“Campus,” I said. My voice sounded a little hollow and his voice was muffled by the ringing in my ears. God, what was happening to me? “I don’t feel very well. Any chance you can pick me up?”
“Actually, yeah. I’m not too far from you. I had to drop off a couple of things Bean forgot in the attic. What parking lot are you at?”
“I can send you a pin.” My hands were still shaking and kind of floppy, but I could work the screen for that. “Sorry for being an inconvenience?—”
“Don’t you dare,” he ordered. My mouth snapped shut like I was trained to do whatever he said. Interesting. “Send me that pin. I’ll be there in two shakes.”
The line went dead, so I sent him my location, then lay my head back and closed my eyes. Resting and steady breathing also helped. Not that I could do that often when I was late and rushing to class—especially since I was chronically late all the time.
But I had all summer to sit at home or sit in my office and rest my body from everything I’d put myself through. So that was good…right?
I attempted to swallow as saliva pooled in my mouth, but everything began to feel a little funny. I was struggling to keep hold of my thoughts, and the ringing in my ears got worse. My eyes were open, but everything was a dim fog, and then black started to creep around the edges.
Trying to take a deep breath, I felt like my lungs were fighting me. God…what was happening?
What—
“…Forest. Hey? Shit, do I need to call 911?”
“Mmph.” I meant to say no, but the only thing that came out was garbled consonants. Seconds ticked by, and as they did, things started to clear up. I could see better, I could move myarms, I could breathe all the way. I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and looked over to see Nash crouched beside me, my car door wide open. I licked my lips, and god, my mouth was dry. “Hello.”
“Hello?” He let out a high, tense laugh. “Are you serious right now?”
Sitting up a little, I shifted toward him. “When did you get here?”
“Maybe a minute ago.”
Had I fallen asleep? “How long was I dozing?”
“Dozing? Forest…” He stood and passed a hand down his face with a small groan. “You weren’t sleeping, bud. Your eyes were open.”
That wasn’t good. “Oh.”
He grimaced, then crouched again and reached up. For a moment, I thought he was going to cradle my face, but instead, he pressed two fingers to my neck, feeling for my pulse. “A little fast, but steady. Do you know what happened?”
“Just a—ah.” I had no words because, no, I didn’t know. That was new. “I think I let stress get to me.”
He looked unconvinced. “Can you walk? I think I should take you to get checked out. I can take you to the ER near the house?—”
“No!” He blinked in surprise at the strength of my protest. “Sorry, but no. I can’t afford that right now.”
“Your insurance kicked in, didn’t it?”
Yeah, it had, but I wasn’t about to have an ER bill. I’d made the mistake of going once the year before, and I had only just gotten done paying the twenty grand it had cost me after all was said and done. And all the tests had come back normal, so it had been pointless. I was not in the mood to go bankrupt over this.
“Look, can we just go home? If I feel worse, or if it happens again, I promise I’ll get checked out.”
He gave me a dubious look, then extended both hands toward me and helped me step out of the car. I was still a little wobbly and off balance, and it took a moment to convince my feet to start moving, but once we were going, I felt a little better.
Well, apart from being exhausted, of course. And the fact that I still had an aura in my periphery, which meant a migraine was incoming. Oh, and the weird smell in my nose was still there. And my ears were still ringing.So yeah, maybe I wasn’t much better.
I said none of this aloud as I got in the car and lay my head back on the seat.
“Forest,” Nash said softly after starting the car.
“Mm?”
“Look, I know I haven’t been doing this job a long time, but I’ve been at it a while, and I’m not convinced this is stress.”
