We climbed the stairs. Light showed under Eva’s door, and just knowing she was there, breathing on the other side, loosened something in my chest.
I knocked softly.
“Dad, I’m fine. Go to work.”
“It’s not your dad,” I said. “It’s me. And Cole.”
“Go away.” Her voice was congested and weak, and it made me want to break down the door.
“Not happening, sparrow,” Cole said flatly.
She coughed, and the sound was rough and wet. It sounded like ithurt. My chest ached listening to it. This wasEva—strong, fierce Eva, who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders and never asked for help. And she was in there alone, sick and miserable, because she’d rather suffer than let us near her.
“Are you running a fever?” I asked. “Do you need any medicine? Is your heart okay?”
She didn’t say a word. I settled on the floor outside her door, back against the wall. Cole sat beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched. Her father wouldn’t have left her if she was in danger of dying from heart failure, but that fact was small consolation when my girl was sick.
“We can sit here all night,” I called through the door. “We’ve got nowhere else to be. You’ll get rid of us sooner if you let us check on you.”
The silence pressed down on us, broken only by an occasional sniffle from Eva. Cole shifted restlessly, his hands clenching and unclenching, as if he had to physically stop himself from barging into the room and making her accept his help.
“Remember when you tried to play through being sick last year?” I said to him, my voice loud enough to carry through the door. “Coach had to physically remove you from the ice.”
“I was fine,” Cole muttered, giving me a heavy dose of side-eye.
“You had a 104 fever and were hallucinating. You thought Massi was Coach’s dog.”
I heard a sound from inside the room, not quite a laugh, but close enough that hope flared in my chest.
“Remember when you had the flu sophomore year?” Cole said. “We weren’t out of the dorms yet, and you were the worst fucking patient.” He nudged me with his shoulder, grinning.
“You were a terrible nurse,” I said, nudging him right back.
“You wouldn’t fucking rest.”
“I had shit to do.”
“Yeah, until you passed out during practice,” Cole said, his lips twisting into a smile.
“I didn’t pass out,” I protested. “It was just a dizzy spell.”
“A dizzy spell that had Haruto and Noah carrying you off the ice,” Cole said dryly. “Doesn’t sound like anyone else we know, does it?”
Eva made a soft sound that could have been a giggle, or it could have been her muffling her coughs.
“Like you’re one to talk. I had to teach you how to do your laundry freshman year,” I said. “You turned all your whites pink.”
“Fuckingonce.”
“It was cute. You’d looked up how to use a washing machine on YouTube.”
Cole glared at me, but his eyes were light with amusement. “You were a better friend than I deserved that year.”
“And ever since,” I teased.
“Yeah,” he admitted, leaning his head on my shoulder.
Despite everything—the fear, the worry, the fact that Eva was suffering on the other side of this door—I smiled.
