennie, shoot Margie an apologetic email, and then turn to the student portal to find a replacement. Within minutes, a girl offers to cover for me if I'll take her Wednesday morning shift. Nobody else is about to sacrifice their Friday night for a sick girl, so I have no choice but to agree to the switch.
I chuck off my jeans-horrible, uncomfortable, cursed denim-and pull on the sweatpants I've been dreaming of, then drag my traitorous corporeal form into bed.
My head feels like it's full of helium. My throat's so raw it's like I've gargled rocks.
"But you were fine last night," Joy says from the doorway as she tosses me bottles of Gatorade like a zookeeper lobbing fish to a sea lion. "I know you said you had a headache, but I didn't expect you'd be, like, on your fucking deathbed today."
"Neither did I," I croak. "Oh, God. Can you overdose on Advil? Is that a thing?"
"I'm making you chicken noodle soup!" Jennie shouts from the kitchenette.
Both of them insist on staying home with me for the night, even though I know the new going-out shirt Jennie ordered from Nasty Gal arrived this week and she's dying to give it a test run. I prop myself up in bed and watch as they rearrange furniture in the living room so I can see the TV through my open doorway.
"It's not too late for you to ditch me," I call.
"Shut up," Joy says. "What do you want to watch?"
"You guys should pick. I'm probably gonna fall asleep thirty minutes in."
Joy puts on Pride and Prejudice, which she knows is my all-time favorite and I know she can't stand. I'm about to thank her when she says, "I'm only watching this sappy white people shit for you, Park. As soon as you pass out, we're putting on something else."
"This movie is a masterpiece," Jennie mutters.
"How the fuck am I friends with you guys?" Joy asks.
Because we love each other. The thought brings tears to my eyes. I don't know how I got so lucky with these two dorks. I don't know how I found two people who could still want to spend time with me when I'm at my absolute worst. And as I watch Matthew MacFadyen's Darcy put his foot in his mouth and realize I'm daydreaming of Lisa Manoban's brown eyes, I realize that I've been keeping a secret from the two people who I most want to confide in.
"I have to tell you guys something," I call out, "but you're not allowed to make fun of me."
"Oh, God, are you going to throw up?"
"No. No, it's just-it's sort of embarrassing."
Joy's head pokes around my doorframe. "How embarrassing, on a scale of me sleeping through my sociology final to Jennie getting kicked out of the art club's Bob Ross party?"
Jennie gasps in outrage. "That was one time."
"Yeah, because they banned you for life."
"It's not my fault the only chaser they had was boxed wine-"
"I made out with Lisa Manoban," I blurt.
For a moment, silence. And then both of my roommates appear in my doorway, scrambling over each other in their haste to see if I'm joking or if the fever has made me delirious.
"I'm sorry, you what?"
"Like, on-the-basketball-team Lisa?"
"When did you-and where did you-just, what?"
I wait until they've stopped blubbering to say, very calmly, "She came into the library during my shift on Friday. She asked for help finding some poetry. We went up to the second floor, and one thing led to another, and we made out."
Joy and Jennie obviously have some follow-up questions. How big are her hands? Did she moan, because it's so hot when wait-, I'm sorry, she lifted you? I thought you said she only had one good arm! Did she get a boner? She did. Oh my god, Roseanne, you seduced her!
The two of them are giddy at the revelation that I've hooked up with one of Clement's star basketball players. They roll around on my floor and give commentary on my storytelling until I'm red-faced with mortification and laughing, even though my throat is killing me. Slowly but steadily, I feel the weight on my shoulders ease. It feels real, now. Not like some weird fever dream. Lisa and I made out in a dark corner of the library, and it was insane and spontaneous and, in retrospect, a great story.
Maybe I'll be okay. Maybe I'll survive this, after all.
By Wednesday, my voice is practically gone and I'm still a bit shaky, but I feel human enough to crawl out of bed and climb onto my bike before dawn.
I take deep breaths of crisp morning air as I ride onto campus. It feels weird to head to the library at the same hour I usually get off my shift-like the world has been flipped upside down, or like I've pulled a Joy and slept through my sociology final after accidentally switching the time zone on my phone. There's a knot in my stomach as I lock my bike up and head inside, but when I shoulder through the doors, the library feels perfectly unchanged.
I don't know why I was worried that coming back here would feel like returning to a crime scene. This is still my happy place.
The night shift kid-a tired-eyed boy with Beats headphones around his neck-looks at me like I'm his savior when I march up to the circulation desk and tell him I'm here to relieve him. While he's packing up his stuff, Margie comes out of the elevator with a book cart piled high with enormous science textbooks.
"Roseanne!" she says when she spots me. "How are you feeling, kiddo?"
"I'm better," I croak, than laugh. "Obviously, I know I don't sound like it, but the student health center says I'm not contagious."
The doctor I saw there agreed with me-stress, not viral infection, was the most likely cause of my weekend malaise. She's seen hundreds of Clement students with similar symptoms that happened to line up with final exams, group projects, and other major deadlines.
Margie nods sympathetically. "Well, there's a box of tea bags and an electric kettle in the back office. Help yourself, alright?"
"Thank you," I say on a heavy exhale.
I stow my backpack under the table, pull out my plastic baggie of cough drops, and start towards the office door.
"Oh-before I forget," Margie stops me. "A girl came in on Friday and asked for you."
Everything goes still. I think there's a ringing in my ears.
"What girl?" I ask, even though I think I already know the answer.
"I don't remember her name. Tall son of a bitch. Very handsome. She checked out two different books of Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems and an autobiography."
Lisa. She came back.
"I told her you were out sick," Margie adds.
I die a little inside, even though I know Lisa couldn't possibly know just how snotty and sweaty and miserable I looked all weekend. Fuck. I can't believe I missed her.
She asked for you.
I'm not sure how to interpret that. Maybe she just wanted to check in and figure out what happened to me after we made out. Maybe she wanted a repeat of last Friday night. Or, maybe she just wanted to make it clear that what happened between us was a one-time thing and that she'd prefer it if I didn't run my mouth about it.
"Did she say why she was looking for me?" It's a loaded question, but I have to know.
"Well, she said she needed an English tutor, but she left a note for you. Hold on-I put it on my desk in the back-"
Margie ducks into the office and reappears a moment later with a little scrap of torn paper in her hand. My first thought when she passes it to me is that Lisa's handwriting is surprising neat-two little lines of perfectly even block letters. She does her A's the same way I do mine.
Still suck at poetry. Please have mercy.
Lmanoban@clement.edu
I turn it over, hoping for some more insight, but the other side is blank.
"Should I have told her to get lost?" Margie asks.
I croak out a laugh. "No, I can handle her. Thanks, Margie."
I tuck Lisa's note in the back pocket of my jeans and try to focus on work. There's so much to be done before the morning crowd arrives to print homework and essays before classes. I stock shelves and process returns and help a group of chemistry students game our e-book checkout system so they don't have to pay two hundred bucks for a textbook. The hours come and go, and the sun rises until light steams into the atrium like liquid gold, casting the whole library in a warm glow.
The whole time, all I can think about is the scrap of paper in my pocket.