Page 106 of What You Wish For

“Aseizure?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Anytime, really.” Then I amended: “Probably not now. But possibly. Who knows?”

He said, “Could you elaborate, please?”

I looked up at the sky while I said the words. I watched the stars, and they watched me back. “So…” I said then, keeping my face turned up, “I have epilepsy.”

“Okay.”

I sped up a little, to get it over with. “I mostly had it in grade school. It was very bad then—I had a lot of seizures—like at least one a month—and sometimes they happened in school, and if you’re wondering if little kids think epilepsy is cool… they do not.”

“You got teased.”

“Teased. Ostracized. Shunned. All of it. Everything. The worst part was—with a grand mal seizure, first you go completely rigid, like everything in your body goes as tight as it can go, and then you go completely limp, like a rag doll. And when I was little, though this doesn’t actually happen to me anymore, I used to lose all control of my bodily functions.”

“Oof.”

“Yeah. Not great in a school situation. I basically had no friends. At all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But when I got older, the seizures went away. We found a medicine that worked, and then we slowly weaned me off of it, and I was fine. Middle school—less frequent; high school, college—nothing. Totally normal. I thought I was cured. But then it came back just after I moved here.”

“Why did it come back?”

“Nobody knows. Just happens sometimes. And it’s much milder now—like once or twice a year. I don’t even take medicine for it,because the medicine has lots of side effects.” I glanced over. “That’s why I don’t drive.”

Duncan nodded.

“I just try to control it by getting enough sleep, and eating right, and… you know… making good choices.”

“Are those things enough to control it?”

“No. Yes. Kind of.”

Duncan nodded.

“Eating no carbohydrates at all helps some people, so I eat that way. And I don’t drink. And I get enough sleep, and drink enough water, and basically try to keep my life pleasant and drama-free. Because one of the biggest triggers for seizures?”

“Roller coasters?” Duncan offered.

“Stress,” I said.

Duncan shook his head. “What the hell are you doing on this thing?”

“Not my best-ever decision.”

Duncan nodded, like he was really getting it all now. “Because if you were to rate the stress-inducing level of the Iron Shark on a scale of say, one to ten—”

“Twenty.”

“Gotcha.”

“So. If it happens, don’t freak out.”

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