I think about leaving the basket on the porch.
I frown.
What if he's really not okay? Someone should check on him.
I lift my hand to the doorbell.
I lower it.
Am I a bad person if I make sure he's alright?
Am I a bad person if I don't?
I sigh, take a deep breath, and lift my hand again. A press of the doorbell later, my foot is tap-tap-tapping against the cement stoop as I listen to the faint sound of the bell sounding inside Mike's modest white house. I wait, and no one answers. I wait some more, and still, no one answers. I think about ringing it again, but instead, I force myself to set the basket on the porch. Maybe this is a sign. Maybe this is the universe telling me to leave.
Or maybe he really is lying facedown on his kitchen floor . . .
"Jesus," I gasp when Mike's door finally opens. My hand flies to the neck of his zipped-up hoodie on instinct, and I tug him down as I rise onto my tiptoes to press my other hand against his forehead. He's dressed in full sick gear-an oversized dark gray hoodie, long black gym shorts, and black ankle socks-and his skin sizzles against my palm. "Mike!" I scold, worry clawing at my chest.
"You probably shouldn't touch me," he warns, his voice like gravel.
He's burning up beneath my hand, but that's not the reason I pull away.
He's right. I shouldn't be touching him. I shouldn't even be here.
"I don't want you to catch what I've got," he adds as the autumn chill dries his fever from my skin. He wraps his arms around himself and shivers, the ends of his hair damp with sweat and a wad of tissues bunched in his hand.
"How high is your fever?" I worry.
"I lost my thermometer," he says through chattering teeth. His eyes are rimmed red with exhaustion, and I wonder when he last slept.
"When was the last time you took your temperature?"
"Th-Thursday?"
My brows knit at the man in front of me, then at the basket sitting on the porch beside me, then at the man in front of me again. Even sick, with days-old scruff and hair that looks like it hasn't been brushed in years, he makes that spark inside me want to flare to life, but I fight to keep it smothered in my chest.
I should leave. I should give him my basket, make him promise to take the cold medicine, and leave.
Maybe I should help him find his thermometer first, but then I should definitely leave.
I shouldn't even call to check up on him. I shouldn't even text. That's Danica's job. Not mine. I should just leave him here, freezing and sick and alone and . . .
Frowning, I rise onto my tiptoes and press my palm against Mike's forehead one last time. He doesn't object this time; he just leans into my palm and lets my skin absorb the heat he's radiating. I don't know how high his fever is, but I know it's high enough that someone should be worried about him, even if that someone is me.
"Let's go," I finally decide, pulling my hand away and nudging him back inside his door. I may still have more-than-just-friends feelings for him, but my friend feelings came first, and I'm not about to abandon him when he needs me.
"Huh?"
"Let's go," I say again, grabbing the basket from the porch. "I'm not leaving until you're better."
Chapter 16
In my twenty-three years on this Earth, my mother has never once made me soup in the microwave. It didn't matter how hungry I was or how sick I was or how much I just wanted to scarf down lunch so I could run and play outside-she has always, always cooked me soup in a pot.
"Anyone can throw something in the microwave," she'd lecture as she stirred homemade chicken noodle soup in the cast-iron pot that she got from her mother, who got it from her mother, who probably got it from her mother. I'd be sitting at our unfinished kitchen table, having a staring contest with the smiling ceramic pig who took up residence there and taunted me every time my nose was runny. "When you make something in a pot, you make it with love. And love is going to make you better."
In Mike's kitchen, I pour two cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup into a pot I found under the stove, I set the burner to medium, and I go back out to the living room to make sure he's lying down like I ordered him to.
He needs to go to bed, but I want him to eat first.
Actually, he needs to go to the doctor, but I lost that battle within thirty seconds of walking through the front door.
"Are you okay?" I ask, frowning at the shivering man laid out on a big plush couch against the wall. As soon as we came inside, I gave him a dose of cold medicine, I tried and failed to find his thermometer, I grabbed him a blanket, and I ordered him to lie down. Now, he's wrapped in the navy-blue fleece I found, shivering despite the sweat beaded on his forehead.
Mike tries to answer but ends up coughing instead. I frown harder, find a pillow, and tuck it under his head. Kneeling in front of him, I study the pallor of his face and the circles around his closed eyes. "When was the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday," he manages to say with his eyes still closed.
"Slept?"
"Body hurts t-too much."
A violent chill shakes him, and I gnaw on the inside of my lip. I wish he'd let me take him to a doctor, but he's right: there's probably no use. The rest of the group-with the exception of me, Dee, and Danica-went through the same symptoms, albeit less severe. This is the worst of it. He needs to sweat it out.
"This is the worst of it," I say out loud to reassure us both, and Mike nods.
I want to reach out and brush his damp hair from his forehead, or rub his arm, or . . . I don't know . . . do something to comfort him. But instead, I stand up, walk back to the kitchen, and stir that pot of soup. I stir it, and I stir it, and I will it to make him better.
Only, it doesn't make him better. Ten minutes after Mike eats the entire bowl, the entire bowl comes back up. He can't keep down cold medicine. He can't keep down juice or water or Gatorade. He shivers uncontrollably, sweats through two blankets and three sets of clothes, and refuses to let me take him to the doctor since, when I finally find his thermometer, his temperature "only" reads 102.7.
As the evening wears on and the light streaming through his windows fades, I bring him ice chips and fresh clothes, and I coax him to drink small amounts of water and chicken broth at a time. He watches hockey with his eyes closed, and I sit on the far end of the couch from him, doing my best to narrate all the small things that the sports announcer doesn't. Together, we listen to his laundry tumble in the dryer, since he was down to his last clean T-shirt and I had a feeling he might soon need another.
"Hailey," he quietly says sometime after 8 p.m., and I look over at him laid back in the reclined end of the sofa. In the dim light of a single corner lamp, he's buried under two blankets and surrounded by a fortress of throw pillows. His face is turned toward me, his cheek against the back of the couch and his brown eyes heavy with exhaustion.
"If you're going to tell me to leave again-" I start, expecting him to tell me for the hundredth time that I don't have to stay with him. But he cuts me off.
"I'm not." He pauses to let the argument seep out of me. "I'm not. I want you to stay."
"Oh," my tiny voice apologizes. "Then . . . what is it?"
Mike's weighted gaze lingers on mine, and then it shutters closed. "Nothing."
"Tell me."
Thick lashes lift to reveal those big browns again, and the air in the room thickens as the sun sinks below the windowsill. "Why'd you stop playing Deadzone?" he asks in a quiet voice. It molds a lump in my throat, and I contemplate my answer.
"Homework," I decide after a too-long pause. "I've had a lot of homework."
"Is that why you haven't responded to any of my texts?"
Unable to find my voice, I nod.
Mike studies me from two cushions away, his gaze threatening to pull the truth from where it's buried in the pit of my chest. "Do you know how I can tell you're lying?"
That lump in my throat swells and swells, and I just sit there, staring.
"Your eyes get a little wider, and your lips get a little tighter. Like you're biting the inside of your bottom lip."
My teeth immediately release the inside of my bottom lip, and Mike eventually turns away from me. He watches the ceiling like it's going to crumble down on him. "I feel like a mess."
Thankful for the change of subject, I say, "I don't think it's time for more cold medicine."
"Cold medicine won't help," he replies with a heavy sigh, and then he turns toward me again. "Can I lie down?"