I dropped my eyes down to his chest, and that’s when I saw it. The front of his shirt was wet across the front, and my stomach dropped because I knew exactly what that was. "Oh shit." I took a step toward him and held up my hands but didn’t know what to do with them. "I'm so sorry. I got sick on you."
He looked down at his chest and something moved across his face that I couldn't read. He crossed his arms over his chest as if trying to hide the mess I’d made. "It's fine. Don't worry about it." He turned away before I could say anything else and headed down a hallway to the right. "Let me show you where you'll be staying."
Staying? That sounded longer-term than I expected, but I didn’t say anything else. After realizing how much mess I’d caused for him, I just wanted to melt into the ground. I followed him without a word, willing to do anything to give this poor man a few minutes to himself. He’d already saved my life and driven me to his house, and I'd repaid him with vomit. Nice.
The short hallway only had two doors across from each other. He pushed open the first one and held open the door. “Here’s your bathroom. Mine is on the other side of the house by my room, so you’ll have privacy and all that.” It was small but clean with a nice tub and a thick bath mat on the floor that looked like it'd never been used.
“Wow, this is nice.”
He pulled open the cabinet under the sink to show me the supplies in there. “Use anything in here. Toothbrushes, soap, towels. I stocked it according to some magazine article I read, so it should have whatever you need, but if you can’t find something, just let me know.”
“I don’t need much.” I didn’t expect to need anything, but since I wasn’t going anywhere for the next twelve hours, a toothbrush and some soap would come in handy. “But thank you.”
Matthew just nodded then pushed open the second door. “And this is the guest room. Never had a guest before, but it should be comfortable enough.” He turned back to me and carefully arranged his arms over his chest again, as if hiding the evidence of my failure from me. "I’m just straight down the hall. Same layout. Leave your dirty clothes in here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes with something you can sleep in while I get your clothes in the wash."
I looked down at myself and felt my face go hot. My shirt had a worse streak of vomit down the front, and my jeans weren't much better. Why did he have to find me at the worst possible moment? Why didn’t he come into my life a year ago when I was still human and functional and…worth knowing.
“Okay, thank you.” I didn't understand why he was being so nice to me. I was a stranger. Just because Jeanette knew who I was didn’t mean he needed to bring me into his home and do my laundry. It was too much. But I didn’t have the strength or the spoons to talk about it.
What I did know was that I liked how he treated me, and that scared me more than anything that had happened tonight.
As soon as he disappeared down the hall, I stripped out of my clothes and left them outside the bathroom door. He could burn them for all I cared. I didn’t want to ruin his washing machine with that kind of nasty.
The water pressure in his shower was practically obscene. It hit like it meant it. I stood under that pulsating head with my eyes closed for way too long as it worked my shoulders and my neck. I’d been carrying tension in my tight muscles for so long that I’d almost forgotten how to relax. I hadn't had a shower like that in a long time, and I didn’t want to get out of it. But my stomach was still upset, and when standing turned into swaying, I knew it was time to get out.
I wrapped myself in one of his fluffy towels and walked across the hall to the guest room. There was a t-shirt in my size that had a company logo on it and a pair of cotton shorts. They were big on me, but they had a drawstring that I was able to cinch up so they stayed on my hips. Low on my hips, but on them nonetheless.
When I went out to the kitchen, Matthew had a pot on the stove and was reading something on his phone while he stirred. He looked up when I came in. "Chicken noodle okay?"
"Uh, sure." I sat down at the counter on one of the barstools and watched him ladle soup into a bowl. "You didn't have to do that."
He put the bowl in front of me and pushed a plate of saltines next to it. "I called a doctor friend while you were in the shower. He said soup, crackers, and fluids would help.” He pulled a blue sports drink out of his fridge and twisted off the top before sliding it across the counter to me. “He's also willing to come by tomorrow morning if you're up for it."
I took a long drink of Gatorade and realized how thirsty I was. "To do what?"
"Just check you over. Make sure everything's okay." He poured some of the broth into a mug and took a drink. "He's not gonna report anything. He's just a friend who happens to have a medical degree."
I thought about saying no and then thought about how good the soup smelled and decided I didn't have enough fight left in me to argue about it. "Fine. Whatever."
The soup was good and exactly what my stomach needed. It took me a while but I worked through the whole bowl and most of the saltines before I finally leaned back on the stool. Not only was I stuffed to the brim but I could barely keep my eyes open.
The adrenaline and the Narcan and the puking and the shower had wrung me out completely, and I had nothing left in the tank. “I think I need to sleep.”
“I think you’re right.” Matthew collected my bowl and rinsed it at the sink. "Before you go to sleep, will you make me a few promises?"
I blinked at him, guarded about where he could be going with that. "Maybe."
"First." He turned from the sink and dried his hands on a towel. "Please don't leave here without telling me. You can leave whenever you want, of course. I'm not gonna stop you. But just please promise you’ll tell me first."
Fair enough. “Okay. And what else?" My voice came out slower than I intended, already half asleep.
"Promise to tell me what you need." He looked right at me while he said it, and he suddenly had my full attention. "Food, money, a hug, whatever it is. Just tell me what you need. I really do wanna help you."
I looked away because something about the way he seemed to actually care about me was too much to sit with. Nobody had said anything like that to me in a long time, and I didn't quite know what to do with it. For better or worse, I was too tired to try to figure it out. "Yeah." I pushed back from the counter and stood up. "Whatever."
He walked me back down the hall and said good night at the bedroom door.
I got into the bed and was asleep before I had a chance to think about any of it.
