He told a story about how my dad would get a small ache and act like the world was ending. My mother gave a small, cold laugh and agreed that Harrison was always very dramatic. I stared at the back of her head while my pulse thundered in my ears.
I told them that I needed to go to the hospital. Chloe groaned loudly and asked if I was serious. Meredith looked over her shoulder and warned me that I had better not be doing this for attention.
The words were so familiar that for a moment, I actually started to doubt myself. I wondered if I was just being weak or if I had actually overreacted to a minor injury. I questioned whether the pain was truly as bad as it felt in that moment.
Then the SUV hit a pothole, and it felt like something exploded inside me. I folded forward with a strangled sound and felt hot bile rise in my throat. Rick cursed under his breath and shoved an empty grocery bag toward the back seat without looking.
He told me that if I was going to be sick, I had better not do it on his leather seats. I vomited into the bag while Chloe made a disgusted noise and pressed herself against the car door. Meredith simply sighed as if my illness were a personal insult to her afternoon.
Rick rolled his window down a few inches and complained that the car was going to smell terrible. I wanted to disappear into the floorboards because that was the reflexive shame I had been taught. Even when my body was failing, I felt embarrassed for being an inconvenience to them.
We drove right past a local urgent care clinic. I watched the sign disappear behind us and whispered to my mother to please stop. She asked what I wanted, and I pointed toward the clinic we had just passed.
Rick snorted and reminded me that emergency rooms were expensive. He asked if I had the money to pay for one myself. My mother pointed out that we had insurance, but she added that we didn’t even know if this was a real emergency yet.
I told her that it was serious and that I couldn’t even sit up straight anymore. Chloe’s phone made a loud notification sound, and she suddenly let out a cry of panic. She told the car that her phone was at ten percent and was about to die.