Chapter Text
To calm herself down, Eva would count anything. It didn’t matter what it was, so long as she started from zero and worked her way up. It was usually as simple as that. She counted the scrapes and smudges on the off-white linoleum while Neil puked on the other side of the third floor bathroom door.
There were several dark streaks left by rubber shoe soles. Fifty-two. There were fifty-two smudges on the surrounding eight tiles alone. A maintenance cart had made a mark that stretched nearly the entire length of the hall. Eva wondered: should the long streak count for more than one? Neil spat into the toilet three times.
The men’s restroom went awfully quiet for twenty-eight seconds. Leaning against the door, Eva listened for any reason not to kick it down. Faintly, she heard Neil exhaling, long and slow, catching his breath. He sniffed once.
“Let me know what I can do,” she called in.
“Got all I need right here,” Neil answered. “Water, breath mints, a little window. I could last for days.”
Eva rubbed tiny circles into her temple. “Just let me know.”
“You know,” Neil huffed, “there’s something to be said of this. Hanging around while I literally spill my guts --”
The rest was lost to violent retching. There was a red mark near the wall and a blue streak of permanent marker. Lord knows how that got there. Neil coughed thirteen times.
“What do you think it was?” Eva asked.
“Uh…” The toilet flushed.
“Didn’t catch that.”
“Just something I ate, probably.”
That wasn’t right. Neil had a garbage disposal for a stomach. Eva knew, though, that she wouldn’t get anywhere contradicting him outright.
She seated herself outside of the men’s bathroom to rest her legs, listening to the water run for one minute. She’d been on her feet all day, running reports back and forth. It had been a day of workplace housekeeping with little real excitement until Neil burst from his office, peckish and panicked, and rushed down the hall like the devil was close behind. It wasn’t the excitement Eva had hoped for.
“How about you go home early today?” she suggested.
The water shut off. “Nah. Day’s almost over.” Neil pulled four paper towels from the dispenser.
“Exactly,” Eva said. “You’ll only miss a few hours that you can make up tomorrow. No harm done.”
“Nah,” Neil said.
“You’ve got plenty of sick leave saved up.”
Something rattled on the other side of the door. Neil gently screwed the pill bottle lid back on. The sink ran again.
“Tylenol probably isn’t the best thing to pop, Neil,” Eva called. “You’ll want to try and eat something with those or you’ll just keep feeling sick.”
She assumed that’s what it was. Neil kept his office drawer stashed with an unholy arsenal of over-the-counter pain relievers for the headaches that usually followed an all-nighter. Honestly, it was a miracle his stomach was still intact at all. He functioned exclusively off a diet of black coffee and little white pills. He kept his mini-fridge stuffed to the brim with energy drinks and ice packs. The only reason Eva didn’t worry more than she probably should have was because she knew Neil, and had for a long time. That’s just who he was: a terrifyingly stable imbalance of Redbull and Advil. She was convinced that it was the only reason (beside her help, of course) that he’d gotten through college.
Neil didn’t respond. A thick silence filled the space. Beneath the weight of her own overbearance, Eva returned her attention to the floor.
The women’s bathroom door was four tiles away from the men’s. The nearest fluorescent tube light (the horrid things...) flickered in a series of five irregular beats before steadying out, but it always flickered in fives. There were two exit signs in this hallway.
She’d never noticed the dimensions of the hallway before: eight tiles wide. It wasn’t important. It didn’t spark any epiphany. But now that she knew that the third floor hallway was eight tiles wide, Eva would never forget it. Now, every morning when she stepped off the elevator and walked down to her office, she’d notice the eight tile width and think about Neil puking his guts out, this terrible waiting game, and how the color had completely gone from his face when he finally emerged.
Rosa and Neil had known each other for twenty-five years. They’d met in the first grade. She was seven; he was six. They’d had a total of eleven classes together through high school. Neil was in and out of detention for minor disruptions while Eva only ever got detention once. That was in the tenth grade. Carson Adams had hit Neil three times. Eva hit Carson once. It was enough.
In college, the longest Neil had gone without sleep was fifty-six hours to study for his entrance exams. He snuck in a three hour nap before his first test. He never once got physically ill.
Eva rose to her feet while Neil took a moment to clean his glasses on the end of his lab coat.
“Please hold all disapproving and-or disconcerted expressions until I have regained the gift of sight,” Neil said. He slipped the frames back onto his face, flashing a smile and wiggling his fingers with a magician’s flair. “Ta da!”
Looking up at him, Eva crossed her arms. “Truly remarkable. Now go home.”
Neil shrugged. “A new stack of maintenance reports just came in. I’m stuck here, same as everyone else.”
“Do them tomorrow,” Eva pressed. “You look terrible.”
Neil pressed a hand to his heart, shaking the pills in his pocket. “Thank you, I’m touched. I’ll write that one in my diary tonight.”
Turning on a heel, he gave a halfhearted wink and started for his office. Eva followed close at his shoulder. She didn’t like that he hadn’t really, truly looked her in the eyes yet today.
“Cut that out. Seriously. Take the extra hours to see your doctor.”
Without missing a beat, Neil stopped so suddenly, they collided shoulders. “Dr. Rosalene, I’m flattered, but that would be completely unprofessional -- “
Scoffing, Eva marched on. If he wasn’t going to take this seriously, fine. She wouldn’t press any further.
“I’m kidding! Come on, Eva. Eva!” Neil ran after her at first, his rubbers heels striking the linoleum, but he settled for matching her walking pace.
“You don’t get sick, Neil,” Eva said, looking straight ahead.
Neil steadied his breathing. “Just something I ate. You know the cafeteria salads can be utterly rancid.”
They stopped between their two office doors. Eva’s hung wide open; Neil’s was locked. Even in the scramble, he had time to pull his door shut.
“Just take it easy,” Eva said. “Eat something with...whatever it is you’re taking.”
“Tylenol,” Neil affirmed.
“Drink lots of water,” Eva said.
Neil pulled an office key from his pants pocket. “Right.”
“Go to bed early.”
“Mhm.” Neil unlocked the door.
“Don’t mix pills and Monster. Actually, just skip the Monster today.”
“I will make no such promises,” Neil smirked. He gave a little wave and a tight-lipped grin before disappearing behind yet another door.
He left Eva in the hallway. She’d always been certain that if Neil needed to talk to her about anything, he would in his own way, because he always had, though they’d usually waste ample time beating bushes.
But those conversations always came about only after a little prodding on Eva’s part. And given the reminder that there was someone in his life who wanted to listen and wanted to help in any way they could, his guarded soul would, in its own time, open naturally to the daunting prospect of vulnerability. Eva just wished he’d get on with it already.
She took a slow breath. In his own time, always. Knowing Neil for so long had certainly made her far more patient than (she believed) she would have been otherwise. It was a good thing. A very good thing. She’d learned to take matters a little slower than she often wanted. Even so, she had an inexplicable sense of being on the clock, fighting a quiet countdown, which she attributed to a desperate desire to see her friend well again.
She left that for another time. Dr. Eva Rosalene stepped into her office and faced a more immediate task -- the mountain of paperwork awaiting her return -- failing to overhear the faint jingle of pills tumbling from their bottle into Dr. Neil Watts’ shaking hand.