Finally, I was free, but I no longer had the energy to stand for the shower I wanted. Like a child just learning to walk, I crawled into the tub, laying back and letting the water pelt my skin. My stomach, especially, felt so sensitive that each drop stung on impact, like someone was dropping tiny little missiles from above. But even so, it was cool and lovely and I melted into the sensation.
For a long time I laid there, falling in and out of sleep. When my breath settled and the ache in my muscles eased, I pushed myself up, letting the water soak my hair and run down my face.
Shampoo became the villain of my story, stinging my eyes and exhausting me as I tried to rub it in and rinse it out. It felt like hours before the water ran clear enough for me to open my eyes without them burning. And then I couldn’t convince myself to do it again with conditioner.
I turned off the water, and laid back, feeling the water drain beneath me. The longer my eyes stayed closed the heavier my body became. The little pools of liquid on my skin dried slowly, and it felt good to be empty, to be still for a moment.
Then I remembered Garrick, and knew I had been selfish long enough.
The wall of the tub might as well have been a battlement. It took all of my strength to climb over it. Clothing was completely out of the question. I wrapped my hair in a towel and my body in a robe. I grabbed a few washcloths, soaking them with cool water, wringing them out so they wouldn’t drip.
I felt a little more alive now, and I managed to walk without groping at the wall. The pain was there, in the back of my mind with every step, but it was manageable. Even so, it was a relief to sink down beside Garrick on my bed.
I stripped the blankets back, and he shifted, but didn’t wake. I placed one of the damp cloths across his forehead, and another I unfolded and laid across his chest. I used the last to dab at his arms and legs. Even that became too difficult though, so I rolled the last cloth up and slipped it beneath his neck.
Then I laid down beside him and slept.
The next time we woke together. His fever was still going, but I convinced him to drink some water. It wasn’t until I took a drink myself that I realized how thirsty I was. I helped him drink a full glass, and then engulfed two of my own. I had enough energy to shuck my thick robe and replace it with loose pajamas. I placed a new damp cloth on Garrick’s forehead and he sighed.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
I wasn’t sure how coherent he was. He definitely knew I was here, as he’d called out my name a few times since he woke. And he knew he was sick, but I didn’t know how much he knew beyond that.
“You’re welcome. But to be fair, you did take care of me first.”
His eyes were closed, but he smiled. “You’re better at it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It was just nice not to be alone.”
He tried to shift onto his side to face me, but ended up just reaching with his arms, his body still flat. I wrapped an arm around his chest, and pulled, His arms went around me and pulled, too, so that he ended up on his side and much closer to me.
When he was settled, he breathed out, exhausted by the little movement. He said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Needing help? He seemed much stronger and better off than I had been.
“For leaving you alone at all. For getting between you and Cade. For being too stubborn to tell you I missed you. I’m sorry.”
I was confused, the pieces of the puzzle not quite fitting. But I heard what mattered, he was sorry and I was sorry, too. And my brain was too fuzzy to remember all the details of why this shouldn’t be happening. I pulled him to me and his head fell into the crook of my neck. I breathed deeply for what felt like the first time in months. I wanted to ask him about the phone call, about our fight, about everything. But he was still murmuring “sorry,” again and again into my neck, and it didn’t really matter.
I held him tighter, and together, we weathered the sickness and sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
We passed days in this manner, wrapped up in each other, in and out of sleep, eating and showering when we felt like we could. It was strange to think of sickness as an oasis, but that’s what it was. When our physical needs triumphed over our brains, we didn’t need to talk, not about our relationship or what had broken it. We didn’t need to work anything out or explain ourselves. I didn’t even have to worry about being a virgin or the idea of hav**g s*x with him.
We cradled each other and found healing in the quiet, beneath my covers, away from the world. By Saturday, we were well enough to spend more time out of bed, to eat real food, to watch TV… to talk.
We lay on the couch, my back to his chest, his arm snug around me. We were supposed to be watching TV, but his forehead was pressed into my neck, and I was grilling him on the first days of my sickness.
“What did Eric say when you called him?”
“He wasn’t upset, if that’s what you’re asking. Half the cast is sick now, I think.”
Great. Our show was going to suck balls if we were all exhausted all the time. We could call it an experimental piece—Phaedra Lethargic.
I asked another question. “What did he say about you taking care of me?”
His forehead lifted off my neck. “He doesn’t know. He told me to get you in bed, and you’d be fine. He suggested that I use your phone to call your Mum.”
That would have been horrific. Knowing my mother, she would have asked him when he planned to pop the question right after she found out his name.
“But you stayed.”
“I couldn’t just leave you. I told Eric I wasn’t feeling well either, and I stayed with you.”
“But why?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“I do.” I’d heard him all those weeks ago on that phone call, heard him say that he didn’t care, that I was just inconvenient. Whatever reason he’d stayed… I needed to hear it.
He said, “Well then, if we’re doing this, I’m doing it the right way.”
He tried to sit up behind me, but our position on the couch was snug, and we were both still a little out of sorts, so we ended up tangled, him practically on top of me. I was still stuck on my side, squished beneath him. He tried to wiggle off of me, but it was reminiscent of a turtle on it’s back. Finally, he gave up, and lifted up just enough so that I could turn onto my back, and then he lowered himself more gently on top of me.
Despite the fact that we’d slept in the same bed for a week, this was still intimate, still exciting, still terrifying. He held himself up on his elbows as much he could, but he was weak, so his weight still pressed in to me.
I liked it.
“What was I saying, again?” He asked. “Oh, right, that I might be falling in love with you.”
I blinked. Then blinked again.
I blink-blink-blinked my way through a multitude of emotions in mere seconds—shock, disbelief, excitement, fear, lust, uncertainty, and settled on something… something too big for a name. There was a galaxy inside of me—complex and infinite and miraculous and fragile. And at the center was my sun. Garrick. Love. The two were like synonyms to me now. He was falling in love with me? With me?
A brush of his hand brought me out of that universe, and back into the moment. “You could drive a man crazy with that kind of silence.”
“I love you, too.” I said. Then I remembered that he hadn’t quite said those three words. He’d said he was falling in love with me. And there had been a maybe in there. Shit. “I mean… what I should have said was that I feel the same. I’m just falling, too. Because already being in love with you is too fast. That would be crazy. It’s too much, right? It’s too much. It’s too fast. So… I’m not in love with you. I’m not. Not that you’re not loveable, it’s just there’s a difference between falling in love and being in love. And we are the first and not the second, not yet. So, I too may be falling in love with you. That’s what I meant to say. That’s all I meant to say.” I was falling apart. His eyes were soft and unchanging and gave nothing away, so I kept devolving into incoherency. Finally, he kissed me, quickly, but it felt like a punctuation, like I could finally stop talking.
I sighed, “You’re supposed to do that before I start crazy-talking.”
He laughed and kissed me again, a little longer this time.
“I like your crazy talk. Better yet, I love your crazy talk. It’s settled. I’m no longer falling. I am definitely in love with you. That’s not too much, is it?” His grin was blinding and so mocking that I gave him a swift pinch to the arm.
He didn’t even have the decency to look pained. He just kissed me, pressing all of his weight in to me, and it was the best kind of ‘too much.’
I’d always thought too much, too much in my head, as Eric said. But since I’d met Garrick, I had an embarrassing tendency to stop thinking completely. The things that came out of my mouth as a response were almost always embarrassing, but sometimes… they worked out. Sometimes, saying the first thing that came to mind went well. Sometimes simple and honest worked the best.
I hoped this was one of those moments.
“I’m a virgin,” I told him. “That’s why I ran away the night we met. I didn’t have a cat. I wasn’t with Cade. I was just afraid.”
He paused mid-kiss on my neck. Then, slowly, like shifting-of-tectonic-plates-slowly lifted his head. He stared at me, into me, through me. I resisted the urge to hide my face, to run away screaming, to make up ridiculous excuses involving some other kind of animal. I whispered, “You could drive a girl crazy with that kind of silence.”
He reacted—it was small—the skin between his eyebrows pinched together.
“Let me get this straight… you didn’t have a cat? Did you get a cat just so that you wouldn’t have to tell me you were a virgin?”
I pressed my lips together to keep them from trembling. I nodded. The look on his face was somewhere between shock and amusement. He was flabbergasted. That was the best word. His flabber had been thoroughly gasted.
“You said you loved my craziness,” I reminded him.
“I do. I love you. It’s just… honestly? I’m relieved.”
“You’re relieved that I’m a virgin? What, did you think I was a hoe-bag?”
“I would never think you were a hoe-bag.” Was it completely inappropriate to find the way he says ‘hoe-bag’ adorable? “But I knew you were hiding something. I was worried there was some other reason you didn’t want to be with me. I’ve been paranoid about it for months.”
“You’ve been paranoid? I heard that phone call where you said I was an inconvenience. You were planning to change jobs because of me. I was petrified if I ever looked at you too long or gave away how much I missed you that you’d pack up and leave.”
“What are you talking about? I was never planning to leave.”
“I heard you. That day I came by the office. You were on the phone with someone back in Philadelphia, and you said you were over us, that it had just been a inconvenience—“