Joy sends Han a voice note. I think I’m sick. Last month he’d have texted back, You’re fine. Joy sends the note even though she is too scrambled by a headache to try to communicate with him right now. She spends the rest of the day in a haze, listlessly flicking through her laptop. Eventually, she digs out the thermometer gun she stole from her mom’s house. She aims it at her forehead, then her armpits. She has a fever. She calls Grace to convince her to send groceries. The bag arrives sweating—citrus and yuja compote, soft bread and instant rice porridge. Joy doesn’t eat any of it because her throat hurts. Han never believed her when she said she was sick. He always thought she was lying.

At 7:58 p.m., Alie drops her at urgent care and tells her to call if she needs a ride. The intake nurse is locking the door as Joy walks up but sees her sweaty face and waves her in anyway. Joy thanks her with a mouth full of spit. It’s painful to swallow.

In the exam room, Joy focuses on staying upright. The doctor has big cow eyes like Han. She swabs Joy for the flu and strep throat. She leaves and Joy slumps back back back until she’s lying flat on the exam table. One of the light panels is covered by a decorative wrapper; a blocky, butter yellow cartoon sun. Something for the kids. It looks like stained glass. Joy rests underneath the little sky, head spinning. She croaks out  another voice note to Han. I’m actually really sick. 

When the doctor reenters, Joy doesn’t sit up. She’s sorry, she can’t. The doctor says both tests are negative. Joy keeps looking at the skylight. Is she sexually active, the doctor asks. Joy says, yes. She automatically adds, I have a boyfriend. Has she seen him recently? Last month; she visited him in LA. Did they have oral sex? Joy’s mouth moves but nothing comes out. She doesn’t know how to talk about sex, let alone sex with Han. She doesn’t understand the relevance. Her thigh sweat slicks the table. She should’ve worn longer pants. Is there any reason to believe her boyfriend might have gonorrhea? Joy hesitates; only if he slept with someone else. I’m going to check for oral gonorrhea, the doctor says. Joy doesn’t say anything. The other woman stands up, business like. Joy can tell she wants to end the conversation. Maybe you should talk to your boyfriend.

Joy nods. Foolishly, she wonders what Han would say. 

He’d say that STDs aren’t this late-onset, and that he obviously didn’t cheat on her. He’d be upset. Joy is upset. She imagines Han in the room. She says, I’ll never forgive you. The Han in the room starts to say something but stops to stretch his bad shoulder. He smiles at her, sadly. Joy looks at her phone and thinks about calling him. She wonders what she’d do if someone answered. The nurse rustles into the room. She whispers, You ok, honey? You talk to your boyfriend? She hands Joy a case of gel lidocaine, tells her to hide it under her sweatshirt. Sorry she handled you like that. Joy doesn’t like that the nurse knows. She doesn’t like the way she was handled either. It’s embarrassing. Still, that bulky box of kindness makes Joy want to whisper back, He wouldn’t pick up if I called. She ducks out of the clinic, the box cradled against her stomach.

Alie’s probably having a nice night, so Joy walks home, the tree-lined streets weeping that afternoon’s rain onto her hood. Feeling feverish, she focuses on moving forward, and forward again. Her hips creak, her body aches. She can’t stop crying and hiccupping and spreading snot across her face. This is karma for not making Han stay home that night in LA. She’s like Typhoid Mary, infecting, infected, spreading horrible, horrible news. Oral gonorrhea, what a joke. Han cheating on her, another joke. The email her mom sent when they first started dating: Woman takes a bigger hit for down-falls of sex (STI/pregnancy). I encourage you to delay sex until you’re ready for someone willing to commit and be responsible otherwise, why risk so much and invest so much efforts, time, etc.? Joy snorts. Joke, again. She waited to have sex with someone committed, and here she is, alone, body and mind dripping everywhere. She considers asking Jeremy if Han cheated on her. He’s the only person who would know now. Jeremy, did Han cheat on me? The Jeremy on the street shrugs. That’s right. She shouldn’t ask. It’s messed up. 

When Joy wakes up, she can barely breathe through the lump in her throat. It’s 4:00 a.m. She goes back to sleep, hot and swollen from crying, from having oral gonorrhea, from missing Han. She hasn’t cried this hard since leaving his funeral. Joy wakes again around 7:00 a.m. and calls an Uber. She breathes slowly, in, one-two-three, out, one-two-three. Something is blocking her airway. Her mom told her once about a colleague who swallowed dinner the wrong way. He went to the bathroom to not bother anyone and choked to death, alone. She’s taking this lump seriously. She’s not going to die at home, alone. Alie would have to tell her mom and Grace. Han would already know.

At the ER, they explain that the reason she can’t breathe, the white webbing around her throat and her tonsils, is because of a peritonsillar abscess. No oral gonorrhea. No belated gift from Han. The PA asks if someone else can come look at her gaping, streaky mouth; they don’t normally get ones this big. It takes an hour to drain, blood and pus slipping from her throat down a clear plastic tube. As she waits, Joy thinks of the sun in the urgent care exam room. She sees Han in this room too. He fiddles with the rings on his hands. Slowly, the sac, pearly little thing, deflates. The PA tells her, you did a great job, that was the best peritonsillar abscess draining I’ve ever seen. She texts Han an update. If he were alive, he’d probably respond, Shit. Guess you are sick. Sorry, love. She scrolls back through her texts, all the voice notes. Sorry, love. Sorry, love. Sorry, love.