Chapter 17 #2
Me: I don’t know. A cold. Maybe the flu? I’m fine, just need rest.
Alex doesn’t respond, which is weird, considering how prompt he usually is about replying to texts. I try to sleep, but I feel like death, so I mostly just lie there for the next hour feeling sorry for myself.
There’s a knock on my door.
Groaning, I force myself up. I open the door, and I’m surprised—but also kind of not—by the person in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“I brought you some stuff,” Alex says, holding up what looks like a takeout bag of food and a reusable grocery bag.
My heart melts at this simple, thoughtful gesture.
I step aside to let him in, making sure to give him a wide berth, and immediately return to my bed, unable to ignore my body aches.
“Don’t get too close. I can’t have your illness on my conscience.”
“Are you hungry? I got you the best menudo and pozole in Los Angeles because I wasn’t sure which you prefer, and then I thought, What if she doesn’t like either?, so I stopped by the store and grabbed a can of Campbell’s chicken soup.”
He unloads item after item onto my desk as he speaks.
“Of course I like menudo and pozole—who do you think I am?”
I realize I’m starving, but my throat hurts so bad I can’t imagine forcing food down it.
“Other than soup, we have the usual: Gatorade—I got yellow, blue, and red—cough drops, painkillers, decongestant. I also got crackers, because that feels like sick food, but then I realized it might look like I think menudo and pozole should be eaten with crackers, so I also got tortillas and bolillo. Oh, and of course—”
He pulls out a jar that is all too familiar to me, and I blanch.
“No. Get that away from me. Everything else is really sweet and appreciated, but that’s where I draw the line. Return it. Or keep it. I don’t want it.”
Alex stares down at the jar of Vicks in his hand and frowns. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“No, it’ll make me feel hotter than I already do while also making me sticky and smelly.”
His frown deepens. He sits at the foot of my bed. “Joey, this is the magical elixir of our ancestors.”
“Vicks was invented in North Carolina,” I inform him flatly. Belatedly, I register how close he is and protest, “You’re gonna get sick.”
“I have a really great immune system,” he assures me. “Do you want soup, or should I refrigerate them? They’re still hot.”
I don’t have the energy to push the issue—if he wants to get sick, let him get sick.
“Menudo sounds good,” I say, staring longingly at the bag on my desk. It’s so far away.
Alex gets up. I watch helplessly as he prepares everything, asking if I’d like him to add the onions and cilantro (duh) and squeeze the lime in (also duh).
He gives me the Gatorade of my choice (blue) and heats the tortillas up in the microwave, and soon he’s watching me slurp down a big bowl of cow tripe.
I could almost cry at how sweet this was. I could almost cry for a lot of reasons—I really do feel like shit.
“If you’re hungry, you should eat the pozole,” I offer.
He shakes his head. “Those are both for you. I’ll wait for the pozole to cool down a bit and put it in your minifridge.” Then, as if the question has been bursting to come out, he asks, “If you’re Mexican, how do you not know about the power of Vicks?”
“It’s because I’m Mexican that I hate that shit. I got sick a lot as a kid, and my mother would always put it all over me until I was like a greased-up, menthol-y pig. My neck, my back, my chest, my feet. Ugh,” I say, shivering at the memory of being slathered in Vicks as a child.
“Having it on your feet is the best. I’d be happy to apply it for you later.”
“Stay away from my feet, perv.”
“I also got you a couple of those VapoInhalers—the lip-balm-looking things that you put up to your nose—and this shower-tablet thing, so you can experience the magic without feeling like a ‘greased-up, menthol-y pig,’ as you so poetically put it.”
“Don’t act like it’s not an apt description.”
“Vicks is God’s gift to sick people.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done—truly—and I will use all the Vicks products that don’t involve rubbing shit on my body,” I promise. “How much was this? I can Venmo you.”
I freeze. It’s 2012. Is Venmo even out yet? Is it popular? I wrack my brain trying to remember.
He doesn’t seem fazed by the reference, so my tension eases.
“You don’t owe me anything. It’d be kind of an asshole move to come over unannounced with stuff to make you feel better and then charge you, don’t you think?”
I shrug, thank him, and continue eating. We sit in silence for a few more minutes, and then I tell him mournfully, “I don’t think I can eat any more.”
He hops out of my bed, puts the food away, and brings all the medicines and Vicks products over so they’re easily accessible. Then he stands there for a moment, making it clear that he doesn’t want to leave but also doesn’t know what to do next.
“You want to watch a movie?” he asks, his voice soft.
“I’m going to get you sick.”
“So I’ll get sick,” he says with a shrug.
He can see that I’m about to relent, so he sits down on my bed next to me, puts a hand on my ankle, and rubs slow, hypnotizing, dangerous circles into my skin.
“I’ll get sick, and by then you’ll feel better.
You’ll feel obligated to take care of me and bow to my every whim.
There might even be a nurse’s costume involved—”
“There will not be a nurse’s costume involved.”
He grabs my laptop and says we can watch anything I want, my choice.
I pick the ultimate sick-day movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but we barely pay attention, talking the whole way through.
I complain about how my entire body aches.
He massages my joints while explaining that they ache because my immune system is sending white blood cells to fight whatever virus I’ve contracted, as well as histamine to dilate my blood vessels and allow more white blood cells to pass through them.
Once, I might have been annoyed with him for explaining this. I would have called him a pretentious ass. Not now, though. Maybe I’m too tired to be annoyed. Or maybe I’ve just grown to like how he seems to know everything. Not long into the movie, I begin to doze off.
As I fall asleep to the rhythmic feeling of him rubbing circles on my back, I realize that whatever is going on between us, he’s no longer just a distraction.
I’m not sure he ever was.