The nurse asks me again today if I’m in any pain, so I smile and say, Just the usual, like the usual amount isn’t slowly killing me. She asks me to rate my pain on a scale from one to ten, and I want to say, Five, I think, but maybe it’s more like a four. I mean, a five to me is probably an eight to a healthy person, but I don’t want to lie, but I also know if I don’t say six or seven, no one will take my pain seriously. But what if it’s really a three and I’m exaggerating it in my head because who needs doctors when I can gaslight myself, and in all honesty, who fucking knows what these numbers mean because they’re all subjective, and when I say I’m a ten, what I really mean is I’m MY ten, which is probably somewhere high above the pain scale as we know it, breaking it with disease and decay, hovering somewhere around fifteen if we made a scale to accommodate chronic pain.

Ultimately, I smile politely. I tell her, Probably a four. She nods, makes a note of it on the outdated computer, and leaves me alone to get the doctor ready.

Nicole Zelniker (she/they) is the author of several books, including FROM WHERE WE ARE, which has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Their forthcoming YA debut, ALL I KNOW SO FAR, comes out with Inked in Gray in May 2025. She’s also the founder and editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Knee Brace Press. In her free time, Nicole enjoys re-reading her favorite books, listening to musicals, and bothering her tabby cat.

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