Chapter 3: Documenting the Damage
Ashlee swallowed. A razor blade and broken glass, ground to dust, was the logical guess. Actually, no. It felt more chemical. Like she’d gargled industrial-grade cleaner.
The ENT’s office smelled of antibacterial soap and thinly-veiled disapproval. She sat on a paper-covered exam table, its crinkling sound deafening in the sterile silence. Kevin was in the chair by the door, leaning back as if this were a moderately interesting board meeting. He’d insisted on coming. He’d paid for the clinic—a private place with sleek furniture and no one in the waiting room. He’d said it was because he felt responsible. She wasn’t sure that was the word she’d use.
Dr. Singh was younger than she’d expected, with kind eyes that only made this more humiliating. “Alright, let’s have another look, Ashlee,” he said, his voice gentle, practiced. He held a thin, flexible tube with a camera at its end. A laryngoscope. The instrument of her final shame.
“Open wide for me,” he said, and she complied, letting him guide the tube into her nose. It was an odd, tickling, invasive pressure, sliding deeper and deeper until she felt it curve into the back of her throat.
He was watching a monitor to his left. Kevin, after a brief glance at Ashlee, fixed his gaze intently on the screen too. His expression was one of focused curiosity.
A sharp, shocked intake of breath escaped Ashlee before she could stop it. That was her throat on the screen. Her voice box. Puffy and angry, the tissues a violent, inflamed red. The vocal cords themselves, the delicate folds that should look like pale, taut ribbons, were swollen and raw. Dark red splotches—tiny, vicious hemorrhages—marred their surface. It was a battlefield. A private, ravaged landscape she’d let him turn into this.
“You can see here,” Dr. Singh said, pointing to the monitor with a pen, his tone shifting to clinical detachment. “Significant erythema and edema. These are submucosal hemorrhages, here, and here. You’ve suffered a significant phonotrauma.” He looked at Ashlee. “That’s strain-induced injury to the vocal folds. How did you say this happened again? Excessive… singing?”
Ashlee’s face burned. The lie they’d agreed on—a long, raucous karaoke night—felt pathetic and transparent in this clean, bright room.
“A very enthusiastic rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’,” Kevin said smoothly from his chair, his eyes still on the screen, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “She’s passionate.”
The doctor looked skeptical. He gently withdrew the scope. Ashlee gagged as it came free, the chemical burn in her throat intensifying.
“No vocal cords for a minimum of seven days,” Dr. Singh said, turning to his tablet to type notes. “Absolute voice rest. Not a whisper.Hydration. Steam inhalation. I’ll prescribe an aggressive course of anti-inflammatories.” He looked up, his gaze landing on Kevin, then back to Ashlee, holding her eyes with a surprising gravity. “If you experience this level of strain again, we could be looking at the development of nodules. That could lead to permanent, irreversible damage.”
The word permanent hung in the antiseptic air. Ashlee felt a cold, clear shock, sharp as a needle, piercing the dull throb of her pain.
Kevin stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. “Understood, Doctor. Thank you. We’ll make sure she follows the protocol.” He placed a hand, proprietorial and firm, on Ashlee’s shoulder. She felt its weight like an anchor. Or a brand.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. Her parents.Again. The tenth call today. She’d sent them a text saying she had laryngitis. A new wave of guilt, different and more familiar, washed over the searing, secret shame.
Later, in the penthouse, the mood had curdled. The no-talking edict made everything worse. Her silent presence was an accusation.
Kevin stood at the panoramic window, a tumbler of amber whiskey in his hand. “Don’t look so wrecked,” he said, his voice crisp in the quiet. He didn’t turn to face her. “Singh’s the best in the state. He’ll fix you up.”
She wanted to scream. She sat on the enormous white sofa, a notepad on her lap. She scrawled in large, angry letters and held it up: DAMAGED GOODS.
He finally turned, his expression unreadable. The high-altitude sun from behind turned him into a silhouette, a dark cut-out against the glittering city. He slowly sipped his whiskey, watching her. Then he set the glass down on the polished limestone windowsill with a precise clink.
“Damaged?” he repeated, as if tasting the word. He walked toward her, his footsteps silent on the thick wool rug. “That’s not how I see it.” He stopped in front of her, looking down at her scribbled note, then at her red-rimmed eyes, at the pulse fluttering wildly in the pale column of her throat. “You look like you should be damaged.Bruised. Used.”
The clinical term still hung between them. Phonotrauma.Voice-box trauma. He reached out, his fingers not quite touching her cheek. “That’s not damage. It’s evidence.”
She flinched back, scrambling to her feet. Anger was a hot, silent scream trapped behind her ruined vocal cords. She grabbed the notepad and ripped a fresh page, scrawling furiously: EVIDENCE OF WHAT, KEV? YOU WINNING?
His calm shattered. In three quick strides he was on her. He grabbed the pen from her hand and tossed it across the room. It clattered against a steel bookshelf. “Winning?” he said, his voice low and taut. “Is that what you think this is? Some fucking bet?”
He backed her into the cool glass of the window. The vast, indifferent sprawl of Salt Lake City was behind her, a dizzying backdrop to his focused rage.