Free Girl on the Moon by Jack McDonald Burnett

Eyechart each on a treadmill or stationary bike, pacing themselves until the signal at regular intervals which meant they should go all out for ten seconds (the first couple days) or fifteen seconds (the rest of the week), then wind back down to their previous pace.
    Lunch was at one, and Conn had just as many visitors the first few days as at breakfast. Monday night she did a search for her face on her Wear. She found at least twenty pictures taken that very day by employees and others at NASA Glenn, posted proudly for the world to see.
    Grant got hold of her on Wednesday, wanting to know how Conn found astronaut training. She gushed to him about it. “You told me all about your training, but that was something that happened to someone else. You know? This is happening to me. Really happening!”
    “I couldn’t be happier for you, Conn,” Grant said, and Conn knew he meant it. Conn talked Grant’s ear off for twenty minutes, barely letting him get a word in. When she hung up, she smiled. Her relationship with Grant had been a source of regret for her, since their breakup. She felt like she had made everything right between them on the phone.
    Thursday, in lieu of lunch, Conn agreed to speak at a middle school assembly arranged in her honor. She was a motormouth there too: they had to politely stop her after a while.
    At two thirty, the astronauts hit the pool—not the Neutral Buoyancy Lab “pool” where they would train underwater for their time in space, but a regular Olympic swimming pool where they did stretches and exercises with resistance. Then from four to five, it was yoga stretching. Conn felt like a million bucks at the end of each day, already anxious to start the next one.
    Friday of the first week—they would train Monday through Saturday—Peo called. Conn was excited to hear from her.
    “I saw footage of your talk at the middle school,” Peo said.
    “I hope it was OK to do that,” Conn said. “They kind of sprung it on me, but to be honest, I wasn’t eating that much at lunch anyway because there are always so many people who want to see me. I was glad to have something else to do.”
    “No, it wasn’t OK. You didn’t do anything wrong, but that kind of thing won’t be happening again while you’re training.”
    “I suppose that’s good. Yeah, it’s probably best that we have more control over who I talk to and when and about what, rather than oh, there’s a middle school down the road or whatever.”
    Peo was quiet momentarily. Then she said, “Conn, are you OK, really?”
    “Never better,” Conn said. “I love it here. Well, I love training. I can’t believe it’s really happening, and I have you to thank for it. Thank you so much—”
    “Constance.”
    “Yes?”
    “Do you have your medication with you, or did you leave it behind?”
    Conn swallowed. “No! No, I have it, of course. Of course I do. Why?”
    “I understand that you want to do well and make a good impression. But I shouldn’t have to tell you that going off your medication is not an option.”
    “I just thought I could—”
    “ Period . Not. An. Option. You are to take your medication again starting immediately, or whenever your next dose is supposed to be.”
    “Tonight before bed,” Conn said glumly.
    “It’s easy to make yourself believe you can control your illness because you’re older and wiser, but it’s not true. You make yourself unwell when you stop taking your medication. You make yourself unfit.”
    Conn mumbled an apology.
    “If I discover that you’ve stopped taking any medication you’ve been prescribed, for any reason, I will replace you just like I did Ashlyn Flaherty. I am not playing around, Conn. Take me seriously.”
    Conn did take her seriously. It really was a bad idea to stop taking her meds. This was proven Saturday, when Conn wasn’t feeling well, and Sunday and then Monday, when she barely made it out of bed. She was nauseous, weak and worn out. On Monday, a NASA doctor