Fifteen
theo
“Oh, Theo. No,” Mia wailed down the line. “Why would you put yourself in that position?”
I stood in front of my bedroom window and pinched the bridge of my nose, forcing myself to stay calm. “I’m the only one who won’t infect someone else if I get sick.”
“But… can’t you just put food and meds outside her door?” she asked. “You can keep your distance and still check on her.”
“Is that what you’d do?” We both knew she wouldn’t. Neither of us had been brought up to ditch people when they needed us. “It’s too late, anyway. She’s in my apartment.”
“I can’t believe it. All this time, we’ve avoided getting sick, and you just… threw yourself into it like you’re wearing freaking armour. I don’t understand you sometimes.” She choked on her words and paused, regaining control. “What am I going to tell Ruby?”
“That I’ll see her soon. I’m wearing a mask.
Sanitising regularly. I’ll stay away from her whenever I can—and as soon as the rain lets up, I’ll open the windows and get some airflow through the place.
” As if to remind me of her presence, Sadie launched into another coughing jag from the lounge room.
“And some people are immune, remember. One of Ruby’s teachers. Dad’s neighbour. We all know someone.”
“But you can't know that unless you're exposed to the virus. By then, it’s too late.”
I rubbed my forehead, torn between frustration and empathy.
If our positions were reversed, I’d be losing my mind over Mia helping an infected neighbour.
“I don’t know what to tell you. She’s alone.
I live next door. I can’t go on with my life pretending I don’t give a shit about what’s happening to her. ”
“Why is she in your apartment, anyway? Last time you mentioned her, she was barely acknowledging your existence.”
“Things have changed since then,” I said. “She got hurt while she was out with Tim, and I brought her back to my place to recover. Her symptoms kicked in straight after that.”
“God. Is Tim sick, too?”
“Not yet.”
After a long pause, Mia said, “It’s getting so, so bad—and you’re so much closer to it than I am.”
My sister’s house was at the end of a no-through road in a quiet town, and most of her neighbours were elderly. Knowing she was as safe as anyone could be during a pandemic gave me one less thing to worry about. “Is Ruby all right?”
“She’s coping surprisingly well, but I thought—”
“What?”
“That you might find a way to come see us. Have you talked to Dad?”
A teenager on a BMX tore down the road with a scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, bunny-hopping onto the footpath to avoid a car. “A couple of days ago. Why?”
“He wants you home. He wants us all together.”
“Every time I talk to him, I have to remind him about the roadblocks,” I said as Sadie coughed again.
The noise was so violent, I frowned and made my way over to the bedroom doorway, peeking through to the lounge.
“There’s a chance I could get to you or Dad via the back roads if I take my time, but—”
“You can’t go anywhere while Sadie’s sick,” Mia said, resigned.
“Right.” Or I could come down with the virus myself and die before I had the chance to decide. “If they pull the roadblocks and communication goes down—”
“It won’t,” she said too quickly. “It won’t go that far.”
I wanted to ease her concerns, but we were falling apart and there was no point in trying to convince ourselves otherwise. “It will,” I persisted, “and when it happens, go to Dad’s place so I know where to find you and Ruby.”
“You’re making it sound like the world’s ending,” she said with a nervous laugh. “We’re okay. It’s just hard right now.”
“Sissy,” I warned. “Promise me.”
She sighed. “Fine. If we need to—we won’t need to—I’ll drive to Dad’s with Ruby.”
“Good,” I said. “Now we have a plan for when it all goes to shi—”
“Theo. It’s not going anywhere close to shit.”
I smiled at her irritation. “If I can’t call you, trust me when I say I’m coming. I’ll be there for you and Ruby. For Dad. We’ll ride it out together.”
“I know. Your dependability is one of the few tolerable things about you.”
Somehow, even with Sadie’s health deteriorating a few short metres away, I found it in me to smile. “Tell Rubes I can’t do Zoom dance battles with her right now. It’ll be a few days until I know for sure what’s going on with Sadie.”
“Okay. Take care of both of you. Text me with updates when you can.”
I’d only just ended the call when a knock sounded. Everyone in the building knew about Sadie’s condition, so I strode into the main living area to find out which one of them had a death wish.
I opened the door and found Tim standing against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway, making an exaggerated sign of the cross over his chest.
“I could have texted her,” he said through his mask, “but I needed to see for myself.” Raising his voice, he called out, “Sadie, my love, tell me you’re still with us.”
His lighthearted tone contradicted the darkness of the topic, and part of me wanted to tell him to zip it. She could die. It wasn’t unreasonable to think she might not recover.
“I’m alive,” she called back. The minor exertion had her hacking again, and I checked over my shoulder, hoping she wasn’t wiping blood from her mouth this time around. Still nothing. Every bout of coughing not followed by blood gave me another sliver of hope.
“I left you less than an hour ago,” I said to Tim. “What did you think was going to happen in that time?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’m just feeling guilty. If I’d gone with my gut and stopped her from helping after the crash, she’d be safe now—and you would be, too.”
“It’s not your fault,” Sadie said, her voice straining. Another round of coughing kicked in, the raspy edge painful and raw.
“Or a dozen other things could have gone wrong,” I reminded him. “We’ll all be exposed at some point. There’s no escaping it anymore.”
He sighed as if he’d heard the same thing from Varesh. “You’re probably right. Do you need anything? If I don’t have it, I’ll go out and try to get it. Pain relief. Cough syrup? A priest.”
I smiled behind my mask. “We’re good.”
A beat of silence passed between us, and Tim flicked another look into the lounge room. “We’ve sorted out our other problem, too,” he said, keeping the volume low.
“How did you handle it?” I asked. Please tell me Laura turned the maul on Dustin.
“Ransacked his apartment and made sure he hadn’t squirrelled away any other keys.
For now, he’s been told to stay on the ground level.
If he takes even one step up the stairs, we’re reevaluating.
” He paused and laughed a bit, although there wasn't much humour to the sound. “Laura even smashed the TV in his bedroom. She wasn’t leaving any of his electronics untouched.”
“Good. I hope Owen got a few decent punches in, too. Did you search for cameras when you got home?”
“First thing,” Tim said. “Varesh and I could only find one in the smoke detector. You?”
“I haven’t looked.” Other than a perfunctory check when I walked in, doing a proper search didn’t feel like a priority.
“Owen used the maul to hack off Dustin’s door handle, too,” he said. “Now the rest of us can lock our apartments, but he can’t. Let him sweat and wonder if we’re going to come for him in the night.”
“I like it.” I breathed out a sigh when Sadie started coughing again. “I need to take care of things here, but I’ll keep you posted on her condition.”
“All right.” To Sadie, he called out, “Listen to Theo, my sweet. Be a good patient and do everything he tells you.”
“I’ll try.”
After I’d said goodbye to Tim, I returned to Sadie, keeping my distance even though it had to be pointless by now. “Want anything to eat? Drink?”
She rolled onto her side and slipped her hands under her cheek, closing her eyes as if keeping them open took more effort than she had in her. “No. Thanks. Is your sister mad at you for helping me?”
“More worried than angry.” I wanted to sweep her hair back from her face. Touch her. Comfort her. “Are you hot or cold?”
She huffed out a sigh. “Is it weird if I’m both?”
“Everything’s weird about this fucking virus.
” It shouldn't be progressing this fast. Her cheeks were flushed, her breaths coming in shallow bursts. I couldn’t look at her without feeling completely helpless.
“See if you can sleep off the fever,” I said.
“I’ll be moving around the apartment, but I’m here anytime you need me. ”
“Okay.” She mustered the energy to generate a slight smile. “And Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good person,” she said with the sweetest expression. “The best, really.”
Only a couple of hours later, the chaos from the protest had branched off into pockets of violence across the city—small enough to be contained to specific areas, big enough that going outside had become a gamble, especially given how fast Ultimus would spread.
None of that mattered to me. Until I knew for sure if I’d caught the virus myself, I wouldn’t be leaving my apartment. No rooftop, no supermarket trips. Just four walls and a rapidly deteriorating woman who may or may not make it, no matter how much I wanted her to live.
When the rain stopped, I threw on a jacket and opened every window.
While Sadie slept, I dragged a dining chair over to the smoke alarm and found the tiny camera Kerger had snuck in there. It went straight into the bin, and I held off on slamming the lid, pissed he’d violated my privacy without me having a clue.
With nothing but time on my hands, I alternated between checking on Sadie and surveying the street from my lounge room window.
People were still braving the outdoors despite the risks. Riding bikes, walking dogs. I watched the activity and waited for the symptoms to kick in, unsure if the fever or cough would get to me first.
Stress wound my body tight, clogging my mind with contradicting thoughts. Staying with Sadie. Saving myself and running to be with my family.