A Semester Abroad by Ariella Papa Page B

Italian. I was squinting into the light, but I didn’t recognize him. Moaning. Shivering. Sweating. Jonas came to me, and though it didn’t look like him, it had to be. Who else could hear my thoughts? Who else always knew what I was thinking before I said it? Though I couldn’t recognize him, I reached for him.
    But his cologne was strong. It was not the smell of an American boy. It confused me to have this smell wrapping around me. I expected something else.
    He wiped my head. He touched my hair. He could do anything to me now, and I would lie here in sweat. Then he left without turning off the light or closing the door. I opened my eyes and tried to focus. I knew I was not well. I pulled the blanket over my head to block the light. I could still smell Jonas’s new scent.
    Then the blanket was pulled from me. Had I dozed? The light was still on. It was Gaetano. He was the man with the cologne. But there was another stronger smell coming and I knew that smell was going to burn me all the way down my insides.
    He put a glass with the smell on the nightstand, pulled me into a sitting position. I wouldn’t stay up by myself, he leaned me against him. I was aware of how little I was wearing but too messed up to really care.
    “
Sei dimagrita
.” I didn’t understand what he was saying. I started to protest when I got another whiff of what he was holding out to me in the glass. But I was weak and he was fast. He pushed the glass into my mouth, so the liquid rushed onto my tongue. I drank it down quick, because I didn’t want the strong bitter alcohol taste in my mouth for too long. He held me still for a minute, timing the minute even as I started to feel it come back. He whispered something to me about learning this in his country,
paese
, whatever. He said he would take me to see it one day when I felt better.
    “
Allora
,” he said when the minute was up. Then he led me to the bathroom and waited outside, listening to me wretch.
    “
Brava
,” he said. “
Stai meglio adesso
.”
    I nodded, understanding. I would be better now. I was doing the right thing. I needed to purge the sickness from me, get everything out. I felt better already but weak. I climbed back into a bed. He pulled the blanket around me. I knew that I would at last be able to sleep. He kissed my forehead and turned off the light in the bedroom.
    “
Grazie dottore
,” I said from my dreams.
    “
Grazie a te
.”

    I stayed in bed for another day and then spent a miserable day back at school, where everything remained cloudy. On the third day, I could hear better, my head felt lighter, and the fog on my brain seemed to lift.
    The cough remained, though. I carried it with me for the next two months. And after a couple of weeks it sounded a lot worse than it felt. It remained beyond my control and came out at the worst times, drawing looks from the class and Signora Laza whenever I hacked.
    I still didn’t have much of an appetite. I forced down the canned soups from the supermarket. I lost weight from not eating for so long. I noticed my pants were falling off and my shirts were bigger, but I only realized how different I looked from Janine’s daily sweep of me.
    “You lost weight,” she said. She and Michelle were flipping through fashion magazines in their room when I went through to take a shower in their bathroom. It wasn’t a compliment or an expression of concern. It was like she was acknowledging a threat.
    “I guess,” I said. I hadn’t been trying to and I didn’t think the sickness was something positive.
    “How did you do it?” Michelle asked seriously, almost admiring.
    “It’s called the get really sick and not be able to eat diet. Oh, and throw in a couple of pukes. It’s great,” I joked. Michelle nodded.
    “That’s Michelle’s daily life,” Janine said, smiling. I couldn’t believe she was making a joke out of this. Neither could Michelle. She looked embarrassed. Janine backtracked. “Just kidding,