“It could be influenza. It could be bacterial. It could be...”
“Caelan.” I reached out and grabbed his phone, pulling it away from him. “Look at me.”
He looked at me. His eyes were wide with worry, genuinely concerned, and my heart did a complicated thing in my chest.
“I have a cold,” I said slowly. “A regular, boring, human cold. I’ve had them before. I’ll have them again. I will survive this one just like I survived all the others.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m very confident.”
“You can’t be confident about your health. Health is unpredictable. Anything could happen.”
“Caelan, I’m not dying.”
“You don’t know that either.”
I stared at him. He stared back. There was genuine fear in his expression, the kind that seemed disproportionate to the situation, and I realized that this wasn’t just about a cold.
“Has someone you loved been sick before?” I asked softly. “Like, seriously sick?”
He was quiet for a moment. “My mother,” he said finally. “When I was young. She was ill for a long time. I remember... I remember feeling helpless. Unable to do anything to fix it.”
My heart clenched. “I’m sorry.”
“She recovered. Eventually. But the fear... it stays with you.”
I reached out and touched his cheek. He leaned into my palm, eyes closing briefly.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “It’s just sniffles. I promise.”
He nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. And I had a feeling that no matter what I said, he was going to make a huge deal out of this.
***
Well. I was right.
Caelan mobilized like we were going to war.
Within the first hour, my tiny apartment transformed into what could only be described as a sick person’s paradise. Or a hospital. Depending on your perspective.
There were seven types of soup.Seven.I didn’t even know where he got them all. One minute I was lying in bed trying to convince him I didn’t need anything, the next he was returning with bags full of containers: chicken noodle, tomato basil, miso, some kind of bone broth situation, vegetable, a lentil concoction, and one that was just labeled “healing” in aggressive handwriting.
“Where did these come from?” I asked weakly.
“I made calls.”
“To who? The soup mafia?”
“Told you I have resources.”
A humidifier appeared in my bedroom. I’d never owned a humidifier. It was sleek and expensive-looking and probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget.
“Did you... did you have this delivered?”
“It was necessary.”
Then there was a knock at the door, and Caelan answered it to reveal a man who looked deeply, profoundly unhappy to be there.
