Fix by J. Mann (highly illogical behavior .TXT) 📕

the Frapps, and leads me straight through the waiting room and down the hall, grabbing my chart off the desk as she walks past it.

We bump into Vardan, one of Dr. Sowah’s nurses, halfway down the hall.

“Look at this one,” he muses, giving me two air-kisses, one on each cheek. They’re obviously used to spinal surgery patients—we live in fear of contact. “I’ll take her,” he says to Leslie. They exchange the Frapp holder and chart, and Vardan leads me into Radiology. “Put this on, honey,” he says, throwing a gown onto the large steel-framed X-ray bed. “Will you need help?”

“I got it,” I tell him.

“Give me your coat.”

I gladly hand it over to him, relieved to be rid of my phone still in its pocket. He flips my coat over his arm and motions with the Frapps. “These will be waiting in the exam room,” he says, and leaves.

I kick my sweats under the chair next to my shoes and hang my hoodie on the back of the door. I hate taking off my body sock. So I don’t. They can X-ray through it.

With my brace still on, I put on the gown and lean against the X-ray bed, not fully committing to sitting down. The stillness and quiet remind me how exhausted I am, and I wish myself back in my bed, between my four green walls, surrounded by the familiar spray of collages.

He was calling about the kiss. That goddamn kiss. Anyway, I need to focus on why I’m here. The Roxy. What doctor would say no? He knows I need it.

Sighing, I commit to sitting by sliding back onto the table—it’s more uncomfortable, not less. I want this to be over and I want more Roxy.

Someone knocks, and I answer, “Come in,” like it’s my home.

A tech swooshes into the room. She’s got frizzy blond hair and large-framed black glasses. I never know the techs. She’s nice but all business. She helps me out of my brace, and for the next twenty minutes, I follow her instructions to slide up, or down, or over. Clutch sandbags in front of my groin. Lift my arms over my head. Don’t breathe. Breathe. Turn more to the right. Now, the left. And hold back an embarrassed laugh when she tries to mold a part of me to fit better in her machine. She is physically squishing me—a human, a person—like my body is a thing.

How many twisted young women has she seen today? Skinny. Tall. Ponytailed, braided, bobbed, buzzed, or ’froed females holding their breath while the machine’s throaty buzz captures the glowing white of our bones. I’ve spent way too much time in front of an X-ray camera. Forget a crooked spine, I should be growing a third eye by now with all this exposure.

Vardan knocks. It’s time. My heart rate picks up.

The tech disappears while Vardan helps me back into my sweatpants and brace—like Mary Fay, the man’s an expert. We head down the hall to the exam room together.

I sip my Frapp, listening to Vardan chatter away while he takes my vitals. When it’s time to step up onto the giant scale, his chitchat stops, and he frowns at the very low red number glaring at us from atop the machine. “Hm” is all he says. His frown deepens.

“Measure me,” I say, changing the subject.

“Okay, okay, let’s get to the fun part,” he teases. When he takes the measurement, he yelps with joy. “You are five foot eight inches. That’s over a two-inch post-surgery gain!”

I wince at his loud voice.

“In pain, sweetie?” he asks. I don’t deny it. “Let’s get that doctor in here to see you so you can jet.” He sticks my chart in the chart box on the exam room’s door and is gone. I wish he had closed the door. I need a moment to myself, to compose myself, to—

“Well, well, well,” Dr. Sowah says, walking in. “If it isn’t Eve Abbott. The smoker.”

“Ha ha,” I say, handing him his Frapp. My mouth twitching just a bit.

“So,” he says, slurping his coffee, “let’s talk about quitting, shall we?”

“Funny.”

He gives me an affectionate tap on the top of my head with my chart and then opens it.

“Feeling okay?” he asks, reading the notes.

“Tired,” I tell him.

“You should be getting some of your stamina back. But your weight is down. Are you eating?”

“Yes,” I lie.

“And the pain?”

I shrug. Not trusting myself to do or say anything else.

There’s a knock at the door. Dr. Sowah grunts, and it opens to Vardan carrying my films. Dr. Sowah takes them and shuts the door, and then sticks them up one at a time onto the light board with a thunk, thunk, thunk.

Then he switches on the light and…

Holy shit.

I instinctively scooch away from the screen, hugging my brace. Of course I knew about the bars running up alongside my spine, and the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—eight!—giant screws attaching the bars to my spine. And about the plate to which the whole thing was attached, screwed in down by my hips.

I knew.

But seeing? Seeing is something else.

“Look at me,” I whisper. Not really believing what I’m seeing.

“I do good work, right?” He smiles.

“You sure do a lot of it,” I say, responding to all the instrumentation crammed into me. “There’s basically a bunch of scaffolding inside me.”

Dr. Sowah chuckles. Then he points to different areas, highlighting the process of my fusion and where I am with it. I nod and make some sounds of agreement while I drink my Frapp, yet I can’t take my eyes off the tilting mess now holding me upright. Weirdly, it looks haphazard. Not the neat job I was expecting.

“The good news is, you’re fusing.” He flips off the light. “Now let’s see those incisions.”

I unbrace and lie down. Dr. Sowah takes one last long suck from the Frapp before he puts it on the counter and peels back my body sock.

“Incisions look good for seven weeks post-op,” he