Page 53 of Cream and Punishment
I pulled my jacket tighter against the wind as we made our way down the sidewalk. Hattie and Lex chatted between themselves further ahead of us, with Annie hovering between the two pairs while Kris and I brought up the rear.
“How did she know she had it, then?” I asked.
“She didn’t, at first.” Kris wrinkled her nose at an obscenely loud hotrod that zoomed past. “It wasn’t until she went to the doctor for memory problems that she finally figured out what was going on. Now she says a lot about her life suddenly makes sense. And since starting her meds, she says it’s like this thick fog in her brain is finally gone.”
My stride faltered, my voice scarcely squeaking past my throat at the eerily spot-on description of my own thoughts. “Brain fog?”
“Oh yeah. Apparently her head constantly felt like a radio with ten different stations playing at the same time. Constantly. Trying to think was like grabbing at fog most of the time. And she just assumed that was what everyone experienced.”
“Isn’t it?” This time I came to a complete stop. That wasexactlywhat my brain felt like. Some days were worse than others, but the constant noise never changed. Never. “Isn’t that what everyone feels like?”
Kris slowed and cast me a dubious look. Like the answer was obvious. “No?”
I blinked. Did some peoplenotthink that way? Really? They just had one train of thought at all times? No spaghetti bowl of train tracks crisscrossing at all times—five of the trains bellowing, three behind schedule, and one flying completely off the rails? The very concept seemed utterly bizarre. Bizarre and… peaceful.
“What about her life suddenly makes sense?” I asked, reluctantly resuming my pace. “What else made her realize she had ADHD?”
“Let’s see.” Kris dug her keys out of her purse. “She mentioned how she’d kind of freeze when she needed to be doing something she didn’t enjoy. Not like she just chose not to do it because she didn’t want to, but she physicallycouldn’tmake herself do it. Like she hit an invisible wall whenever she tried, unless there was a deadline staring her in the face.”
I swallowed hard as the managerial aspects of owning my bakery came to mind. Her sister’s experience felt hauntingly familiar. I didn’t know how long I’d put off filing taxes, trying to stay on top of and create a budget—even just putting the schedule together for the coming week—until the stress of the imminent deadline finally spurred me into action, but it must’ve been hours and hours. It wasn’t that I simply didn’t want to do those tasks. Icouldn’tuntil the deadline breathing down my neck overrode whatever had been stopping me.
And it had beenmiserable.
“She also takes rejection harder than most people, like you do.” Kris’ eyes widened. “Not saying that that automatically means you have ADHD or anything. Lots of people have rejection sensitivity.”
But what were the odds that they had itandthe brain fogandthe paralysis, but didn’t have ADHD?
I nodded, pretending I wasn’t three feet underwater with these developments. My brain was pure static, electricity arcing from synapse to synapse yet producing nothing coherent. There could be tons of explanations for why I struggled with the exact same things Kris’ sister did, right? And yet, if it happened to be the same thing, then that meant it had a name. And with a name came a game plan.Understanding. The knowledge that maybe I was a zebra instead of a weird horse, trying and failing to thrive in a world I wasn’t made for. With methods I wasn’t made for.
“And she’s all better now?” My voice sounded a mile away, my mouth possessed as it moved of its own accord.
We came to a stop beside Kris’ minivan. Lex waited by my car, bidding goodbye to Hattie, and Annie had already made it to her sedan.
Kris unlocked her van and shrugged. “Yes and no. The medicine helps and everything, but it’s not like she’s magically cured. But now that she knows what she has, she’s learning ways to cope with it.” A fond smile spread across her face. “Like keeping her fruits and veggies in the fridge door so she can’t forget about them in their drawers.”
My jaw dropped. Why hadn’t I thought of that? The amount of slimy lettuce alone I’d save that way could feed a whole army of rabbits. And that’s not even taking the shriveled carrots and moldy fruit into account.
Kris fixed me with a curious look, her head angling to the side. “Do you want me to give you her number? She could explain all of this way better than I can.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine.” I cast a quick glance around the otherwise deserted parking lot. “I was just curious.”
And now I hada lotof googling to do.
nineteen
Ispentmostofmy day off work melting my brain into goo.
Considering I didn’t have much up there left to cook, it didn’t take a lot of effort. Just a few hours down the Internet wormhole until I’d filled my near-empty head with so much information it felt like a bloated walrus.
Terms I hadn’t known yesterday flew past my eyes at light speed. I wasn’t an expert on ADHD now by any means, but I’d read so many first-hand anecdotes, medical websites, and research articles that the walls around me swam. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so understood and confused and validated and enraged and grief-stricken all at once. And that was saying something, considering I was the queen of overwhelm.
By five o’clock, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d already paced the entirety of my apartment multiple times, made three different flavors of cookies, and tried reading three different books before putting them down a few pages in. I—and let this go down in the history books as something I never, ever thought I’d say—needed human interaction.
Even if my friends weren’t busy, I’d leap at whatever chance I could get to hang out with Max. So, after hyping myself up with a lengthy pep talk in the bathroom mirror, I texted him.
Me: You up for some dinner?
Let the record show, I managed to busy myself with loading the dishwasher rather than obsessing over when he would respond. Yep. I’d resorted to productivity.
