Most people.
I eat a clementine section and don't say anything.
The smell of the broth simmering on the stove pulls me somewhere else.
Late fall,Eli with the flu.
He was a terrible patient. The worst. He ran a fever of 102 and still tried to read medical journals from bed, squinting at the pages while his hands shook from the chills.
I walked into his room with soup and found him propped up against three pillows, a journal spread across his lap, highlighter in hand.
"You're supposed to be resting," I said.
"I am resting." He coughed, winced, and went right back to highlighting a paragraph about cytokine response.
"Reading academic papers is not resting."
"It's light reading."
"Eli."
"I'm fine, Vee. Just a little—" Another cough, harder. The journal slipped off his lap.
I set the soup down on his nightstand and plucked the glasses right off his face.
"Hey—"
"No reading until your fever breaks." I folded them carefully and tucked them into my pocket. "Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor."
"Neither are you. Not until you finish your internship anyway."
He pouted. Actually pouted, his bottom lip sticking out like a kid who'd had his favorite toy confiscated. "That's not fair."
"Life's not fair. Drink your soup."
The pout intensified. He crossed his arms and glared at me with unfocused eyes, his hair a wild mess from lying in bed all day.
Drake appeared in the doorway at that exact moment, took one look at Eli's face, and immediately pulled out his phone.
"Don't you dare," Eli said.
Click.
"Drake."
"This is gold." Drake was grinning, thumb already moving across the screen. "Pouty Eli. The world needs to see this."
"I will end you."
"You can barely see straight right now. I'll take my chances." He winked at me. "You're doing great, Vee. Don't give them back."
He kept that photo as his phone wallpaper for a month. Every time Eli saw it he'd get flustered and demand Drake change it.
Drake never did. Not for a long time.
I sat on the edge of Eli's bed that day and made him eat the entire bowl of soup, spoonful by spoonful, while he complained that I was being tyrannical and he felt fine and this was completely unnecessary.
