I didn’t want to go in. I’d had enough of clinics and doctors and emergency situations. It was just a migraine; it was something I could handle. I didn’t need a doctor or a roommate or anything. I was fine on my own and without help.

It’s your third migraine in the past 24 hours, she said. I knew exactly what she meant by that. She meant You need to go in. She meant You can’t torture yourself just to spite your roommate. And I just sighed and reached for the phone. I texted the roommate to tell her that I’d go in if it wasn’t better by noon. Of course, it wasn’t.

The lights and the sounds and the smells of outside were horrible to my head. I internally grumbled, pretending to blame it on Mar. If it weren’t for her, I feigned, I wouldn’t even be going.

I got checked up and poked at and asked a million questions until they decided they wanted to give me some drugs and keep me at the clinic for a few hours. I was taken to a little room with two beds. It reminded me terribly of going to the nurse’s office in elementary school. Except in elementary school you weren’t given cups with pills or shots of pretend serotonin.

After she gave me an injection of Imitrex, an anti-nausea pill, and some painkillers, the nurse turned off the lights and left me alone in the room, saying she’d be back to see how I was doing in twenty minutes or so, and that the anti-nausea medication would likely make me tired.

I really didn’t want to be there, but Mar sat at my feet and that somehow made me stay. The injection site still stung horribly, and I was beginning to feel the tightness in my neck and the burning of my face that always comes with Imitrex. The injection was worse than the pill, and my head hurt almost as badly as the first time I tried the Imitrex.

Just be still, said Mar, The nurse said it would be over more quickly with the injection. I just wanted to go home.

But then my migraine started to get better instead of worse. And as that happened I started getting woozy. The bed felt like it was moving, like a car; when I closed my eyes I saw round mutli-colored spidery shapes flashing. I realized my halucinations, however, and whimpered.

It’s probably just the anti-nausea medication. It will wear off soon. So I laid down, and before I knew it I was dozing off. That’s when my roommate started texting me. She’d said she would pick me up, but now she was telling me to find another way to get home. I whined again, not wanting to take a taxi and yet not wanting to walk on my own. Forget her, Mar said, She’s not worth your time like this.

I could hardly disobey, as the medication was still making me feel very weird and sleepy. The nurse came back in, gave me some graham crackers, pudding, and naproxen, and said I could go once I finished them all. I sat up and worked quickly, wanting to get out of there. Pace yourself. Remember how nauseous you were before? I sighed, and resigned to eating more slowly. Then I downed the pills and started to put my boots back on.

The journey back home was interesting, even though the walk wasn’t far. I told my roommate and my mother that I was fine to walk home; my roommate unwilling to pick me up as she was across the city and my mother having no way to do so. I didn’t want to take a damn taxi. I felt a bit lightheaded and stumbled a bit, but it was an oddly aware lightheaded. I stood for about five minutes waiting for a train which basically doubled the trip time. When I finally got home I collapsed onto my bed, and then remembered that my time at the clinic made me miss my biology lab.

Don’t worry about that right now! Get some more sleep. I complied. I don’t know what I’d do without her.