Conversations (11)

“Let me tell you Em, I had a headache for a couple of days now, I really feel for you,” my aunt tells me.

“Yeah, I’m working on one now,” I gesture around my head despite talking to her on the phone, it’s  a habit now. “What is it? On a scale to one to ten,” I ask.

“Um,” she thinks for a moment, “like a three,” she answers.

“Oh that’s not too bad,”

“No it’s not, it’s just…,” she begins.

“Annoying. ”

“Annoying.”

We say it at the same time.

“Take two Aleve, that should take care of it,” I tell her, “if it doesn’t get any better, go to the doctor.”

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Conversations (1)

“I don’t know how you stay in your room all day, on your computer all day,” my brother says, “I would be so bored.”

“It’s easy,” I answer, “when you have a migraine every day,” I get up and return to my room.  in

It’s easy when any movement increases my pain tenfold. It’s easier to stay in one comfortable place than to haunt the house. It’s easy to sleep the days away when sleep is my only dependable pain eliminator. It’s easy when someone who understands is a click away and the people a couple steps away just don’t get it. It’s easier to stay in my comfortable bubble in pain than deal with the rest of the world if I don’t have to.

Gloomy

I pass one of my professors without even acknowledging him, I didn’t see him walking towards me.

“Good morning,” I hear him say, I walk past him. It takes a moment to register. The brain fog slows everything down to a crawl.

“Good morning,” I return, turning around to see him looking at me. He knows about the headaches, I flunked a test and explained it wasn’t me, it was the headaches. He was pretty understanding about it, his sister gets migraines. I still feel like a failure, I wanted to do well in his class, for him.

His eyes sweep me once. I take a step forward towards him. “You look gloomy,” he comments.

“What,” I say and I look down at myself. Black jeans, nearly black oversized sweatshirt, the only bit of color on my person is my faded light blue chucks. Despite being early in the morning, my hair has the tell tale signs of my hands being dragged through it and it’s damp from the rain. It’s not it’s bright chestnut brown with big curls but dampened down, almost black from the rain. The curls pulled straight from my fingers.  I wonder what my face looks like. I must have the hollow look from the headache. The ancient lighting in the building must be casting a wicked shadow on my face. I probably look terrifying, at least gloomy. “Um, I have a headache already this morning,” I gesture vaguely around my head.

“Oh sorry,” he mutters.

“I’ll be in class,” I tell him, “I’ll feel better,” I hope. I plan on taking a Vicodin later if I don’t feel any better, I’ll feel something then, that’s for sure.

“I hope you do,” he gives me a small smile.

I see why the other girls have a crush on him.

I return a broken hopeful smile.

“See you then,” he adds before ducking into his office and I’m on my way to class.