I bent and pressed my forehead against her cheek, curling my arm around her head. “Don’t. It’s me who should apologise.”
“But I made you mad.”
My heart cracked. “You didn’t make me mad. You made me worried. Big difference.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she winced and wriggled in discomfort. “You have me so damn worried, Little Ribbon, and here I am scolding you when I should be making you better.”
“I’m sorry.” She snuggled into my embrace even though her body was a mini furnace.
“Stop saying that.” I held her tight, willing the chaos in my brain to settle enough to talk without bite and ask questions gently. “I’m the one who’s sorry, and now I’m going to do everything I can to make you better.”
Kissing her softly on her nose, I asked, “Tell me what’s wrong. List how you feel.” I’d watched Patricia Wilson deal with Liam when he was regularly ill from kids at school. I’d lurked outside while Cassie recovered from a bad flu on the couch and she was doted on by concerned parents.
At the time, I thought them lucky to have such care—their only worry was to heal and be a demanding patient where all their wishes were met.
Now, I understood it from the panicked caregiver’s point of view. The anxious hovering over their baby to ensure they were still breathing. The nervous voice when they asked how they were, dreading a reply of worse and begging for an answer of better.
Now, I was that parent, and I would do anything in the world to trade places with Della and suffer whatever she was going through.
She bit her bottom lip as she wriggled away from my embrace, sweat dotting her upper lip. “I’m hot.”
“Tell me what else. Tell me how I can fix this.” All I wanted to do was slaughter her pain and send it directly to hell.
“I’m thirsty.” She blinked with wide eyes. “Um…I’m hot. My legs ache. I’m…tired.” She yawned as if on cue, trying to roll onto her side.
I didn’t permit it, holding her firm. “Anything else?”
Shaking her head, she moaned, “I dunno. Just…everything doesn’t feel right, Ren.” She tried to roll again, but I kept my hand clutched on her shoulder, dislodging her pink knitted jumper, revealing her back.
A red rash invaded the perfection of her porcelain skin.
Fuck.
Leaping clumsily onto the bed, I scooped her close and yanked off her jumper.
“No…” She protested weakly and not her usual spit fire attack. That alone made my belly knot and heart shut down.
All over her chest and back was a rash. An enemy infiltrating everything I loved in the world.
She batted me away with a feather-weak hand as I let her flop back down and undid the zipper on her jeans. Her head lolled on the pillow as I pulled them as gently as I could down her legs, my lips thinning and head pounding as I found yet more red rash.
Outside, snow had started to fall, and my mind regressed to when she was sick the first time, and we’d stumbled upon Polcart Farm. That place had saved her life. Perhaps Cherry River would save her this time.
Because as much as I would slay dragons for her, I was not a doctor.
I didn’t have a clue what was wrong, and I couldn’t stop my morbid thoughts from filling me with agony of her dying due to my incompetence.
Pulling her jeans back up, I hastily buttoned them, bundled her up in one of my jumpers, then clutched her tight.
Striding from the room, I carried her through swirling snowflakes and pounded on the Wilson’s door.
* * * * *
Della was admitted to the hospital.
For three days, I paced those antiseptic corridors and slept curled up on a hard, cold couch at the foot of her single cot.
I hated that place.
I despised that place.
But I refused to leave even for a moment.
Della couldn’t leave; therefore, I couldn’t leave.
Turned out, thanks to scientific words I didn’t understand and people I couldn’t tolerate, Della had chicken pox. Normally, a kid contracted the virus and dealt with it no problem, but Della had a worse than normal reaction to Varicella, which according to some doctor I wanted to punch in the face, was the correct term for the red spots, obsessive itchiness, migraines, tiredness, and vomiting that Della endured.
She couldn’t keep anything down, and her body looked more crimson than cream thanks to the invasion of spots and her tendency to scratch until she bled.
It ripped out my guts to see her in so much discomfort and not have any power to help.
This was the first time I’d been in a hospital since my finger had been cut off. Back then, I’d been given candy and a toy. Back then, I’d felt cared for and in good hands—until Mclary threw my gifts and their kindness out the window, of course.