A Disease of Magic

After Leo was dressed in his version of pajamas—sweats and an old t-shirt—we sat on his couch, staring at the television but not actually watching what was on the screen.

I’d had time to contemplate my idea while he bathed. He’d offered before, over half a year ago if my memory served, but my pride hadn’t let me accept. But now that it wasn’t going to only be me benefiting from that arrangement…I felt little guilt for taking him up on it.

“So,” I began slowly. “I don’t know that it’s safe for you to keep living alone.”

Leo’s eyes snapped to mine, full of fire. “I’m not moving back in with my parents.”

“No, that wasn’t my—”

“And I’m not hiring a nurse, either.”

“Leo, that’s not—”

“If you think I’m going to voluntarily goes into one of those homes, then—”

“Leo, stop.” I demanded. “Just…wait a second. I wasn’t saying any of those.”

His brows lowered in confusion. “Then what are you saying?”

“I mean…” I hesitated. It was a bit awkward to bring up. But it needed to be said. “I think that maybe I should move in with you.”

Leo didn’t say a word. He just stared at me.

“Look, neither of us are in the best place health-wise, and it makes sense that it would be good for each of us to have someone who looked out for us,” I added. “What would have happened today if I hadn’t been on the phone with you? You’d have ended up in the hospital, recovering for days instead of hours. This way, we can hopefully better avoid worse episodes because if I don’t see you moving around in your own home, I’m going to know to check on you. We can look after each other. Mutually beneficial.”

Leo looked back at the television and didn’t say anything for several minutes, his brow slightly furrowed as he contemplated. I was about ten seconds away from seeing myself out from embarrassment when he finally spoke.

“I have some conditions.” I nodded, staring at my hands clasped together in my lap. “First, we both go to that restaurant I want to try. Not tonight,” he added when I went to interrupt him. “But, say, in a couple weeks or so. I’ll make a reservation, and you can find something to wear with the money you won’t be spending on rent anymore.”

It took me a moment to piece together that he would refuse my contribution to his rent. “Leo, that’s not fair, and—”

“Nope. Totally fair. If I hired a nurse to do it, I’d still have to pay rent and the nurse, and this way I’m not spending extra money on something that I can totally afford anyways. You’re not paying for utilities, either, so don’t even try.” The finger he pointed at me brokered no deals.

“Fine,” I huffed, unable to argue against that logic. And I was also unable to afford half of what his place cost, anyways. “What other conditions?”

He grinned. “You move in today.”

“WHAT?” My eyes barely stayed in my head with how hard I stared at him.

“You said it yourself, neither of us are healthy. Best to not waste time and do it today. You can start with a duffle bag of your things and start sleeping here. I’ve already got two spare rooms, and neither of them are getting any use.”

“What about Lucie?” I wasn’t about to leave my cat.

He shrugged one shoulder, completely at easy. “She can come tonight, too.”

“Leo, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.”

I glared at him. He grinned at me in a self-satisfied way. It took all of a minute for me to cave.

“Fine.” I stuck a finger out at him. “But over my weekend, you help me move my stuff. And wipe that shit-eating grin off your face.”

He held up his hands in surrender, trying and failing to smother the smirk. His screen on his arm glinted softly in the light.

“Did your bio-screen catch anything?” I wondered aloud. “This was your first attack with it, right?”

He instantly sobered. “Yeah. I’d been pretty lucky the last month. How about this; we go to your apartment, and while you start packing a duffel bag, I’ll sort through everything this thing caught. We can talk about it when we get back.”

“More like a trash bag,” I muttered. I owned no luggage; I could never afford to go anywhere. “As long as you promise not to drive or lift anything.”

After two trash bags and an hissing cat carrier were retrieved, we sat at the glass dining table side by side several hours later. Lucie had hidden under the bed, and it had taken a combination of crawling after her and a can of salmon to get her close enough to grab. Leo pulled up his screen with a few efficient flicks, and I leaned closer to get a look.

Pulse 170

Blood Pressure 65 / 44

Oxygen 96%

Cortisol 46 mcg/dL

“These are the ones that were out of the norm for me,” Leo explained. “I compiled them together here, so if you’re not seeing something like my iron levels, that’s because it was perfectly fine.”

“Sure. Makes sense,” I answered distractedly, still perusing the information. I pointed at the first two. “Those do not look good.”

“No,” he agreed happily. “But now one thing that I can try is to lay flat and elevate my feet, or wear compression socks, eat salt, and other stuff. I have to look into it more, but that should help limit or prevent any fainting that would result in a hospital stay.”

“Do you think that’s the norm for an episode for everyone, or just you specifically?”

He shrugged, his shoulder brushing against me. I pulled back, aware of how much closer I had inadvertently leaned in. “It could be either, honestly. We’ll know more information when you get your first episode and when I get another one. It would suck if it was different every time.”

“Yeah,” I mused, lightly stroking my own screen idly. I’d barely looked at the thing, but I had no reason to. Yet. “Being able to have a treatment plan in place on top of the meds would likely make a significant difference.”

Leo’s warm eyes met mine as a possessed yowl sounded from the hallway. He raised his eyebrows at me, and I just shrugged. Lucie was…Lucie. Maybe she saw a bird outside. Or her own tail offended her. I wouldn’t apologize for my cat’s personality.

“Anyway,” Leo continued, deciding to ignore Lucie’s outburst, “Had I known I should lay the hell down and have a sports drink, I’d probably be feeling better right now.”

I heaved a resigned sigh. “Hopefully this is some positive progress.”

“Hopefully,” he agreed. Lucie sprinted into the room, her tail twice its usual size, and attacked the maroon tassels of the area rug.

“I should sequester this one. She needs to adjust to being here in smaller increments.”

He grinned. “I’ll trust your judgement. I don’t mind watching her running around.”

“Oh, you say that now. But you’ll regret those words at three in the morning when the shadow of a mouse passes in front of the window and she very vocally demands to hunt like her ancestors.”

“We don’t get mice here.”

I scooped up my cat and detangled her claws from the strings. “She doesn’t know that, though.”

“Why is your shit so heavy?” Leo complained, wiping the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead.

“You’re the one who insisted I move in the heat of summer instead of waiting another month or two for autumn like a reasonable person.”

The rain from the past few days had let up, the sun shining down brightly. The air was thick with humidity, and it was like breathing through soup. Every crease on my body was wet, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the humidity, sweat, or both.

Thankfully, I’d decided to part with my old bed and a majority of my furniture. Sleeping one night in Leo’s guest room with an expensive mattress was almost enough to sway me, but it was his nonchalant “I never have guests stay over, anyways, so it might as well get some use before it disintegrates into dust” that fully convinced me. A mattress that comfortable shouldn’t go to waste. And moving furniture wasn’t something I wanted to do. I’d be saving plenty of money to buy more bookshelves and a number of other things to decorate my new room with. I’d already taken pictures of the old furniture to post online. Hopefully someone would buy it and move it out of the apartment so I didn’t have to. I still had another three weeks left before the month was up and I legally had no ownership of the unit anymore. Having an incurable disease did have its perks. Namely, that I could get a doctor to sign a note saying I had to move for my own wellbeing because of my disease, and I wouldn’t be penalized for breaking my lease two months early.

But the rest of my furniture wasn’t exactly a light load. The boxes full of books were the worst, despite how small the boxes themselves were.

“I didn’t realize you owned your own library,” Leo whined, picking up the last box off the sidewalk and shoving it into the truck I’d rented. “Where are you even going to put all of these?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’ll get some new bookcases somewhere. Ones that better match the aesthetic.”

Leo shook his head, mumbling something to himself.

“What was that?” I asked, teasing, as I redid my braid.

“I said, you’re a pain in the ass,” he answered. I flipped him off, grinning.

It would be nice not living alone anymore. I liked my solitude, but the guest room Leo had was almost like a studio apartment with its own bathroom, walk-in closet, and plenty of space to make a little reading nook. Even Lucie was making herself at home, claiming beams of sunlight that poured through the floor to ceiling windows.

“If you think that’s bad, then—”

A vibration on my arm interrupted me, and I looked down. My bio-screen was going off, alerting me to something.

I frowned.

Leo noticed and stood beside me to take a look at my screen.

“Unlock it for me,” he requested. I did so, and watched as he expertly flicked through the different screens and stats. I stood there silently, trying to interpret what I was seeing upside-down as he held my arm hostage.

“What’s it saying?”

Leo chuckled, releasing my arm and letting me look myself.

Pulse: 124

Blood Pressure: 133 / 96

Temperature: 99.4 F / 37.4 C

Cortisol: 32 mcg/dL

Plasma Osmolality: 199 mOsm/kg

“It’s acting like a mother hen. You’re probably fine. But it noticed that your temperature, heart rate, and hydration levels are all out of whack, and it wants you to cool it. Here.” He went and grabbed a water bottle from the front of the truck, handing it over. “Guess it’s a good thing we’re done, huh?”

I nodded, taking a sip of the water. “When we’re done with this, I want to go through the stuff it’s collected. It’s fine that you understand it all with just a glance, but I’d like to understand, too.”

“We can do that. Hop in. I’ll drive and start talking you through some things.”

I gave my old apartment building a last glance. I wasn’t going to miss it much, not really. All the important things were coming with me. And Lucie loved all the extra space she could roam around in. But I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this was the beginning of something new.

Leo had the truck purring by the time I finally climbed in, the icy blast of the AC immediately raising bumps on my arms and legs.

“Okay, so stop me at any time,” he began, putting the truck into gear and guiding it into city traffic. “Feel free to interrupt with questions, too.”

“Sure.”

“First, you’ve got all your vitals. It’s that first screen I showed you earlier this week. It’s everything being monitored, and listed independently. At the top of the screen, you can see other tabs. If you look at the next tab, it shows you what your baseline is. At least, it will. I don’t know if you’ve had it long enough to have a baseline for some things. Do you see them?”

I navigated over, poking gently at my arm. It was still a weird feeling. “Yeah, some are here. Not all, though.”

“Which ones do you have?”

“Um…” I scrolled down. A lot were filled in, maybe a quarter or a third, but most were missing still. “Heart rate. Blood sugar. Blood pressure. That one you said was hydration, plasma something. Some other vitamins.” A new baseline popped up, joining the list of green-colored stats. “Oh, look at that. Potassium has now joined the party.”

Leo tilted his head, thinking. “No temperature?”

I double-checked. “Nope.”

“You should have that one by now.”

I grinned, the reason dawning on me. “No, I shouldn’t.”

“Yes, you should.”

It took me all of two seconds of internal debate before I decided to tell him. “A woman’s temperature fluctuates with hormones. It’ll take a full month, at least, for that to be trackable.”

Leo’s cheeks flushed red, and I cackled.

“Aren’t you the science person? And if you’re working to develop software and AI to track things about people’s bodies, shouldn’t you know how women’s bodies are different?”

“To be fair,” he began, running a hand through his hair, “my major was not in biology, okay? Yes, I took basic biology classes, but nothing so…specific.”

I let out a dramatic sigh. “Oh, fine. It’s not like half of women probably don’t know about it, either. Hey, do you think I can use this thing to track my cycle? That would actually be super helpful because I tend to forget.”

He turned and gave me a withering look, which only made me laugh again.

“Okay, fine, moving on.” I sat up straighter. “We need to have a serious conversation. This is really important.” I watched as he tensed, bracing for whatever other nonsense I might spew. He probably wasn’t sure if he should actually take me seriously right now. “Has your bio-screen figured out a trigger for your episode yet?”

“Short answer, maybe. I want to do some more digging myself with what was found and my stats leading up to it, just to make sure I understand it all before I try explaining it. But once we’re back at our place and you’re settled, I plan on tweaking things. I think that I need to make these modifications sooner than later, start looking for other factors that could be to blame.”

My brain snagged on the middle part of what he said. It liked the sound of that; our place. It made me feel like I had a home, instead of where I slept at night and stored all my books, which was what my apartment had mostly been.

I had to focus to catch up to his last sentence and formulate a response. I decided on a safe, “Sounds like a plan.”

“But going back to how the bio-screens work, specifically for your personal understanding… If you look at the third tab across the top, that’s where the AI will have, well, theories is the best word I can think of. It’s where it will show you the data it’s analyzed, and how things fit together. For example, if you don’t stay hydrated, it can increase your blood pressure. So it will show how your hydration levels affect your blood pressure, the optimal hydration level for the optimal blood pressure, and things like that.”

“So…” I paused, thinking. “If I get stressed out, and it causes my heart rate to increase, it’ll notice how much stress affects my heart?”

Leo nodded, shooting me a quick smile. “Yes, exactly. These are just random examples, of course. Once you’ve had it longer, and have more data, it will start looking for other influential factors. Like, if you don’t have enough iron, maybe that raises your sensitivity to cortisol, and that increases your heart rate. So, a solution would be iron supplements or adjusting your diet.”

“That’s so cool.”

“Isn’t it?” Leo was obviously happy that I shared an interest in this. Usually, his little projects were over my head or held little appeal. But this was now something we had in common.

“Have you been working on any of your modifications lately? I know it’s just been a few days since your attack, but—”

“Oh, absolutely,” he interrupted excitedly. “One of the things the bio-screens fail to do is consider external stimuli.”

“Such as…?”

“Sunlight, air pollution, humidity, radiation, those sorts of things.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Do not tell me we’re constantly exposed to radiation.”

“I mean, we are. Surely you remember electromagnetic radiation?”

“Oh.” I felt a little stupid. “Visible light, radio waves, that sort of thing.”

“Yep.” We stopped at a light, and Leo turned to face me, eyes blazing. “I’ve almost finished the code for it. The screens have external sensors, but they’re just not being utilized. Yet. But they will.” He turned back to watch the light, but the intensity didn’t leave his voice. “I’ll program mine first and work out any bugs. Then we’ll do yours once I’ve fixed things. And then maybe, maybe we’ll get some real answers.”