“Mooooom.” Zee threw her head back against the couch pillow, but I could see she didn’t mind too much.
Her mother picked up a batch of laundry she’d been folding. “All right, all right. I’ll let you visit with your friends. Holler if you need me.” And with a quick pat on my arm, she bustled out.
I sat next to Zee on the couch and Drew took the chair next to me. “You look better than the last time we saw you,” he said.
“Just needed to get on my oxygen for the night,” she replied. “It was still worth it, though. Pierce is a hell of a dancer. Tell ya, if he wasn’t gay, I’d be all over that like white on rice.”
“Too much information,” Drew said, but his voice was limper than usual.
I chuckled and let my head fall against the back of the couch. My eyes closed without me asking them to.
“Are you okay?”
I forced them open again and found that Zee was staring at me. “Yeah. Fine.”
“She’s been sort of out of it since we left downtown,” Drew said. “Won’t say anything to me, though.”
“You look like you might have a fever. I’d hold my hand up to your forehead, but my hands are always cold now,” Zee said. “Drew. You do it.”
I felt my face heat up even more, and not from my fever. He bent over to me and put the back of his enormous hand against my forehead. “Yeah, I’ll say that’s a fever,” he said. His breath smelled like mint. “She needs some ibuprofen.”
“Mom!” Zee yelled, looking toward the doorway where her mom had disappeared minutes before.
“No, really, don’t wor—”
“MOM!”
“What? What is it?” Her mother came bustling back in, her face creased with worry. “Are you okay? What do you need?”
“Do we have any ibuprofen for Saylor? She’s got a fever.”
“No, really, it’s okay,” I said again. I tried to lift my head off the couch, but it felt like it was filled with lead. And it was beginning to hurt, as if it was made from little splinters of glass.
“You don’t look so great, honey,” Lenore said. “Here, let me take your temperature.”
I closed my eyes and opened my mouth when I felt the cold nib of the thermometer touch my bottom lip. When it beeped, someone took it out of my mouth.
“101.5,” I heard Lenore say. “Do you need to go to the ER, Saylor?”
Uh oh. No. No ER. They were familiar with me, and I couldn’t risk Drew or Zee finding out. “No, I’m fine. Just need to rest, I think. I have an appointment with my doctor on Monday.” The lie slipped out easily, without much conscious thought on my part. It was as if my survival instincts kicked in, which, if you thought about it, said a lot about the kind of person I was.
“Okay. Well, here’s some Motrin for you then.”
I took the pills from Lenore and swallowed them with a cup of water she brought me.
“Here’s a blanket too,” she said, spreading out a chenille throw over my knees. “You just let me know if you need something else, okay? Would you like me to drive you home?”
I smiled. “No, thank you.”
“Mom, you’re hovering,” Zee said.
“I don’t mind,” I replied, thinking, If only you knew. To Lenore: “I promise I’ll let you know if I need anything.”
“All right, hon.” She squeezed my hand gently, refilled my water cup, and left us alone.
There was silence for a full minute, and I kept my eyes closed. I wanted to open them, to see what Drew and Zee were up to, but I could’ve sworn someone came along and pinned fifty-pound dumbbells to my eyelids.
“So, how’d the petition thing go?” Zee asked.
“Really well. We hit about twenty-five shops today. Saylor was a rockstar.”
“You walked to twenty-five stores? How did your legs do?”
Just the slightest breath of a pause. “Fine. No issues.”
I opened my eyes then, just a slit, to stare at Drew’s face as he said it. I believed there were things you could tell about a person by looking at his face mid-lie that you might not be able to tell after ten years of friendship. Drew’s face was impassive for the most part, but the tips of his ears were fuchsia. Not as calm as he wanted to portray after all. I thought about him sprawled on the sidewalk as people passed him; fumbling with the CD in Zee’s car.
I started to say something when I realized with a great big stab of horror that I was going to throw up before a word ever left my mouth. At least I had time to lean forward, so the mess went on the floor and not on Lenore’s Laura Ashley-like floral couch.
“Mom!” Zee yelled, and Lenore came back. When she saw what had happened, she made an about-face, only to return armed with industrial-strength cleaners and a mop and bucket.
“All right, I’m taking you home,” Drew said, hooking his arm around my shoulder. I tried to stand up, my legs weak and rubbery. I knew I couldn’t lean on him too much—he couldn’t handle my weight and his. But I let him think he was doing much of the work anyway.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, the veil of fever making my mortification just a little less mortifying.
“Don’t worry, honey,” Lenore replied. “You just concentrate on feeling better.”
“Yeah, seriously. I’ll text you later,” Zee said. “And take my car. I’m not going to be driving anywhere anytime soon. I’ll get it from you tomorrow.”
I nodded and Drew and I shuffled out.
Chapter Twenty
We decided outside Zee’s car that of the two of us, Drew was probably better qualified to drive me home. I was beginning to shiver in the cold, so he helped me get in the passenger seat, closed the door, and then went around to the driver’s side. When he was safely sitting, he draped his heavy jacket over me.
I opened my mouth to say something teasing about his quaint chivalrous gesture, but nothing came out. I liked that he did that, that he was taking care of me, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
“I don’t like this car,” he said, adjusting the seat so it was pushed as far back as it would go. “I swear they made it for midgets.”
“Hey,” I said, my voice thready and hoarse. “I like it.”
“Exactly what I mean,” he muttered, and then we set off.
I dozed while he drove, my body slamming hard against the seatbelt occasionally and jolting me awake. Every time, Drew’d mutter, “Sorry, so sorry,” and I’d drift off again. Finally, I felt his hand on my knee. The car was completely still and quiet underneath us. We were in my driveway.
“Home sweet home.” He smiled at me.
I smiled back, feeling a little goofy. Really well taken care of, soft and cozy in the way only guys you really like or your dad can make you feel. Not that I’d felt that way with my dad in a long time. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Is your mom home? Maybe I should let her know you’re back so she can monitor your temperature. Just in case you need to go to the hospital.”
“Bunco.”
“What?”
I pried my dry lips apart and forced my burning eyes to focus on him. “It’s Saturday. She has Bunco on Saturday nights. She won’t be back for a while.”
“What the hell’s Bunco?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s get you inside. I’ll stay till she gets home.”
We hobbled indoors together, and I led Drew to my room, suddenly more aware and self-conscious. Had I left anything incriminating out? I felt my pocket—the syringe was safe in there. Mum had thrown away the rest of my things and I hadn’t replaced any of them yet, so I thought it would be okay.
“Nice place,” he muttered as we passed a giant oil painting of a sea turtle at the head of the stairs.
“Thanks. My room’s right here.” I went in and turned on the light.
I felt sick enough to crawl to my bed, but I settled for limping instead. Drew was right behind me. He pulled the covers back—and froze.
When I’d changed that morning, I’d flung my thong and pajamas on the bed
and just pulled my covers over the top. I moved quicker than I’d moved in a long time. Snatching the offending undergarment in one hand and the pajamas in the other, I wheeled around and headed for the bathroom.
“Um, be right back.” I tossed them into the hamper, closed the door, and sat on the bed.
Drew smiled. “Ready to get in?”
I kicked my boots off and lied down. “You don’t have to stay with me,” I said. “I’ll be fine.” My eyes were already slipping shut.
“Thanks, but I’d rather make sure your fever goes down. And if you puke in your sleep, you’ll need someone to turn you over so you don’t choke.”
“Ha ha,” I whispered. “There are books in that book case over there. No CDs, sorry.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure I can amuse myself.”
I fell asleep mid-sentence.
When I woke up, the room was almost pitch-black. I turned my head and saw Drew sitting in a chair by my bed, surfing his cell phone.
“Hey.”
He looked up, smiled. “Hey yourself. How are you?”
I reached over and turned on my tiny bedside lamp. “Better. I think my fever broke.”
He came forward, limping, and felt my forehead. “You’re right.” Gesturing to my night table, he said, “I brought you some water and fruit from your kitchen downstairs. Hope it’s okay that I went in there.”
I shrugged, even though my heart was beating hard. Had he seen Mum’s awful dollhouse stuff in her nook? I decided not to ask. “You can leave if you want, you know.”
He gave me a smile, one corner of his mouth higher than the other. “Jeez, Grayson. If I didn’t have such a big ego I’d think you were trying to kick me out.”
“No, it’s not that,” I insisted. “I just don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here with me. I’m sure there’s other stuff you could be doing right now.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. But I like being here with you.”
We looked at each other for a long time. I’d never done that before, just looked into a person’s eyes to try and see who they were, what they meant when they said something. It was like gazing skyward. I felt like I could look and look and still never be done looking. What was it about him?
“What happened, earlier?” I heard myself ask. “With the CD player? It looked like it really upset you.”
He blinked and looked away, the moment gone. And then he was back in the chair, the distance between us unbreachable.
I tried to swallow past the lump in my throat. Why the hell had I asked that? Why couldn’t I have just enjoyed whatever was going on between us?
But then he looked back at me. Sighed. A great big “weight of the world on my shoulders” sigh. “It’s another fucking symptom of my FA. It’s getting worse.”
His words rushed at me, taking me by surprise. I had an inkling that’s what it was, but I hadn’t expected him to say it so plainly. Especially not after he’d try to play off his weakness that afternoon. I didn’t know what to say, couldn’t think of a single fucking thing.
“FA’s an insidious bastard,” he went on, oblivious to my awkward mental floundering. “It twines around your legs first, causing you to trip and fall like you’re a baby learning to walk. You think you’re being clumsy, maybe you didn’t get any sleep the night before, maybe you’re just tired. Then you get diagnosed, and your life tears down the seam right there.
“You go on, waiting for the next symptom, but when it comes you hope it isn’t really what you think. It’s slight enough—a fumbling of the hands, a rogue twist of the wrist—that you can convince yourself to ignore it for a couple of months. But soon, soon you realize it’s not so slight anymore. You try to put a CD into the fucking CD player and can’t.” He looked at me, his eyes bright. “I’m losing my hand coordination. I guess that’s next.”
I shook my head slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“No point in you being sorry,” he said, grinning suddenly. It was the same painted-mask grin from the afternoon. “If anyone should be sorry, it should be the Big Man upstairs, right? He’s supposed to love me, or so the story goes.”
“Do you believe that?” I asked. “In a god, I mean?”
When I was little, I loved going to Catholic Mass with my mother and grandmother. The cathedral felt like this big, safe vault, where nothing I said or thought or did could ever leave and permeate the outside. It was as if time was suspended while I sat in there, inhaling incense and watching the candle flames dance.
I loved the way my mother and grandmother would go into a little box and come out looking so much happier and freer. I loved saying Hail Mary, full of grace over and over. It felt like a rhyme that’d keep the bad stuff away. When I was in the cathedral, I felt invincible, or damn near it. When my grandmother left, we stopped going.
I never figured out if it was because the cathedral reminded Mum too much of those outings, or if she genuinely eschewed the Catholic faith after Grandma went away. I also didn’t know if I missed it because being in the cathedral was a way for me to connect with Mum, or if I actually missed having a spiritual outlet.
Did I believe in an omniscient being? Not usually. To be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of my time even thinking about the possibility of him or her.
“I don’t know if I believe in the Christian ideal,” Drew said. He passed his cell phone from hand to hand as he talked. “When I lived in the apartment building with my parents in New York, we used to have these guys come around sometimes. They wore, you know, the button-down shirts and khaki pants, carried Bibles and handed them out. They always asked me if I wanted to be saved.” He stopped, a breath of a chuckle escaping his mouth. “Finally one day, I said yes. I mean, saved? Which sober person in that neighborhood would say no? So anyway, they took me along to this little church about a block away for a service one day, dunked me in a big pot of water.” He looks at me, an eyebrow slightly raised. “Did you know, Grayson, that that’s all it takes to be saved? A fucking bath.”
I adjusted myself against my pillows. “So what happened? Did you stay? With the church, I mean.”
“Sure. I went back a few times for services. Sometimes it helped, mostly because I loved the idea of my parents going to a Hell where they cooked rotisserie-style all day long.”
I wondered if it hurt him to talk about them like that, in spite of the nonchalant bravado he portrayed. What must it have been like, to have parents who were nothing but rats in a cage, repeatedly hitting the lever for another hit of crank or ice or whatever? “So why’d you stop believing in the Christian ideal?”
“Because the pastor OD’d. A lot of hypocrisy in the church system, apparently.”
Chapter Twenty One
When my alarm went off Monday morning, my chest felt achy and hot. I sat up, pulled my nightshirt down and saw that the abscess was fully formed. I had a valid medical reason to go to the doctor.
I swung my legs out of bed, humming under my breath. I swore I could still smell Drew in the room two days after he’d been here, a mixture of the faded round notes of cologne and the beach. Trailing my hand along the back of the chair he’d sat on, I smiled at the memory of him surfing his cell phone while I slept. Keeping watch, making sure I was going to be okay.
After I’d changed and brushed my teeth and hair, I went downstairs. Mum was eating breakfast, a small dollop of cottage cheese and fruit, along with her ubiquitous cup of tea.
“You’re up early,” she remarked, turning a page of the newspaper.
“I have an appointment with Dr. Stone this morning,” I said. “And after, I’ll need to go to Dr. Daniels.” Dr. Daniels was my regular doctor, the man I’d been seeing since I was about six.
He was my dad’s friend, and my parents trusted him more than any pediatrician. He knew about my Munchausen, but since he and my dad were golf buddies, he was much more willing to look the other way and treat my symptoms than insist to my parents that I needed to be under the care of a psychiatrist. It was just one of t
he many benefits of my dad being country club friends with the richest men in the city. They operated on a quid pro quo system that had proved beneficial to all of them in the past.
Mum looked up, her mouth bracketed by disapproving lines. “What is it now? Why do you need to see Dr. Daniels?”
“The fever from before. I figured out what it was from. I have an abscess.” I walked over to her and unzipped my hoodie so she could see.
It was actually a cluster of three abscesses, each the size of the tip of my finger, each pregnant with pus. The wool of my hoodie kept rubbing over them, inflaming them further. It was a rich, full feeling, the kind you get after listening to rousing classical music or eating a really hot, well-seasoned meal when you’re hungry.
She drew away from me, as if I might be contagious. “God, Saylor. What did you do?”
“Nothing!” I tugged the zipper back up, accidentally hitting the abscess. I had to pause for a second while I waited for the pain to recede. For that second, that spot on my chest was the only real thing in my realm of existence. After the pain died down, I took a breath. “It’s an infection of some kind, Mum. I can’t exactly make my body erupt in boils.” And for all she knew, that was the truth. I turned away and got some milk from the refrigerator. “Can we go now?”
Sighing, she rose to her feet, her eyes wary. She was trying to figure out how I’d done it, what new item I had in my bag of tricks that she didn’t know about. It was a game we’d played since I was little, and I knew she’d never win.
The drive to Dr. Stone’s office was a quiet one. I kept pressing my fingers to the abscesses, to make them flare up in pain.
It seemed to me that pain was the truest of feelings by far. It didn’t matter if you were giddy and high on life or so depressed you wanted to die. One single caress from your hot curling iron, one moment of that scorching heat seizing your fingers, and you stopped living, stopped being. Your thoughts turned entirely inward, and your only goal in life was to get away from the agony. There was a reason torture was so effective; even the toughest, meanest trained killing machines could only stand so much pain.
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