My Temperature Rose.

..........My first lie. My temperature rose. My face must have changed color quickly because my mother called my name and reached out for me. I saw my mother and then i saw the cracked, gray ceiling as i passed out from the heat of my first lie.

..........We lied because it was less hurtful than the truth. Then we lied because the truth was too much trouble. Then we lied because we got used to it.

..........We didn’t go to the zoo that day; we went instead to THE DOCTOR. I don’t remember his name. I’m sure that there were many doctors and that some of them were hims, some of them were hers. Some of them were nurses or physicians’s assistants. Some of them were specialists; some of them were general pracititioners. Some of them were warm and friendly; some of them were bitches. They were nameless and from my point of view, usually faceless. They were scared and they were confused. Whoever and whatever they were, they were THE DOCTOR.

..........My memories of THE DOCTOR come to me like late-night tv. Flipping the channels from the couch, flashes of images lingering long enough to comprehend, reject and move on. Or those images that are too vague and confusing, so i stick around a little longer to figure out what that sound was, whose voice that was, who belonged to that manicured hand. White, the color white, against many different shades of skin, the color white faded to gray or new bright white, stained white, the white of polyester labcoats, the white of the walls, the white of q-tips and cotton balls, the white of sanitary paper lain across the white doctor’s table, the white light shining from the white ceiling.

..........“What happened today?” THE DOCTOR asked my mother. She told him how i had lost consciousness as he placed a thermometer under my tongue. “Breathe through your nose, ok?”

..........My temperature would be 108 degrees, like always, but like always, the doctor would show a face of alarm for a moment and then remember. “All right. No higher than usual. We can be thankful for the small things.

..........The day we were supposed to go to the zoo and instead went to the doctor, the doctor insisted on keeping me cold for a few hours to lessen the likelihood that my temperature would rise. As the nurse took me to a room adjacent to his office, The Doctor questioned my mother.

..........“Has she seemed sick or listless lately?” The nurse laid me in the tub and begin filling it with cold water.

..........“No.”

..........She began adding ice to the water.

..........“And emotionally? How is she handling the loss?”

..........“I - my family has been taking care of her mostly,” she said. I watched my legs and feet disappear under the layers of ice.

..........“Is it too cold?” the nurse whispered to me. I shook my head. I couldn’t remember what cold felt like.

..........My mother went on. “I haven’t been- it’s been difficult. Today was one of the first days without help.”
..........My legs and feet came back into view as the heat of my body melted the ice.

..........“I’d like you to start taking something for your grief and your anxiety,” The Doctor said, writing a prescription. “You have to be able to take care of yourself. I can put you into contact with someone you can talk to if you like.”

..........My mother smiled up at The Doctor. “Thank you, but i’m not sure if my insurance will cover anything anymore. I haven’t been working since.”

..........The Doctor put his hand on my mother’s knee. He looked through his office door at me lying in the bathtub. I remember his face. The Doctor was handsome. He stood up. “Careful that the tub doesn’t overflow. The ice is already melting.” He turned to close the door. For a moment, i caught my mother’s eye, who shot her eyes to the floor. I saw the nurse look toward the closing door. She looked at me. “Still not cold?” She was smiling too much.

..........My mother got a job very soon after that. Armed with major health insurance, my mother’s battle with my unnamed illness began in full. Not a fortnight passed without a visit to The Doctor. This is when the collage of memory begins. Whiteness surrounding me talking about the heat inside of me. Talking to each other about me. Talking over me. Talking around me. Testing me. I hated the tests because I always failed them. I took their medicines. Pills that were green and small and oval and white pills that were big and round. Translucent red liquid. Yellow injections. Needles. IVs. Icebaths. Cold compresses. I took the medicine. I took the tests. I failed the tests. I took different medicine. I took the same and different tests. I failed those and continued the merry-go-round. “She’s not responding to the drugs.”

..........I’m doing my best, i thought.

..........They made me talk to someone you could talk to if you like. She was not a big woman, but the attention she placed on me was overwhelming. I felt her attention was surrounding me, as if everything i did was important and crucial. If i couldn’t get my body to respond to the drugs, i could at least control the words that i said to this woman who was so fascinated by me. I said very little and eventually, she would give me construction paper, glue, stickers and crayons. I spent every Friday out of school playing and coloring.

..........She always wanted to keep my drawings and I always let her, except once. I had drawn a picture of my brother and my sister. They were at the bottom of the ocean and i was jumping in to rescue them. I didn’t give it to her because i didn’t want anyone to know that i thought my brother and my sister were still alive, just waiting for me to save them. Instead of handing over the picture, i ripped it up and ate half of it. The next week, i told my mother that i would rather go to school than talk to the woman. That was remarkable because school was like drowning.

..........School hated me as much as the water did. They were in cahoots, i knew it. Everyone at school knew who i was and made assumptions about what had happened to my brother and my sister. The worst rumor was that i had planned to kill them and when they tried to escape, i had held them down in the water until their terrified bodies stopped thrashing and kicking. I didn’t care (or at least, i got used to) about the kids saying that i had diseases, that i was dirty (because i couldn’t take baths), that i was retarded. I didn’t care that the teachers were as rude and ignorant as the students they should have been protecting me from. I didn’t care that, as of age 10, i had never had one friend. But i couldn’t get over the fact that people thought that i had ever wanted to cause any kind of harm to my brother and my sister.

..........The girl who started the rumor had thick black hair, the kind that almost turns blue, the kind you could swim in. One day, at lunch, she took sips of water from her glass and spit them out at me.

..........“Stop ” i cried.
..........“Stop ” she and her friends mimicked me.
..........“Stop ” i yelled back. For a few minutes, they did stop, only to resume again.
..........“Stop ” i said and this time i got up and walked toward their table.
..........“Why?” the girl with the thick blue-black hair asked. “Why don’t you like the water? What’s wrong with the water?” Her friends giggled. I was too easy of a target. I didn’t like the water, but how could i explain why?

..........“Why don’t you like the water?” another girl joined in. “Why? Why? Why?” Each time she asked why, another girl would spit on me.
whywhywhywhywhy

..........Why indeed?

..........“Because it killed my brother and my sister ” The declaration came out as a reflex, a truth reflex finally triggered by bitchy, insecure little girls, holding onto their popularity by holding someone else down. It was a fearful declaration to hear, even for these bitches. Remember: fear breeds hatred.

..........“Liar! ” the blue-black girl screamed. “You killed your brother and sister. You were jealous because the water hates you.”

..........“Shut up ”

..........“It’s true ” she cried. “You should be in jail, but your mother’s too afraid of you! ”

..........That was enough. I leapt over their table which was the only thing separating us. I took her and her chair down. I wailed and raised my hand to smack her, but stopped when i saw the blood pouring from the back of her head. Her friends saw it a moment after i did, but it was moment enoguh for me to run away. I heard them screaming, “OHMYGOD She’s deadshe’sdead.youkilledher.shekilledhershekilledohmygo-o-o-d ”

..........I did not kill her. The cut was superficial, but the head bleeds a lot. She only had a concussion and a couple of stitches, but this did not improve my reputation.

..........I was just so confused as to why anyone would think i was something to be feared. What i remember most is being scared of myself and sad and alone. I never felt the anger until it was making me leap across tables.

..........After i jumped that blue-black girl, i missed a lot of school, almost everyday. I was scared of retaliation. I need not have been. No one was brave enough to touch me. It was as if they had not believed the rumors of my violence (the ones they themselves had spread) till they saw it. Now that they knew it was real, they didn’t speak about it. No one wants to talk about the truth. My teacher and my principal suggested to my mother that i be home-schooled because i caused such a disturbance.

..........“But she was provoked ” my mother protested. “And she’s never been in trouble before this incident.” It was true. But my mother knew that her words were unheard. She knew my actions were not disturbing; my mere presence was a disruption.

..........My mother had to cut back her work hours. She lost the major health insurance and instead of turning tricks for prescripts, she surrendered and let my illness run free through my body.

..........But i never felt ill. Ill is weak and tired. Ill is when you have to use a wheel chair and take the elevator all the time, not just because it’s fun. Ill is someone giving you a spongebath. Ill is forgetting your name, your mother’s name, your husband’s name. Ill is forgetting who you are and mistaking your illness for your identity.
I was never ill. I was strong and fast and actice and i took care of myself. And i never knew who i was anyway, so i had no identity to lose.

..........I was simply hot. Hot on the inside hot to touch constantly sweating. I took ice-cold showers that turned into saunas because of my temperature. My room in my mother’s house doubled and tripled our electricity bill because it had to be air conditioned through all four seasons. I still woke up with wet sheets. My diet was cold food that was cooked on the heat of my tongue. I was not comfortable, but i had surrendered to the idea that i was not supposed to be. No one else could understand. How can you always be hot? Aren’t you uncomfortable? Does it have anything to do with your not swimming? Do you know what cold feels like?
But that line of questioning was not intended to shed any light on my condition so that they could better understand so we could like in a more peaceful union. No matter the words of the question or the form of it or the tone of it. They weren’t truly questions at all; they were reminders. “You know that you’re a freak, right? You know that you’re not like anyone else, right? You know that everyone is scared of you or repulsed by you, right?

..........Not everyone.