As Lie the Dead

Chapter Sixteen

Six Weeks Ago

An awful smell draws me out of a restless, dream-filled sleep. Not rotting-meat awful. More like vinegar-tang awful. God, please don’t let Ash be making that Korean sauerkraut mess. Jesse eats it, but not me. Especially not when I’m five days into a never-ending bout of the flu, haven’t eaten anything thicker than mashed potatoes in four, and am tempted to just chop my own head off at the neck so my mucus can drain out faster.

I peek one eye open. I’m facing the wall and its familiar stained wallpaper—what was once white and yellow daisies. Not even close to my taste, but I’m never home enough to care. Not until lately.

My head feels like dead weight as I roll to my other side. A fresh glass of orange juice is on the bedside table—or rather the old orange crate that serves as one. I like the simplicity of it. Next to the juice is a half-empty box of tissues. I reach for one and pull. The damned thing snags and sends the entire box tumbling to the floor.

“Fuck,” I croak.

I scoot closer to the edge of the bed and peek down. It’s tumbled pretty far away, too far to reach. My nose is starting to drip. I need a tissue. I just can’t make my dead-weight body get up and retrieve them. Frustration makes me growl, which tickles deep in my clogged chest. The ensuing coughs wrack my entire body and leave my throat raw, aching.

Just kill me now.

A tissue dangles in front of me. I follow the hand that holds it to a wrist, up an arm, until I’m looking at Wyatt through bleary eyes.

“You dropped these,” he says.

I grunt, take it, and blow. Hard enough to make me dizzy. I slump back against the pillow. The damp tissue falls away. I close my eyes, willing the room to stop spinning. I can’t sleep with it spinning like this.

The mattress sinks. A cool hand presses against my steaming forehead. Feels good.

“Ash says you haven’t eaten all day.”

“Hurts.”

“You need to eat, Evy.”

“No.”

“If you don’t eat, you’re going to end up in the hospital.”

I snap my eyes open. I hate the hospital. Despise it. I’d rather stitch my own wounds, and I usually do. He’s holding two red pills in his palm. I eye them. More medicine. I hate pills, too, and he knows it. He’s pushing again, like he’s been pushing me all month. Harder than usual all spring, actually.

I once asked Jesse if I’d done something to piss off Wyatt, but Jesse said he didn’t think so. Wyatt was just in a mood. Monthlong man PMS, I guess.

If those red pills make my head stop feeling like a bowling ball, I’ll forgive him his bad mood. I open my mouth. He pops them in, then holds the juice while I sip enough to get the pills down. The juice stings my throat and sits cool in my stomach. I flop against the pillow and close my eyes, hoping he’s satisfied.

“Ash is making some gelatin,” he says, patting my forehead with a tissue. “You’re going to eat it.”

“Gross.”

“It’s cherry.”

“Grosser.”

“Evy, I’m serious. Eat it, or I’m driving you to the hospital myself.”

I crack one eye open. Peer under my lashes at him. His mouth is set, lips pressed thin. I know that look. He’s dead serious. And I don’t have the strength to fight him. “Fine.”

With the battle won, I expect him to leave. He stays.

He stays through another coughing fit. He hands me tissue after tissue, until I’m sure my head can’t expel any more snot without turning itself inside out. He holds a basin while I throw up half the gelatin I’m forced to eat. I curse at him because he’s convenient, and he continues to chatter about nonsensical things.

More juice and gelatin, a few saltine crackers, and lots of monologuing later, my fever breaks sometime during the night. Wyatt stays with me through it, holding my hand and always ready with a tissue. A constant, comforting presence.

He’s gone when I wake the next morning from a dreamless sleep.

I stare at the faded wallpaper, more able to think now, and wonder if I dreamed him. After four years and dozens of injuries, this is the first time he’s kept vigil at my bedside. For the flu, of all things—not even a life-threatening wound. It seems silly, and yet there it is.

Something has changed, and I’m helpless to understand it. So I’ll just ignore it. Pretend it never happened. Pretend nothing’s changed.

Even though we both know something has.