In the shower Thursday morning, my body has erupted in red spots. Previous irregularities are magnified. The coin on my thigh where I burnt myself with tea, the stretch marks on my hip, the razor nick on my shin–all fresh. I can only assume this to be a new emotional response, maybe the kind you don’t unlock until you hit the twenty-two-year milestone. 

The rash is ill-timed. My father’s in town for the weekend. He’s on his way to Philadelphia to lead an AO Technical Commission that develops surgical innovation for hospitals and clinics. We’ve planned to get lunch near NYU.

My hair is still dripping when I call my dad. I tell him about my stress hives as he’s driving into the city. “Weird,” he says. Static sounds from the New Jersey Turnpike before he tells me to take a Benadryl. The hope that my dad might have asked me the origin of my anxiety is short-lived. Though he’s a doctor, he’s never been one to make an event of his children’s medical or emotional woes. My mother tells me this is the origin of most of my problems.

She and my father met in medical school, circulating together during OB/GYN rounds. During their residency, they got married, had my two older brothers, eventually moving to Sacramento where I was born. My mom trained as a pathologist, my dad as an orthopedic fellow. When she talks about her decision to stop practicing, my mom often refers to Dahlia, the beloved nanny who was too good of a stand-in mother. She often reminds me that my father never offered to take a step back in his career, split the work both ways. My mom ended up staying home. My dad became a surgeon.

I make three phone calls once I get into Manhattan. The first is to my boyfriend. This is unusual. Though we’ve been dating for most of the year, we’ve spoken on the phone only a handful of times. I want to tell him the image I came up with on the train about looking like peppermint. I want to tell him about my advisor who suggested I wait a couple of years before applying to MFA programs so I “can get better at writing.” I want to tell him about my thirteen-year-old dog who’s getting a CT scan because of a mass in her mouth. I want to tell him about my apprehension about seeing my dad because our conversations always peter out like strangers on a date. I want to be consoled. But the call, which starts with an exchange of “can you hear me,” then shifts to generalities about sleep before we say goodbye. Next I call my roommate to complain. She talks in therapeutic generalities that aren’t at all helpful.

I take a Benadryl and call my mom. There on Astor Place, I start to cry as I look into the grey windows of CVS. When my mom picks up and asks me how I’m doing, I speak unashamedly and too loudly outside of the Cooper Union. I pull back the sleeves of my black sweater to show her my forearms covered with an intense constellation of red. There’s something almost reassuring in this manifestation of unhappiness showing itself so tangibly. Over the phone, my mother warns me about the emotional shift that comes with a romantic partner. She recognized it early during her relationship with my father. She says something to the effect of: “In the beginning, he was always asking me questions, he would say that I’m making an interesting point, and you know what he does now? He starts every sentence with ‘no’ even if he’s agreeing with me!”

My mother tells me I should leave a relationship if the lows outweigh the highs. She’s complained to me about her own marriage for as long as I can remember–a result of my  growing up as her confidant. My mother’s words parallel those I said to her during her second round of chemotherapy. During one of their fights, she had accused my dad of holding her illness against her. She told him she knows she’s a burden to him. He’s always made it known that he’s the reason for their house and their life. She says she never wanted to rely on someone like this, but she doesn’t get a choice now. 

Within the hour, I’m in the student health clinic for the third time in a month. I raise my sweater overhead so the doctor can look at me. Something about the action seems shameful as I talk into fabric. The doctor and a nurse prod at the skin underneath my armpits. They touch my ears, which have turned scarlet, swollen at the tips and the lobes. They ask if my lips have always looked like that. On my cheeks, two upside-down purple triangles form. The doctor tells me this must be an allergic reaction to antibiotics I’ve been taking. A persistent UTI was the reason for my previous visits. “Stay away from Bactrim,” she says. 

I’m taken to an observation room—it’s like any hospital room with one wall of glass— and am given another Benadryl, before being injected with an antihistamine and a shot of corticosteroid. A young talkative nurse tells me that I have the choice for the steroid to be injected in my arm or in my ass. There’s fat in the ass that will help lessen the pain of the injection but there’s more of a chance that they might hit a nerve ending. 

My dad comes by to see me. He brings with him a bag of chocolates. Sitting in the chair beside my bed, we laugh about meeting at a clinic instead of our reserved table at a restaurant a few blocks away. I’m comforted by his presence. It agrees with how I picture him most days. I nibble at the chocolates as he tells me news about Sacramento, his meeting in Philadelphia, and the one he had previously in Zurich. 

By hour four in the glass room, the doctor is hesitant about my leaving. The rash isn’t lessening. My neck is sore, and I feel pain in my gums like I haven’t brushed my teeth for days. The doctor asks if I have anyone to watch me when I get home. My roommate’s out for the day, I say. 

“What about John, whatever his name is,” my dad says. This is the first time my boyfriend has come up in conversation. “Does he know you’re here?” 

“I’m not sure.” 

“Can you ask him to come get you?” 

I shrug. 

Outside the clinic, my dad is looking at a map on his phone. We’re at the Eighth Street station when my dad says, “This man should walk on coals for you.” I don’t understand his words immediately. They’re too dramatic, and I can’t tell if he’s referring to me or something on his screen. My dad continues, “Checking to see if you’re okay when you’ve been in the hospital–it’s the lowest of bars.” 

Part of me thinks this is the moment I’ve been waiting for–speaking with my dad like we’re friends, dissolving that barrier. But the conversation stops just that. Like when talking with my mother, when talking about love and what one deserves in love, we agree not to go too far. I hug him before he descends into the station. I miss him instantly. 

My boyfriend comes over later that night. We don’t speak much about our days or what I said over text once I got home from the clinic. He tells me I look like a child in a Dickens’ story. He asks if I’m hungry, placing a bag of Cheez-Its and fruit gummies on the countertop. He tells me he got them from his friend he was visiting earlier in the day.

***

Malia Lee is a Sacramento transfer living in Brooklyn. A recent graduate from NYU, she spends her days writing and working at a bookstore. You can find her essays in The Foundationalist and West 10th.