He shook his head.His hair was starting to stiffen from the salt.
“I should have—” But the pain made my throat clench.
He shook his head again.
After a while, when I felt like I could manage it, I said, “Thanks.”
He started to cry again, which was probably why he said—in a tone of one thousand percent frustration—“Dash, stop talking!”
So, I did.
And then I said, “I love you.”
(It’s less complimentary when you sound like a tired frog.)
His eyelids fluttered, and he looked away.
But when I held out my hand, he gripped it even harder than Bobby had.(Have I mentioned he’s freakishly strong?)
Boys, you know?
Chapter 16
After all the tests and exams and whatever, they put me in Charlie’s room.
Can you believe that?
Fortunately, Charlie was too deep intoDetectives and Dragonsfor more than an excited “Mr.Dash!”Bobby pulled the privacy curtain, and Charlie went back to their book, and I went off to Happy Land, courtesy of whatever the nurse had shot me up with.
When I woke, it was to unfamiliar sounds: voices, casters on linoleum, the hum of distant machinery.My eyes were crusty, and my body was heavy with fatigue, but the pain in my throat had mostly subsided—there was minor discomfort when I did things like breathe or turn my head or swallow, but on the whole, a significant improvement from how I’d felt the night before.And, for that matter, definitely better than the alternative.
Bobby had slept in a chair by the bed, and as soon as I moved, he jerked upright.He immediately winced and put a hand to his neck.
“Not as young as you used to be,” I said.
“Don’t talk,” he said.“Wait, can you talk?”
I probed my throat.It was still tender where the cord had cut into the flesh, but aside from those minor pings and pangs, it did seem better.I shrugged.“I can talk.”
Tension drained out of Bobby; I hadn’t realizedhowtense he’d been, as a matter of fact, until I saw him relax.He rubbed his neck some more.
“Come over here,” I said.“I’ll do that for you.”
“No, Dash.You’re hurt.”
But I gestured, and after a moment, Bobby scooted his chair around and let me massage his neck.It must have felt good, because after a while, Bobby made a certain, um, noise that I had definitely heard before.
“There’s no way you actually got any rest in that chair last night,” I told him.“You need to go home and get some real sleep.”
Bobby groaned as I worked more of the stiffness out of his neck and shoulders, and his voice was muzzy when he spoke, but he said, “Can’t.Too much to do.”
I didn’t have a good answer for that, so I focused on massaging his shoulders.
Whatever brief interlude of peace we’d had after waking, though, that short exchange seemed to have shattered it.Bobby’s hand came up and closed over mine, stopping me.He turned around to face me.The burnt bronze of his eyes was darker today, deeper, and his hair spilled out of its usual careful part across his forehead.
I brushed it away, but it fell back again.
“I’m okay,” I said.
