The soft, crushed blanket fell to my lap as I released it. I took a deep breath, then lifted the broach to my lips, closed my eyes, and said her name.
The air around the room might have wobbled, or it might have been my imagination. My candle might have flickered, or it might have been the heat kicking on in the unit to counter the early October chill. I could have heard a sound from the living room, or maybe it was the ice machine in my freezer releasing cubes.
I set the broach on the bedside table once more and sat with my hands in my lap and waited, and waited, and waited.
***
February 2, age 25
“You’re burning up,” a voice murmured from behind me, ther’s curling and rolling as the final consonants clipped in a bright, Irish accent.
Each word was like an ice pick through my temple. I groaned and struggled to turn. Normally I loved the sound of her voice. She knew her accent made Americans feral, and she used it to her advantage as often as possible. At present, if I had to hear one more sound, I was going to die. Eve was lucky I didn’t have the energy to kill her.
My eyes remained shut as a cool, damp cloth settled on my forehead.
“There, there,” she said quietly. “Doesn’t that feel better?”
It felt wonderful, but I was angry that I’d gotten sick in the first place. Inkhouse had sent me on so many consecutive signings over the past two weeks that I hadn’t been certain what city I was in at any given time. One flight after the other trapped in steel germ tubes with little to no sleep and exposure to hundreds of clasped hands, excited fans, andcoughing children had been a surefire path to meet the grim reaper.
Eve had been waiting for me at the airport with flowers and a sign that saidWelcome Home from Prison.She’d worn a jean jacket, tied her hair in a high bun with curls spilling out, and lofted the cardstock over her head as I’d deplaned with the sort of exuberance that should have made me glow. I’d tried to laugh but was already feeling dizzy. We’d barely made it to her car before she’d announced that our dinner plans were canceled and that I was to be on immediate bed rest. She said we’d watch sitcoms and she’d make me soup, and I’d been too weak to protest.
“Let’s get you one of those bougie IVs,” she said now. “They come right to your house full of hydration and vitamins.”
“Just leave me to die,” I said.
“Nonsense. We can be part of the problem, or part of the solution. I am for the latter.”
“You should go,” I said, voice hoarse. She’d been at my apartment for the better part of twenty-four hours. “I don’t want to get you sick.”
It was true, and it wasn’t. I didn’t want her to get sick. I also wasn’t sure if I wanted her here.
Eve and I had been together just long enough that she’d casually started to refer to me as her girlfriend. My avoidant attachment style knew that we’d passed the time to end the relationship.
I wasn’t comfortable being this vulnerable around her. Being there for my pitiful sniffling self-implied a level of intimacy to which I hadn’t consented. There was an unspoken longevity when a relationship turned to sickness and health, and as we crested our three-month mark, I’d already begun to feel the end.
“Stop that,” Eve said. “I don’t work until the weekend. You’re sick as a dog. Who’s going to take care of you if I leave? Now, open up.” I squinted just enough to see the Tylenol PMin one palm and tea in the other. “The acetaminophen will help with the fever.”
The pills felt like barbed wire as they scraped their way down my throat.
“Now, what’s your password?” Eve asked.
I stiffened, turning to her with wide eyes. She had my computer balanced on her lap, hands poised to type. My lips parted slightly, cracked and dry, as I searched for words.
“Oh, don’t have a fit, Marlow.” She made an unimpressed sound. “I’m not trying to steal your identity. I’m just putting on your show. We can set the computer on your side of the bed so you don’t have to turn over.”
I flexed my fingers for the device and punched in my password.
She took it back from me, eyebrows pressed together in an unspoken question. To her credit, she didn’t pry. A moment later, she had toggled onto an animated series that would have looked like a fever dream even if I’d been healthy. She gently rested the computer on my side of the bed before running her fingers in slow, gentle patterns across my back until the drugs began to take effect. She wrapped her arm around me, holding me close while I shivered.
I wanted to tell her that I couldn’t sleep with her touching me, but the combination of flu and medicine said otherwise. I felt the love, the affection, the comfort radiating from her as she spooned me, and each new wave of emotion solidified my certainty that I’d waited too long to do what needed to be done. I should turn now and ask her to leave. I should open my mouth and explain that we couldn’t be together. But I was so sick. So tired. Her touch felt so nice. One episode rolled into another, mingling with my thoughts as the sounds became little more than a dull hum.
When I awoke, my fever had broken.
I should have slept in, but the purple hour told me dawn had yet to break.
I looked at her arm, counting the freckles that traced theirway from her hand to her elbow. There weren’t as many as I remembered there being. I turned my head ever so slightly to see an unbound curl resting on my shoulder like a blanket, but it wasn’t the tight red ringlet I’d expected. It was a loose, copper curl. I frowned at it, spying silver-white strands in the copper wave. On my second examination of the arm, a smattering of white freckles dotted the constellation nearest the shoulder.
I shifted my weight to turn toward her, and as I did, she exhaled. Her high, sleepy sound was accompanied by the scents of pine and sea spray.
