“Yeah, of course. Do you want me to come lay with you?”
I nod at him, and in the next second he’s taking up his spot at my back. As soon as I get comfortable, I’m drifting back off to sleep. “I’m going to get better, Lee. You deserve me at my best, not whatever this is that I’m offering now.”
* * *
The next time I wake up, the sun isn’t as high in the sky as it was. Mac’s still at my back, holding me, and I can hear him tapping on his phone one-handed. He must be working from it. When he notices I’m awake, he locks his phone and sets it down, “Good morning.” He smiles gently at me.
“What time is it?” My groggy voice rings through the room.
“Almost four. How are you feeling?”
“Can I get out of bed? I need to go to the bathroom, and then I want to go to the living room for a change of scenery. I’m tired of this bed.”
Mac’s eyes flicker to my arm, then he shrugs. “I’m not sure, let me go ask your brother.”
Before he can get up, I yell out, “Jakob!” I can hear his feet running across my floors before he bolts into my room. When he sees no one is dying… Yet. He bows over, hands on his knees, and fights to suck in a full breath.
“Holy shit, you scared me. What?”
“How did you know he was here instead of D?” Mac asks at the same time.
“Can you unhook me? I want to go out there.” Looking over my shoulder at Mac, I grin, “You said it was four. Hannah’s out of school, and Jake doesn’t have to be at work until ten.”
Jake unhooks the bag of medication that’s being fed to me through an IV. I move my right arm out from under the covers to adjust myself and help him before realizing what I’ve done. But the moment Mac stiffens, I know he saw it.
“What’s that?” He points to the bulge under the skin of my right arm. Something he’s never seen before because I always wear long loose sleeves in front of him, and all last night and today I’ve been wrapped in blankets.
“That’s an AV fistula. It’s how they give me my dialysis.”
“What? Dialysis?” He sounds confused, but my need to pee stops this conversation from going any further.
“Bathroom first, then we’ll talk. I’ll meet you in the living room.”
“Wait, are you okay to walk to the bathroom alone? You’ve barely been out of bed in almost two weeks.”
Jakob snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, man. And every day she pees, multiple times. She’s fine. I’ll help her to the bathroom, and she’ll take it from there.”
Mac jumps out of the bed, “No, I can help her.”
“Dude, don’t be fucking weird about it.” Jakob groans. He’s not cussing Mac out anymore. They must have come to amiddle ground somewhere.
“I’m not. I just— I want to help.”
Jakob dramatically moves to the side and gestures for Mac to step in. He moves over to the side of the bed and scoops me up, bridal style. My bare legs dangle over one arm while the other supports my back. My brother hands me the IV bag to hold until we get to the living room and can hook it to the pole out there.
“What are you doing?” I laugh as he begins walking me to the bathroom. Jakob makes a gagging noise at seeing his sister in no pants and hurries out of the room. I’m wearing shorts, but from what he can see, it looks like I’m just in an oversized shirt and panties.
“I’m carrying you to the bathroom. Then I’m going to carry you to the couch.” Mac says like I just asked him the dumbest question.
“I have feet. Most people use those to walk.”
He laughs, a light genuine laugh. “Well, you aren’t most people, now are you?”
After carrying me into the bathroom and begrudgingly agreeing to wait outside the door while I do my business, he carries me to the couch and settles me so I’m propped up on one end with my feet pulled into his lap. They’re so fucking swollen, but that comes with the territory. The bag with my medications is back on the IV pole that sits at the back of the couch, my tubing giving me enough slack to move around the couch freely. Jake made an excuse to head out when we walked out here. Promising to be back around six, apparently Mac has somewhere to be around seven.
“So are we going to talk about this morning?” He asks while flicking his head to move his too-long hair out of his eyes.
“I’m sorry I went off on you. I’m grumpy when I don’t feel well, and this is not feeling well turned up to a thousand.”
