I got out of the apartment building and couldn't see her. I had to think for a minute which way she would've went, but eventually guessed on the direction that her own apartment was in, praying she hadn't quickly hailed a cab. After rounding a couple of corners I was relieved to see her, power-walking away in the distance.
"Melissa!" I called after her but she didn't turn round. "Wait up!" I tried again, just on the off chance that she hadn't heard me and wasn't ignoring me deliberately. Wishful thinking, I know.
I started to run again, this time noticing how cold it actually was. What little snow we'd gotten had gone now but it was still technically winter and I was just out in a t-shirt. It was a miracle that it wasn't raining in Seattle for once.
I finally caught up and fell into step alongside her, catching my breath as I spoke.
"Melissa . . . can't we talk about this?"
"What's the point?" She asked, keeping her eyes forward. "You've clearly already made up your mind that I'm some sort of drugged up slut!"
"Well I didn't say that," I pointed out.
"You didn't have to!" She yelled. I should have known not to say that out loud. "The look on your face was enough!"
"Well can you blame me for freaking out?" I asked. "You have to admit that it looks pretty bad!"
"Yeah but you didn't even let me explain!" She sobbed. I hadn't noticed the tears running down her face until now. This was heartbreaking to see.
"I'm letting you explain now!"
"It's too late, David!" She was literally bawling her eyes out now. "I thought you were different to everybody else but you're not! You're judging me, just like everybody else does!"
"Look," I sighed, stepping in front of her now so that she was forced to stop. She quickly tried to sidestep me but I blocked her off again. If anyone was watching this then it would've looked pretty bad, but I didn't care right now. "I fucked up, ok? I know that. I should've let you explain it to me. I can't change that now but I'm here! And I'm not letting you go home until you tell me what's going on."
I'd never been so demanding before. But then I'd never been so regretful of something either.
Melissa wiped her running mascara and looked up to the stars as if the answer was written in them. Finally she looked at me and asked "Are you actually willing to listen or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?"
A little bit of both . . .
"I want to hear what you have to say. I want to understand whatever this is."
She looked back to the stars she'd been reading before turning her attention to my shivering arms.
"Let's get inside first," She sighed. I smiled then, even if she didn't.
*
Ironically, the nearest open building was the bar we'd met at just a couple of nights ago.
I asked her if I could get her a drink and she told me to just get some water while she went to the bathroom.
"To freshen up, by the way," She said in a clipped tone. "Not to smoke crack or anything."
I probably deserved that.
As bad as I felt for not letting her explain herself, a part of me was really annoyed that she'd flipped out as well. I mean, how else are you supposed to react to that situation? Hopefully once she came back from whatever the hell she was doing (in fairness, her make-up was a mess now thanks to the tears) I'd get an explanation and we could put this whole debacle behind us. Finally, she joined me at the same table we'd sat at before. I hoped she was a sentimental girl. She at least thanked me for her drink.
"Ok, let me start by again saying how sorry I am for losing it at you before," I said straight away. "But you gotta admit, it was quite a shock to see you with a damn needle-"
"David, stop. Just listen," She cut me off with a halting hand. "It wasn't a needle."
"Well what the hell was it then?" I didn't mean to sound rude or overly expectant but I was still finding this all a bit much.
"It's an insulin pen," She said, taking out the item in question and laying it on the table.
"A what?"
"An insulin pen," She said again, not really cluing me in any. She clearly saw the confusion on my face and decided to elaborate after a inhaling a deep breath. This was clearly a big thing. "I have type-one diabetes."
I was silent.
I didn't know what to say. I'd heard of it but I literally had no idea what it was.
"I'm . . . I'm sorry," I started, not knowing what else to say. Once again, she cut me off.
"Don't be. I mean, for not knocking on the fucking door, yes be sorry, but not for this," At least we both smiled at that. "It's not life threatening. Well, it is, but I have it under control."
"I'm sorry . . . I just . . . I don't know what that is," I figured at this stage, honesty was the best way forward.
"That's ok. Basically it's a disease where my body doesn't produce enough insulin," She explained. I didn't even know the body did produce insulin. "That's why I need to drink so much water. And if I feel like my blood sugar level is too low, that's when I can check my levels with a Glucose meter and then if I need to, I use the insulin pen to give me a boost."
"You can tell when it's low?"
"Well I can. But I'm used to it now. You probably can't because you've never had to. I guess it's like knowing when you've broke a bone because you've done it before."
"Wow . . . when did you find out?"
"When I was nine. So I'm used to it. I know how to manage the blood sugar and I make sure that I tell people where I am all the time in case something goes wrong. That's why I wear this too," She showed me a bracelet on her arm which I had always thought was just an accessory. It was a dark metallic blue colour which read "Medical Alert" and on the inside of it, it explained that she was in fact diabetic.
"That's why your sister went so crazy!" I said, finally putting some pieces of this puzzle together.
She nodded and told me "She's always been protective; especially when I've been drinking."
"Are you even supposed to drink with this?" I asked, suddenly a little worried. I'd been encouraging her to get totally fucked up all the time. Thank god she'd ignored it.
"I can drink fine. I've just got to watch what I'm drinking. And I can't get too drunk, otherwise I might forget to check my blood sugar or I could get hypoglycaemia, a diabetic coma basically. I mean, I could die, but that's only if I'm being a total idiot. I just need to make sure I watch what I'm eating and drinking. So I usually have just one or two drinks and sip them as slow as possible. And have water with them all the time. I check my blood sugar before drinking, after and like ten times during," She laughed again. I assumed it was because that meant she was over-cautious, but again, I didn't have a clue.
"Has it ever happened before? The coma, I mean."
"Once," She grimaced. "I was eighteen. I was at a party and thought I was in control. Instead, I was young and dumb. You see, hypoglycaemia can look pretty similar to a hangover. I just thought I was super hungover but I wasn't."
"What . . . what happened?" I asked. I hadn't noticed before, but I was sitting on the edge of my seat, absorbed by her story.
"It was actually my sister who noticed it and got me to a hospital. She saved my life."
"Wow . . ."
This was some heavy shit, and not at all what I'd been expecting. It was definitely better than being a junkie though.
"Yeah," She nodded her agreement. "But look, I don't want this to be a thing. Whenever I tell people, they always look at me and treat me different. I can look after myself. I haven't had a problem since that day at the hospital".
"But you can't blame people for –"
"Yes I can! I don't want to be known as the chick with diabetes. I want to just be a chick! You know?" She looked almost pleadingly at me.
"I get that," I conceded, knowing full well I'd struggle to grant her wish. This was a huge deal. "So wait, you said you're a type one? What does that even mean? How much are there?"
"Ugh!" She groaned. Her rough voice somehow dropped another octave. She must get asked this all the time. "They shouldn't even be called the same thing. Type one means my body doesn't produce any insulin at all. Type two does, but just not enough. And type two never gets hypoglycaemia but the biggest difference is that type one can't be prevented. Whereas type two can, if you keep healthy and exercise."
"This is so full on," I said shaking my head. I knew she didn't want me to see her any differently, but a person's natural reaction to being asked to not feel sorry for someone, is to feel sorry for them! "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was going to . . . eventually. At some point . . . maybe. It's just that whenever I do tell someone, they treat me differently, or they run for the hills. In case you haven't realised, this is a pretty serious thing and I'll have to deal with it for the rest of my life. But it's far from a death sentence so I don't want you to think that way. Ok?"
"Ok," I agreed far too readily.
"I'm tired. I think I want to go home," She sighed. I agreed to walk her home. I hadn't even touched my beer.
*
We got to her apartment and surprisingly she let me come inside, even if it was just to wait for a cab.
"Maybe I can call you tomorrow?" I asked after it honked its horn outside, letting us know it'd arrived.
"I'd like that," She smiled at me, but still looked sad. I hoped that some sleep would make things seem a little better. I mean, this wasn't the end of the world was it?
I nodded in promise that I would and hung around for a few moments to see what would happen next. Should we kiss? Should we hug? Should I just run down the stairs and forget about her entirely? Melissa didn't make any moves towards me so I nodded again and then left.
Once I was back to my apartment, I was somewhat relieved to find that the party was pretty much over and there were only a couple of people watching TV with Eddie and Dean.
"What happened? Did you sort it out?" Dean asked, worriedly.
"I think so," I answered. "Yeah. . . . Maybe." There was a long pause of silence.
"Well that made sense," Eddie commented.
"I'll explain it all tomorrow," I told them. I didn't know how comfortable Melissa would feel about me telling the guys, but if I was going to then I just wanted it to be the two of them and not their friends. Or the random girl who was passed out in one of our chairs. "I'm just gonna go to bed."
It was after midnight and I was freezing, mentally fried and physically exhausted. I really should have undressed and went straight to sleep. Instead, I did what any sane person would do. I googled type-one diabetes and read enough to write a paper on it.
By the time the morning came and I opened my eyes, I found my phone under the covers and still on one of the pages I'd been reading. I couldn't even remember going to sleep.
There was also a text message that I simply had to read.
"I'm sorry about last night. It's not an easy thing to talk about. Do you want to come over tonight and watch a movie? We can talk about it more too. Unless I freaked you out too much xx"
A flood of relief washed over me then. I was just glad I wasn't the only one who'd thought they'd screwed things up.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
I seem to be saying this a lot lately, but this chapter was crazy hard to write, but for different reasons to the rest.
Most people guessed Melissa's secret in the last chapter so well done! I read so much online about diabetes and tried my very best to make it into a conversation that wasn't just a big info dump. I'm quite happy with how its turned out but if anyone knows that I got something wrong then PLEASE tell me. I want this to be as accurate as possible.
When creating Melissa's character, I wanted her to have something different about her, something that stood out. I couldn't really think of anything all that interesting until a chance mention on a podcast I listen to, mentioned diabetes. From there I started to piece her together and have been trying to leave some clues to it throughout the story so far. There's more on that in the next chapter.
Meanwhile, what do we think is next for David and Melissa? This can't be the end of the road can it?