Brownie Bites

She was a clarinet player.

She was freckled and her eyes were brown and soft. I recall her name because she said it to me when we first met, but we hardly spoke. The saxophones really didn’t talk with the clarinets much. She and I sometimes exchanged glances as we sat in separate practice rooms when one of us produced a particularly offensive squeak, the worn-down walls doing little to muffle the noise, but we didn’t have time to talk, or so I thought.

Sophomore year was rough. I was sick. Not the kind of sick that has you home for a couple days, the kind that has you in bed day after day, groaning each morning as you try to get up, clutching your stomach as you walk to class. Being in pain was my normal, and without a diagnosis, a lot of my friends couldn’t understand. I lost people. For a while, I lost myself. People I was never close to ignored me, and those I was close to awkwardly glanced the other way as I deteriorated.

Eventually, I got it together. I was diagnosed with celiac disease, which meant no gluten. It was earth-shattering. I got better, but people, things, feelings I’d lost didn’t come back. The people who really mattered had never really left, and I loved them, but I was surrounded by run-down practice rooms and creaking lockers and screeching violins and people I didn’t know or want to know.

I hadn’t spoken to her in months. Our lockers weren’t nearby; they were on opposite ends of the hallway. I’m not sure why she chose that day. I’m not sure how she knew about my diagnosis, and I’m not sure why she cared, and I’m not sure why she was also in the music building at three in the morning, except that she was probably as desperate for some last-minute practice as I was. “Hey,” she said, not really smiling but not scowling either. I closed my locker, waiting, assuming she needed something. “Rough day, huh?” she asked.

I stared back. I knew there were probably still tears on my face. There usually were.

“For you,” she said to my silence, not awkwardly, just simply, and she handed me a bag and walked away. They were gluten-free brownie bites. I still don’t know where she found them. They were delicious.