Chapter Nineteen #2
In the morning I have to get ready in the boys’ bathroom, because Felicity has, in fact, taken up residence in ours.
I hear her retching on and off as I dress, and before class I make a run to the store, returning with a bag of crackers and electrolyte drinks to get her through it.
She has to work in a few hours, and even though everyone else is home for the morning, I worry all afternoon that she needs to go to the hospital or, at the very least, urgent care.
But I trust that she knows her body and her medication, and when I get a text from her halfway through class that she’s feeling better and heading to work, I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. It’s my only relief of the day, really, since I won’t be finding it in the APM.
By the time I deboard the shuttle home, every brain cell I have is begging me to crawl under my covers and not come out until August, when I can put this entire program behind me.
Today we took a cumulative assessment that combined everything we’ve learned so far, and even though I took the longest to finish, the time did nothing for my score.
I’m terrified to calculate the grades I’ll need in the coming weeks if I want to pass.
My phone buzzes in my pocket as I’m making my way from the shuttle stop to the apartment, and my steps falter when I see it’s Mom.
I swear, looking to the sky as I pick up.
“Hi, Mom!” I say with the heaviest dose of false cheer I can muster.
“Hey, stranger.” I hear her walking pad whirring in the background and her fingers clacking at her keyboard. “Haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“Sorry, I’ve been really busy.”
“Mm-hm. Busy at the beach.”
My stomach clenches. It’s been a week, yet she still can’t let it go. “That was only a few hours. I was just blowing off steam. The APM is a lot of work.”
“Of course it is,” Mom says. “It’s supposed to be—it’s a future-defining program, Blair. My god, you and your brother are both so convinced college should be easy.”
I balk. “I didn’t say that.”
“If the APM is too hard right now, maybe you should think about making some extra time in your schedule.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“Without your art class, you’d have more time to focus on what’s important.”
I stop in the shade of my building, my heart hammering. “I don’t need to do that. I’m fine. It was one day off, that’s it. Mom, please. I’m sorry.”
Mom sighs. “No, I’m sorry. Your brother is driving me up a wall, and I’m taking it out on you.”
I hesitate for the briefest moment, then throw my brother to the wolves by asking, “What’d he do?”
Better him than me.
“It’s not even worth discussing. He’ll be over it soon.” She groans, and I hear the walking pad pick up speed. “Just promise me the beach was a one-day thing, and you aren’t actually busy partying with Starr and Leni every night.”
This, at least, I don’t have to lie about. “Mom. Definitely not.”
Relieved she’s moved on from the idea of me dropping out of Stone she’s attending a women-in-business event this weekend; one of her clients just closed on a big house in Leni’s neighborhood; Goose has been hiding a collection of dead lizards under the couch.
“He’s gross.”
“I know. But he’s bored,” Mom says. “He misses you. Maybe you should come get him.”
“You know he’d rather live with Sawyer.”
She snorts. “As if Sawyer could handle the responsibility.”
I try not to feel flushed with pride that she thinks I could, even as a joke.
“Besides,” Mom adds, “Goose loves you both equally.”
I’m clearly not the only liar here.
Halfway to my room, I hear a noise from the other end of the apartment that makes me pause. Everyone should be gone, but when I pull my phone from my ear, I hear the distant hum of running water. The boys’ bathroom door is shut, light and steam pouring from the gap.
Mom keeps talking, but I have one ear trained in the other direction. After a moment the water shuts off. A thump, a curse. The sound of something falling.
I take one bite of my sandwich and backtrack to set my plate on the kitchen counter.
“Mom, I should go,” I say, cutting her off. “I have a lot of work to get to. We just finished an assessment, and I want to get a head start on the next module.”
“Already on to the next thing. That’s my girl,” Mom says, sounding proud in a way I don’t deserve.
As we hang up, I cross the apartment. On the other side of the door, I hear the metallic rattle of the towel rack, followed by a crash.
I knock. “Um, everything okay in there?”
A long silence. Then Jamie’s voice: “I’m fine. Go away.”
I glare at the door. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
He doesn’t answer, and then the door swings open. I’m assaulted by a cloud of steam. As I wave it away, Jamie emerges, one hand on the towel tied around his hips.
“None of your business,” he mutters. His voice is hoarse, and he looks terrible, cheeks splotched with fevered pink, dark circles under his eyes.
“Are you sick?”
“No.” He shoulders past me, flipping the light off as he goes.
“Liar.”
He shuts his bedroom door in my face. I hear rustling, a pained groan, and then a thump.
“Jamie.” I knock on the door but get no response. “If you don’t answer in the next ten seconds, I’m coming in.”
“Go away,” he says again.
“I can tell something’s wrong. Can I please come in?”
“No.”
“I’m coming in.”
This time he doesn’t protest, and when I push open the door, he’s sitting on the floor in front of his closet. Thankfully, he’s half dressed in a pair of shorts, his towel discarded on the floor. He has his arms inside a T-shirt, but he only made it that far before seeming to give up.
“I said no,” he repeats halfheartedly.
I kneel beside him and pull his shirt the rest of the way to his shoulders, then fit it over his head. He obediently allows this, even though his expression says he hates every second of it.
“Can you stand?”
“Of course.” He doesn’t move, his hackles rising at my long look. “I just need a second. I got light-headed in the shower.”
I put a hand to his forehead, and his gaze cuts to me, his hazel eyes heavy-lidded and fever-bright—greener than usual. “You’re burning up. How long have you been feeling this bad?”
I glance toward his nightstand, where he’s collected an array of tea mugs.
“I’m just tired.”
I take his chin in my hand, forcing him to look at me. “How long?”
His gaze slides away, his mouth hardening in a defiant line. “Since yesterday. I’m gonna sleep it off.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” I take his arm, pulling him to his feet.
He’s heavy-limbed and clumsy, leaning against me for balance once I have him upright.
He shivers as I lead him to his bed, and he quickly wraps himself up in his blankets, which are in a haphazard heap, like he’s alternated between kicking them off and pulling them back on.
I tug the sheets from his hands, ignoring his protests as I straighten them over him again and tuck the blankets around him like a cocoon. He closes his eyes, still trembling.
“Have you taken a fever reducer?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“God, Jamie, it’s like you don’t want to get better.” I cross out of his room, leaving the door open behind me.
“Shut the door!” he yells.
In my bedroom, I dig around in my things for my digital thermometer and a fever reducer.
I stop in the kitchen to grab one of the electrolyte drinks I brought home for Felicity and rifle through the cabinets until I find a packet of ramen.
I get the stove heating water before I return to Jamie’s room, where he’s glaring at the open door.
“Stop pretending you hate this.” I lean over him, pointing the thermometer at his forehead.
“ ‘One-oh-one,’ ” I read from the screen. “You are not well.”
“No shit,” he mutters, rolling away from me.
“Take this.” I shake out two pills and pass them to him with the electrolyte drink. “It should help with the fever and any body aches.”
He takes the pills and settles again. I gather his used mugs, making room on the nightstand, and return to the kitchen to finish the ramen. When I stick my head back in his room, Jamie is turned away from the door.
As I move quietly to the nightstand and set the bowl there, he rolls over, watching me.
“What are you doing?” he murmurs, sitting up.
“You need to eat something. Don’t look so suspicious; it’s just ramen.” I push the bowl into his hands. “You act like no one’s ever taken care of you before.”
He goes still, his gaze dropping. He takes a slow bite.
I frown, sitting gingerly on the edge of his bed. “When’s the last time you were sick?”
He shrugs, drinking broth from the side of the bowl. Then he groans, setting the bowl aside and sliding down in bed again.
I put my palm to his forehead to check if he feels any cooler, and Jamie’s eyes fly open, his hand going to my wrist.
“Sorry. I was just checking your fever.”
He doesn’t let go. “A long time.”
“What?”
“Since someone took care of me.” He closes his eyes, hand still gripping my wrist. “It’s been a while. Maybe… before my mom left. But I can’t really remember.”
My stomach lurches at the mention of his mom.
Jamie has never talked about her in front of me.
What I do know, I’ve only gathered through snippets caught while eavesdropping on him and Sawyer, and things my parents said when they thought I wasn’t listening.
That his mom cheated on his dad and ran off with another man, settled in Las Vegas, and was so behind on child support that his dad would’ve had a good case to take her to court if she’d had anything to give up, but she didn’t.
Just like Ian, Mom said once, never failing to find a way to bring my dad into it. A deadbeat.
I frown, putting my free hand over Jamie’s. “Well, now it’s me.”
He searches my face, his gaze so soft, I can barely meet his eyes. “No cost?”
I shouldn’t stay. After the other night, we need a clear boundary between us, one we’re less willing to cross. But he’s letting his guard down for a second, and…
I want to take care of him. And maybe there’s a part of me—a small, stupid part—that wants to be close to him.
“No cost. Just the burden of my presence,” I say. “Scoot over.”
He smiles a little, releasing my wrist to make room for me.
“You probably shouldn’t stay. I could be contagious.”
“Too late now.” I reach over, dragging my fingers through his short, damp hair. He leans into my touch, head tipping back. I try not to enjoy it too much. “Try to sleep.”
And he does, drifting off shortly. After a while his fever breaks, and he kicks off his blankets again, sprawling beside me.
I start a movie on my phone, knowing I should do something productive—my APM work, the soapstone I haven’t even touched yet—but unable to bring myself to leave his side.
When my battery drains, I lean over the side of his bed to find a charger, and I feel his hand on my wrist.
When I turn my head, his eyes are wide and worried.
I pick up the end of the charger with my free hand and hold it up for him to see. He releases me, and I plug my phone in, settling again. Jamie rolls closer but groans when he sees what I’m watching.
I freeze, the sound shooting through me like an electric current. It’s almost enough to fry my brain of the last thirty minutes, erasing everything I’ve learned in Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace.
“It’s all for the bit with you, isn’t it?” His breath coasts along my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“I was educating myself.” My voice comes out weak, and I try to steel myself, digging deep. “Getting into the mind of my hostile patient.” I press my finger to the center of his forehead and push him away.
“Hardly hostile,” he replies, sitting up again, his cheek resting against my shoulder. “If I fall asleep, wake me when you start A New Hope.”
“I highly doubt I’ll be here long enough to get that far.”
“Where are you going?”
“I…”
He waits, and when I turn my head to look at him, our faces are close enough that I can see the gray ringed around his pupils—a detail I’ve never noticed before.
There’s something so soft in his gaze, something open: a completely foreign look on Jamie, who is normally guarded to the teeth.
I’d probably do anything he asked right now.
“I’m not going anywhere.”