The thing I remember most from my time in the hospital was this girl who broke my heart. That last sentence is misleading. She didn’t break my heart in a romantic way.

Each morning we shared how we felt on a scale of one-to-ten in various categories. Mood, ability to do daily tasks, responses to medication.

One girl, unlike the rest of us, was very young and beautiful and Black. She really did look like a misplaced angel among us with our strung out and bloated bodies, saggy white faces, unkempt beards.

“Mood is… around six, I’d say,” she said quietly.

“And I can complete my ADLs,” that’s short for Activities of Daily Living. It includes being able to eat, use the bathroom, brush your teeth, check your mail, get out of bed.

“Medicine is… uhm…” her eyes started welling up. I knew what she would say and I was afraid to hear it.

“I—I don’t feel like myself. Everything feels… off, everything feels like a dream.”

A near-silent murmur of assent from the rest of us--a Greek chorus watching a tragedy. We all knew but lacked the words.

“I am feeling better in a lot of ways—but I don’t feel right, I—don’t know—“ she breathed hard through tears that now began to fall, “I—don’t—oh, God!—“ an older man fetched some tissues as if from nowhere. She started weeping and—it seemed—pleading with her hands.

So much fear and nausea and anger—pointed anger—welled up inside me that I closed my eyes and counted.

When my mind settled I raised my head and saw her walking out with someone. The fluorescent lights made the room loud in my vision. We sat waiting.

“Ok, who wants to share next?” the nurse asked.

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