Authors: Cora Carmack
A
T AROUND FOUR
in the morning, I woke in a pool of sweat, my body stuck to the sheets and my face glued to the bed.
I guess the fever was definitely broken.
I placed my hands on the bed to push myself up, but my equilibrium must have been off. My bed felt uneven. I reached back, fumbling for the lamp and flicked the light on. Then because I thought maybe I was seeing things, I flipped it off and on again. I pinched myself. I pinched
really
hard. But nothing changed.
Garrick was definitely asleep in my bed.
Shit.
Shit.
How much of my fever-induced dream was real? I felt safe assuming that my time as a bee was fiction, as well as a few mythological animals that I swear I’d seen. Then I’d lived on the sun with aliens.
But Garrick was in my bed. He’d definitely been in my dreams, but it couldn’t all be real. Sometimes he flew, much of the time he was naked. And there were a dozen more moments, some fuzzy, some very clear. Where was the line? What had really happened? Hell, was this even real? Maybe I was just dreaming that my fever broke. I was freaking out, and before I had the sense of mind to formulate a plan, I was already shaking him awake.
He was bleary-eyed and beautiful as he came to. I was struck for a moment by the fact that he was sleeping on my pillow.
He was in my bed. With
me
.
Sleeping.
We were sleeping
together
!
“You’re awake.” God, since when did groggy and gorgeous go so well together? Wide-eyed, I nodded, not having thought of what I’d say when I actually had him awake.
“How do you feel?”
That I could answer.
“Like shit. Everything hurts. My throat the worst.”
He reached out and set a hand on my thigh. Like that was normal. Like we just set our hands on each other’s thighs all the time.
“That’s normal, I think,” He said. The thigh thing? No, no . . . my throat. He continued, “Do you need anything?”
I shook my head. What the hell had happened while I was so out of it?
He sat up, and the sheet fell around his waist, revealing all of his upper body to my eyes. The sheet drooped around his hips, drawing my eyes to the muscles that disappeared down into his shorts. God. His hand went to my hair, my hair that fell lank, and oily against my face, a stark contrast to how good he looked right now. He didn’t seem to care.
Again, what the hell was happening?
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
I nodded. Nodding was all I knew how to do, all I understood. Nodding, at least, still made sense.
“You should go back to sleep. You still need to rest. Unless you’re hungry?”
I shook my head.
“Then sleep.”
He nudged me slightly, and I lowered my body slowly, certain that the minute my head hit the pillow this alternate universe would cease to exist.
It didn’t.
He pushed back the covers, and then slipped out of the bed.
“You’re leaving?” I asked.
He stopped, and in quick succession I saw him realize where we were and how little he was wearing. He hesitated, unsure. It was such a strange emotion, one I’d rarely seen him wear. “Do you want me to?” I wanted to pause the moment, study it, break down the second where this bold boy had been filled with doubt. Of course I didn’t want him to leave! I never wanted him to leave!
I shook my head. Glad that fatigue kept me calm, somewhat.
He smiled so wide I forgot that the doubt ever existed. “Then I’m not leaving. I’m just going to get some water. Go to sleep.”
He left, and I turned on my side, reeling. I could hear the faucet turn on and off. I tried to imagine what he was doing. The floor wasn’t creaking, so he wasn’t walking back. Was he just standing at the sink drinking? Or was there no creaking because my delusion had ended and he wasn’t coming back? Had the floor creaked on his way to the sink? I couldn’t remember. I started to panic. Maybe I needed to get up, go after him. Make sure he was real.
Then my bed dipped, and I felt heat behind me, and an arm wrapped around my waist. I stiffened first, and then relaxed so suddenly that I practically fell into him. He was so warm, I felt like I was feverish all over again.
He pushed my hair up and onto the pillow, so that my neck was uncovered. Then I felt something, the tip of his nose perhaps, grazing softly against my skin and the puff of his breath.
“Garrick?”
His arm tightened, his body curved around mine, even our thighs pressed together.
“Tomorrow, Bliss. Sleep now.”
Sleep? The idea seemed impossible, but as his breath steadied and I grew used to his touch, I realized I
was
still tired. I wanted to analyze what had happened, what I remembered and what I didn’t, but sleep did seem more important.
Garrick was right. It could wait until tomorrow. He would be here. He said he wasn’t leaving. But just in case, I placed one of my hands over his that rested against my stomach. I had thought he was already asleep, but he was awake enough to respond, lacing our fingers together.
When I felt certain, both that he was real and that he wasn’t leaving . . . when my doubt was gone, I slept.
I woke several hours later. Light was pouring in through my high windows, and my skin was slick with sweat. For a moment, I thought I had a fever again. I sat up, and Garrick’s arm fell from my waist. He groaned.
His brows were furrowed with beads of sweat dotting his face. I pressed my hand against his forehead, and sure enough, he was burning up. He looked awful, but I imagined that I looked even worse. My skin and clothes were damp with sweat, both his and mine. It felt like grime and sickness was slathered over the top of my skin.
Carefully, I shifted out of Garrick’s reach and planted my feet on the cool hardwood floor. Standing hurt all the way to my bones, like they’d been broken and set in the wrong way, and now I had to re-break them to set it right. Each step felt like a nail gun had been taken to my heels, my knees, my hips. It took a hand on the wall just to keep myself upright. And my journey to the bathroom comprised of thirty slow, shuffling steps instead of the usual ten. When I got there, I was short of breath and ready for another nap.
In my pain-addled mind, it seemed very important to be clean first. I turned on the shower, leaving it on the cool side of the spectrum instead of automatically pushing it to hot like usual. I shucked off my clothes, lamenting each time I got off one piece only to discover another layer beneath. When I got to my bra, I nearly gave up completely.
Finally, I was free, but I no longer had the energy to stand for the shower I wanted. Like a child just learning to walk, I crawled into the tub, laying back and letting the water pelt my skin. My stomach, especially, felt so sensitive that each drop stung on impact, like someone was dropping tiny little missiles from above. But even so, it was cool and lovely and I melted into the sensation.
For a long time I laid there, falling in and out of sleep. When my breath settled and the ache in my muscles eased, I pushed myself up, letting the water soak my hair and run down my face.
Shampoo became the villain of my story, stinging my eyes and exhausting me as I tried to rub it in and rinse it out. It felt like hours before the water ran clear enough for me to open my eyes without them burning. And then I couldn’t convince myself to do it again with conditioner.
I turned off the water, and laid back, feeling the water drain beneath me. The longer my eyes stayed closed the heavier my body became. The little pools of liquid on my skin dried slowly, and it felt good to be empty, to be still for a moment.
Then I remembered Garrick, and knew I had been selfish long enough.
The wall of the tub might as well have been a battlement. It took all of my strength to climb over it. Clothing was completely out of the question. I wrapped my hair in a towel and my body in a robe. I grabbed a few washcloths, soaking them with cool water, wringing them out so they wouldn’t drip.
I felt a little more alive now, and I managed to walk without groping at the wall. The pain was there, in the back of my mind with every step, but it was manageable. Even so, it was a relief to sink down beside Garrick on my bed.
I stripped the blankets back, and he shifted, but didn’t wake. I placed one of the damp cloths across his forehead, and another I unfolded and laid across his chest. I used the last to dab at his arms and legs. Even that became too difficult though, so I rolled the last cloth up and slipped it beneath his neck.
Then I laid down beside him and slept.
The next time we woke together. His fever was still going, but I convinced him to drink some water. It wasn’t until I took a drink myself that I realized how thirsty I was. I helped him drink a full glass, and then engulfed two of my own. I had enough energy to shuck my thick robe and replace it with loose pajamas. I placed a new damp cloth on Garrick’s forehead and he sighed.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
I wasn’t sure how coherent he was. He definitely knew I was here, as he’d called out my name a few times since he woke. And he knew he was sick, but I didn’t know how much he knew beyond that.
“You’re welcome. But to be fair, you did take care of me first.”
His eyes were closed, but he smiled. “You’re better at it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It was just nice not to be alone.”
He tried to shift onto his side to face me, but ended up just reaching with his arms, his body still flat. I wrapped an arm around his chest, and pulled, His arms went around me and pulled, too, so that he ended up on his side and much closer to me.
When he was settled, he breathed out, exhausted by the little movement. He said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Needing help? He seemed much stronger and better off than I had been.
“For leaving you alone at all. For getting between you and Cade. For being too stubborn to tell you I missed you. I’m sorry.”
I was confused, the pieces of the puzzle not quite fitting. But I heard what mattered, he was sorry and I was sorry, too. And my brain was too fuzzy to remember all the details of why this shouldn’t be happening. I pulled him to me and his head fell into the crook of my neck. I breathed deeply for what felt like the first time in months. I wanted to ask him about the phone call, about our fight, about everything. But he was still murmuring “sorry,” again and again into my neck, and it didn’t really matter.
I held him tighter, and together, we weathered the sickness and sleep.
W
E PASSED DAYS
in this manner, wrapped up in each other, in and out of sleep, eating and showering when we felt like we could. It was strange to think of sickness as an oasis, but that’s what it was. When our physical needs triumphed over our brains, we didn’t need to talk, not about our relationship or what had broken it. We didn’t need to work anything out or explain ourselves. I didn’t even have to worry about being a virgin or the idea of having sex with him.
We cradled each other and found healing in the quiet, beneath my covers, away from the world. By Saturday, we were well enough to spend more time out of bed, to eat real food, to watch TV . . . to talk.
We lay on the couch, my back to his chest, his arm snug around me. We were supposed to be watching TV, but his forehead was pressed into my neck, and I was grilling him on the first days of my sickness.
“What did Eric say when you called him?”
“He wasn’t upset, if that’s what you’re asking. Half the cast is sick now, I think.”
Great. Our show was going to suck balls if we were all exhausted all the time. We could call it an experimental piece—
Phaedra Lethargic
.
I asked another question. “What did he say about you taking care of me?”
His forehead lifted off my neck. “He doesn’t know. He told me to get you in bed, and you’d be fine. He suggested that I use your phone to call your Mum.”
That
would have been horrific. Knowing my mother, she would have asked him when he planned to pop the question right after she found out his name.
“But you stayed.”
“I couldn’t just leave you. I told Eric I wasn’t feeling well either, and I stayed with you.”
“But why?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“I do.” I’d heard him all those weeks ago on that phone call, heard him say that he didn’t care, that I was just inconvenient. Whatever reason he’d stayed . . . I needed to hear it.
He said, “Well then, if we’re doing this, I’m doing it the right way.”
He tried to sit up behind me, but our position on the couch was snug, and we were both still a little out of sorts, so we ended up tangled, him practically on top of me. I was still stuck on my side, squished beneath him. He tried to wiggle off of me, but it was reminiscent of a turtle on it’s back. Finally, he gave up, and lifted up just enough so that I could turn onto my back, and then he lowered himself more gently on top of me.
Despite the fact that we’d slept in the same bed for a week, this was still intimate, still exciting, still terrifying. He held himself up on his elbows as much he could, but he was weak, so his weight still pressed in to me.
I liked it.
“What was I saying, again?” He asked. “Oh, right, that I might be falling in love with you.”
I blinked. Then blinked again.
I blink-blink-blinked my way through a multitude of emotions in mere seconds—shock, disbelief, excitement, fear, lust, uncertainty, and settled on something . . . something too big for a name. There was a galaxy inside of me—complex and infinite and miraculous and fragile. And at the center was my sun. Garrick. Love. The two were like synonyms to me now. He was falling in love with me?
With me
?
A brush of his hand brought me out of that universe, and back into the moment. “You could drive a man crazy with that kind of silence.”
“I love you, too.” I said. Then I remembered that he hadn’t
quite
said those three words. He’d said he was
falling
in love with me. And there had been a maybe in there. Shit. “I mean . . . what I should have said was that I feel the same. I’m just falling, too. Because already being in love with you is too fast. That would be crazy. It’s too much, right? It’s too much. It’s too fast. So . . . I’m not in love with you. I’m not. Not that you’re not loveable, it’s just there’s a difference between falling in love and
being
in love. And we are the first and not the second, not yet. So, I too may be falling in love with you. That’s what I meant to say. That’s
all
I meant to say.” I was falling apart. His eyes were soft and unchanging and gave nothing away, so I kept devolving into incoherency. Finally, he kissed me, quickly, but it felt like a punctuation, like I could finally stop
talking
.
I sighed, “You’re supposed to do that
before
I start crazy-talking.”
He laughed and kissed me again, a little longer this time.
“I like your crazy talk. Better yet, I love your crazy talk. It’s settled. I’m no longer falling. I am definitely in love with you. That’s not too much, is it?” His grin was blinding and so mocking that I gave him a swift pinch to the arm.
He didn’t even have the decency to look pained. He just kissed me, pressing all of his weight in to me, and it was the best kind of ‘too much.’
I’d always thought too much, too much in my head, as Eric said. But since I’d met Garrick, I had an embarrassing tendency to stop thinking completely. The things that came out of my mouth as a response were almost always embarrassing, but sometimes . . . they worked out. Sometimes, saying the first thing that came to mind went well. Sometimes simple and honest worked the best.
I
hoped
this was one of those moments.
“I’m a virgin,” I told him. “That’s why I ran away the night we met. I didn’t have a cat. I wasn’t with Cade. I was just afraid.”
He paused mid-kiss on my neck. Then, slowly, like shifting-of-tectonic-plates-slowly lifted his head. He stared at me, into me, through me. I resisted the urge to hide my face, to run away screaming, to make up ridiculous excuses involving some other kind of animal. I whispered, “You could drive a girl crazy with that kind of silence.”
He reacted—it was small—the skin between his eyebrows pinched together.
“Let me get this straight . . . you didn’t have a cat? Did you
get a cat
just so that you wouldn’t have to tell me you were a virgin?”
I pressed my lips together to keep them from trembling. I nodded. The look on his face was somewhere between shock and amusement. He was flabbergasted. That was the best word. His flabber had been thoroughly gasted.
“You said you loved my craziness,” I reminded him.
“I do. I love you. It’s just . . . honestly? I’m relieved.”
“You’re relieved that I’m a virgin? What, did you think I was a hoe-bag?”
“I would never think you were a hoe-bag.” Was it completely inappropriate to find the way he says ‘hoe-bag’ adorable? “But I knew you were hiding something. I was worried there was some other reason you didn’t want to be with me. I’ve been paranoid about it for months.”
“You’ve been paranoid? I heard that phone call where you said I was an inconvenience. You were planning to change jobs because of me. I was petrified if I ever looked at you too long or gave away how much I missed you that you’d pack up and leave.”
“What are you talking about? I was never planning to leave.”
“I heard you. That day I came by the office. You were on the phone with someone back in Philadelphia, and you said you were over us, that it had just been a inconvenience—“
He held a hand to my lips, “Bliss, now I
will
stop your crazy talk. While our situation is anything but convenient,
you
have never been an inconvenience to me. And I wouldn’t have left even if they fired me. I was far too enamored with you.” I resisted the urge to correct his use of the past tense. He
is
enamored with me. He loves me. God, that felt good. So good, I might get it tattooed somewhere on my body.
He blew out a breath, and the blond strands on his forehead danced in response. “The phone call was actually about something that happened before I left Philadelphia. It’s part of
why
I’d left Philadelphia. “
I remembered that long ago day that I’d asked why he left Philly, he’d changed the subject rather effectively by kissing me. I hadn’t cared then. Maybe if I had, things would have happened differently. He shifted off of me, once more on his side next to me. He barely looked at me as he spoke, “I had a friend, Jenna. Our relationship was a lot like your relationship with Cade. We became friends during graduate school, and even though I knew it was a bad idea, we tried to be more. I cared about her, but as a friend, and nothing more. When I ended the relationship—well, it was a disaster. We were working on a show together. We did a lot of work at the same theatres, and much like the early Phaedra rehearsals—we ruined everything we did together. As a result, I was having trouble finding work and most of our friends had taken Jen’s side, so when Eric offered me an out, I ran. I was so ashamed at first. I’d quit. I’d given up. And I’d lost a good friend in the process. The phone call you heard was about Jen. That’s what I was over. And that’s why I came down so hard on you and Cade. I was terrified you would go to him, even though I knew you were just friends. I was scared you’d make the same mistake I did. I’m sorry. I handled this all so badly. If I had told you when you asked you might have understood—“
It was my turn to stop him with a kiss. I turned onto my side, and pulled him against me. I poured every misplaced emotion into that kiss—the uncertainty I’d felt about his feelings, the fear of my virginity, the remorse over all the time we’d wasted. I let go of all those things, sent them off with a kiss.
“I understand now,” I told him. “That’s what matters.”
“I love you,” he said. I would never get tired of that.
“I love you, too.”
He said, “Can you say that one more time? So, that I can be sure it’s not the sickness addling my brain?”
I kissed him, softly. In our current state, softly was about all we could manage.
“I love you, Garrick.”
It was shocking how
not
scared I was.
Not anymore.