This Is My Brain in Love - I. W. Gregorio Page 0,78

needs. He angles his hand over to me to show me an EKG tracing. Instantly, I can tell from a lifetime of watching medical shows that it’s too fast, the waveforms filling up the screen frenetically instead of being a calm, steady rate.

And I realize: Will is literally showing me his heart.

“My mom got me this program a few years ago,” Will says. There’s a breathlessness to his voice, like he’s struggling against a strong wind. “She’s a scientist. She likes data. She uses it to show me how I can use mindfulness techniques to control things like my breathing and heart rate. So I know from months of observation that my resting pulse is sixty-eight.”

Right now, his heart rate is 102.

Mine is probably the same, and I’m already trying to explain it away. “We kind of just argued,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t that explain it?”

“Pfft.” He waves his hand. “This kind of talk? It’s not the easiest thing in the world; I understand that it sometimes doesn’t go perfectly. If I had the same conversation with one of my buddies and he blew up at me, I wouldn’t be tachycardic.”

“Tachy-what?”

“Sorry, using my mom’s medicalese. Tachycardic. Fast heart rate.” He’s already poking at his watch, scrolling through some numbers. “You see this here? This is from the day of my interview. Heart rate a little higher in the ten minutes before we’re scheduled to meet. Then when I saw you? It jumps to one hundred five.”

“Couldn’t that just be that you were stressed out about the job?” I ask.

“Sure, that’s a theory, but let’s see what it is on my first day at A-Plus, when I should’ve been more relaxed. I already had the job, right?”

101.

“But I know what you’re going to say,” he says. “That’s just first-day-on-the-job jitters. So, let’s look at the next day.”

103.

“And how about this, the day I was working on trying to get the ordering system up and running. You were out making deliveries, I barely saw you.”

88.

“Then, the night we saw Broadcast News.”

That night, he maxed out at 110.

As the numbers scroll by, I get a surreal sense of displacement, as if I were viewing my life through the wrong end of a set of binoculars. It seems ludicrous to have, all of a sudden, so much evidence for how Will feels about me. I have to resist the urge to giggle.

I’ve only ever been to anything resembling an amusement park once in my life, last summer, and it wasn’t even a real one. Priya invited me to join her family at the Booneville-Oneida County Fair. Her parents bought me an all-you-can-ride wristband, and I milked that piece of plastic for all it was worth. Priya and I rode the Tilt-A-Whirl (affectionately called the Tilt-A-Hurl by her brother) four times, and I still remember how jarring it was to step back onto solid earth after three minutes of dizzying, nonstop multidirectional twirling on uneven ground.

That’s how I feel right now. Unsteady. Not able to trust that the spinning of my emotions has stopped. Kind of euphoric. And kind of like I want to hurl.

WILL

I’ve played my last card, and I am so afraid that Jocelyn is going to pull out another ace.

Then she says, “Okay. I believe you.”

She doesn’t ask for my list of therapists. She doesn’t say she’s going to look anything up or call to make an appointment. But I think—I hope—she’s finally come to terms with the fact that I have a stake in what’s going on in her head.

After eight years of therapy I’m used to the idea of taking two steps forward and one step back. It might seem like I haven’t gotten anywhere, but I’m resolved to play the long game. I can only pray that it’s enough.

This Is My Brain on Notice

JOCELYN

The morning after Will shows me his literal heart, I bite the bullet and submit my application and references, as well as the request to waive the thirty-five-dollar application fee. When my e-mail notification dings, I feel my heart skip a beat even though I know it has to be an auto response.

Thank you for your submission to the University of Utica Junior Business Program. We look forward to reviewing your application and contributing to the growth and success of many future leaders in management and entrepreneurship.

Should you be selected for an interview, you will be contacted via e-mail in approximately one to two weeks.

“I probably won’t get an interview,” I tell myself out loud, even