Fate took over the next morning when I woke with a fever. My walk home in the frigid late October temperatures had not gone without consequences. My head felt like it was in a vice, my throat felt like I had swallowed razor blades, and my chest felt like it would explode with each cough. In other words, I felt like crap.
“No school for you?” Kevin asked sullenly from my doorway.
“No, I’m sorry bud. I feel like crap.”
“No Max, either?” He asked plaintively.
The disappointment in his eyes made my other aches and pains feel insignificant. By breaking up with Max, I had stripped Kevin of a role model he could look up to.
“I’m sorry, Kevin,” I said in a quiet voice.
“That’s okay, sis,” he said, seeing my distress. “I just hate riding the bus by myself.”
“I know, tomorrow I’ll be better. I promise,” I said, holding up a pinky so we could pinky swear.
“Okay, get better,” he said resisting as I dragged him in for a quick hug.
“Ugh, you’re germy,” he giggled as he backed up.
“I’ll give you germy,” I mocked, acting like I was going to grab him.
“Ick,” he shrieked, racing down the hallway, giggling like a loon the entire time.
I laid my pounding head back on the pillow, smiling for the first time in two days. Somewhere in my own misery, I had forgotten the true reason why I broke it off with Max. It was my job to protect Kevin at all costs, which meant that our ho
me life had to be kept from others, no matter how good their intentions were.
My sickness kept me in bed the entire day as I tried unsuccessfully to sleep away my aches and pains. I couldn’t shake the fever though, making it impossible to get comfortable enough to get any decent rest. Lucinda lacked real maternal instincts, so staying hydrated and medicated meant I had to fend for myself. When Kevin came home later in the day, I faintly heard Lucinda discouraging him from visiting me. I resented her interference, but knew it was for the best to keep away from me while I was so sick.
Much to Kevin’s dismay, I still wasn’t feeling better by the next day or the one after that. Bethany showed up on Wednesday with a stack of schoolwork I had missed.
“Wow, you look like shit,” she said, standing in my room uncomfortably.
“Gee, thanks,” I replied sarcastically.
“We all thought you were faking,” she said in her own tactless way.
“We?” I asked, dismayed that my worst fears were being confirmed.
“Yeah, I heard you made quite the splash at Alicia’s elite Halloween party,” she added spitefully.
My stomach dropped. “Well, thanks for bringing my work,” I said, hoping she would take the hint and leave me to my misery.
“No prob,” she said, sinking onto my bed.
“Well, I feel like crap,” I said, not having to fake the cough that rumbled through me.
“Ugh, you look it too,” she said, picking at a loose string on my blanket, avoiding my eyes.
“Did you need anything else?” I asked, trying to get to the root of her visit.
“I was just thinking, since you struck out with the Pops maybe we could hang out sometime.”
“Pops?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know, the popular peeps, the rich kids, the ‘we’re better than you’ crowd.”
“Oh I get it, sure I guess,” I said, feeling both sorry for her and repulsed at the same time as she dug dirt out from under her fingernails, dropping it on my bed.