I wake up in a hospital bed. I always know when I’m in a hospital bed. This has happened to me so many times that I’ve gotten somewhat used to it that I can now always tell where I am.

But I don’t remember exactly what happened. My memories are a blur.

I remember losing my virginity finally. It was incredible.

And then I started to have a reaction.

Liam did something. He didn’t have the blue drops.

He took me here in his car, a terrifying drive.

“You’re awake,” says someone, a nurse with kind eyes, who peers down at me.

“What happened?” I say. “Am I OK?”

“Everything’s going to be all right,” says the nurse.

Suddenly, I notice something… something that horrifies me completely. It sends a chill down my spine, through my whole body. It makes me shiver in terror.

The nurse is wearing a mask. Not only that, she’s wearing the ridiculous plastic wrap suit that’s meant to protect me from allergens.

I look around the room, frantically. It’s one of those sealed off plastic rooms.

“Damnit!” I suddenly yell.

The nurse looks taken aback.

“Everything’s going to be OK, dear,” she says. “You just had another reaction.”

“Why am I in the hypoallergenic room again?” I say, almost yelling. “Why are you wearing a mask again?”

“Don’t you remember, dear? You have a condition where your immune system doesn’t function properly…. We need to protect you. That’s why you had a reaction. You shouldn’t be out there in the world without protection. You’re a delicate creature, aren’t you?”

“I am not a delicate creature,” I say emphatically. “Not anymore. Liam cured me. He gave me…”

I can hear the nurse sighing through her mask.

“What happened?” I say. “Didn’t the blue drops work again? Where’s Liam?”

“If you’re referring to Dr. Horton, he’s been suspended.”

“Suspended? What the hell are you talking about?”

“We can discuss that all later, dear,” says the nurse. “Right now, I need to take some measurements.”

She examines the machine that I’m hooked up to, looking at my vital signs apparently.

Now she looks at me.

“The swelling has gone down significantly,” she says. “I’ll be back soon to check up on you again. For now, just rest. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be all right.”

“But tell me what happened!”

“There’s time for that later,” says the nurse. She clearly has no intention of explaining what happened to me.

Shit.

The nurse disappears through the double folds of plastic wrap. And I’m left alone again.

I’m alone, just like I was in my room for that horrible year.

This has to be a joke, right? I get one little taste of freedom, and now I’m back in the same situation as before.

I just don’t understand what happened. Did the blue drops suddenly stop working?

And what happened to Liam?

Suddenly, I get a memory coming back to me. Liam’s standing over me with a shot of epinephrine. I’m worried, but I know he’s looking out for me. After all, he got me to the hospital. I feel safer with him than with anyone else. And then a severe looking woman comes into the emergency room, trailed by five security guards. The security guards grab Liam by the arms and pull him away from me. He’s yelling at them, and he punches one of them in the face, but the others grab him.

Is that memory right?

The security guards came and pulled Liam away from me, when he was only trying to help me?

I look around for my phone to call Liam, to ask him what happened, to see if he’s OK. I know being a doctor is incredibly important to him. I know he’s not going to like being suspended from duty at the hospital. After all, as he’s always saying, he has people to save and brains to cut open. He’s got to get on with his work. What are they playing at?

But my phone is gone, and there’s no hospital phone. No doubt, my phone is considered a risk because it’s been in the outside world.

My mind starts going into a cycle of worry that I can’t escape from.

But at some point, my body is so exhausted from everything that happened, from the allergy attack, from whatever drugs they’ve given me, that I fall asleep.

I wake up to see my dad’s head above me. He, too, is wearing a mask.

“How are you feeling?” he says.

“Hi, Dad,” I say.

“Are you OK?”

I nod.

“Can’t you take that mask off?”

“You had another attack,” says my dad. “This is what I was afraid of.”

“But I’m fine. I just need to take more of those blue drops.”

My dad sighs. “That’s not going to happen, Mia,” he says. “The doctors have all agreed that there’s no evidence that the methylene blue works. And it seems to make you think you can go into the outside world when you can’t. It’s just a matter of time, if you take that stuff, before you have another attack.”

“But maybe I just need a drop,” I say. “I had the attack when I hadn’t had it for the whole day. I was fine before that. Maybe I just need to take it more frequently.”

My dad shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “That’s not a good idea, Mia. We just don’t know what’s going to happen. You need to be away from all allergens until the doctors here figure out a treatment for you, a real treatment that’s been proven.”

“No treatment like that exists,” I say. “But Liam found one! He cured me, and you want to put me back in my room. I can’t spend another year there. I can’t!”

“Mia, listen to me. Liam may have been trying to help. I won’t deny that. But he violated many of medicine’s codes. I was a doctor, remember? I know how doctors are supposed to act. We need evidence before we can just give a drug to someone. Liam used you like a guinea pig, and it didn’t work. The hospital has suspended him for a good reason, Mia. They didn’t do it for nothing. He’s been flouting convention here for years, violating every procedure there is. It was just a matter of time before someone got hurt. I’m just glad you’re OK.”

“But, Dad…”

“Goodbye, Mia,” says my dad. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about this anymore.”

My dad’s gone, through the double plastic folds that seem to swallow him up.

And I’m alone in the hypoallergenic hospital room yet again.

My thoughts turn to Liam.

Why hasn’t he tried to communicate with me? Even though he’s been suspended, I’m sure he could find some way to see me, or to pass me a note.

I’m sure he could do something.

Suddenly, the words of that nurse that I bumped into on the street ring through my memory: “the pump and dump.”

My heart starts beating fast in fear.

Is that what he’s doing to me? Just fucking me and then leaving me here, never to speak to me again?

Maybe it’s not that big a deal about the nurses he’s slept with in the past. But I really thought there was something between us. He was my first sexual partner, after all. And the way he talked to me…

But was that all a ruse?

And then the most horrifying thought comes to me: what if he just gave me the methylene blue so that I could leave my room long enough for him to fuck me. Meanwhile, he knew it wouldn’t last forever, and that I’d end up stuck back in my room.

Meanwhile, of course, I was led to believe that it was a cure for life, and that I’d never have to live this horrible lifestyle ever again.

That couldn’t be true, could it?

Then again… he’s been nice to me, but I do have to look at the evidence. How many women has he done something similar to before?

Do I really think that I’m so special that Liam would completely change his previous behavior just for me? Just for little old me, the virgin who doesn’t even know how to have sex properly… possibly? He did seem to enjoy it. I can still remember the way he was grunting. But was I good? I doubt it. It was my first time, after all.