Amelia let me in when I got to Cooper’s house.
“Where is he?”
She pointed to the hall.
I dropped my bag by the front door and made my way to his room. I knocked softly on his door. “Hey, it’s me.”
He just groaned.
“You were well enough to text ten minutes ago. Have you deteriorated that much since then?” I walked into his room. The only light came from a small desk lamp, so it took my eyes a bit to adjust. He lay on his bed, his breathing labored. I put my hand on his forehead. It was burning up.
“Wait, you’re really sick?” I had kind of thought he might be faking it a little or overplaying it to get me over. “You have a bad fever. Have you taken any medicine for this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Maybe.” His lips were dry and cracked, and his words came out as a whisper.
“How long have you been like this? For longer than today?”
“What?”
“I’ll be right back.” I searched for his sister and found her eating ice cream in front of the television. “Has Cooper taken anything for his fever?”
“No. He got home about three hours ago and went straight to his room. I tried to wake him up to ask him if Mom left us any money for dinner, but he told me he was sleeping.”
“So this just started today?”
“I think.”
“Okay. I have money if you want to order a pizza or something.”
“Thanks!” She ran to the phone and I went to the medicine cupboard. I found a bottle of NyQuil. I also wet a rag. With my offerings in hand, I went back to his room.
“Hey, sickie, sit up for a sec. I need you to take some medicine.”
“Abby?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You texted me. Now come on, sit up.” I helped him sit up. He took the medicine and lay back down on his side. I placed the wet washrag on the back of his neck, where he felt the hottest. “How did this happen?”
“Dunno,” he mumbled.
“If I make you some soup will you eat it?”
“Not hungry.”
“What do you need?” I flipped the rag to the other side.
“Just stay with me.”
“Okay. I can do that, but if you get me sick I won’t be happy. I have a big show in two days.”
He smiled a little and I crawled into bed next to him, sitting against the headboard instead of lying down.
His arm immediately went over my lap and his forehead found my hip. I could feel the heat radiating off him. I hoped the medicine helped soon, because I didn’t like seeing him like this. I moved the rag from his neck to his temple and lightly ran it along his face.
“You’ve been gone this week,” he said.
“Just busy.”
“It’s annoying.”
I smiled and pushed his hair off his forehead.
“I’m cold,” he said with a shiver.
“You’re actually very hot.”
“I know.” One side of his mouth attempted a smile.
“Wow, even incoherent you can still pull out the jokes.”
He let out what he probably thought was a small laugh but was really more of a moan.
The cloth was now warm and I moved stand up so I could rewet it, but his grip around me tightened.
“I just need to make this cold again, and get you some crushed ice to chew on, okay?”
“Don’t leave.”
“I won’t leave. I’ll be right back.” I pried his arm off my waist.
Amelia was in the kitchen when I got there. “Did you order pizza?”
“Yes, a little while ago. They said thirty minutes or less.”
I pulled a twenty out of my bag and handed it to her.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Is Cooper going to be okay?”
“Yes, he’ll be fine. He just has a fever. I’m sure it will be gone by tomorrow.”
“Okay. I’ll wait for the pizza guy.”
“Come get me when he comes, okay? Don’t answer the door by yourself.”
“I am fourteen, you know.”
I gave her a hard stare.
“Okay, okay.”
With ice and newly cooled rag, I went back to Cooper’s room. He appeared to have gone back to sleep.
I laid the rag across his forehead and set the ice on his nightstand. I sat down next to him again. It was rare that I got to stare at Cooper for long uninterrupted moments like this. But as I sat next to him, his arm around me again, his eyes closed, I couldn’t help it. He had long blond eyelashes that curled up. His nose had a knot in it from where he broke it falling off his quad when he was a kid. His lips, which were normally soft and full, were dried and cracked. Man, did I love this boy so much.
His head was still on fire, and I was worried. I picked up some ice and ran it along his lips. Tingles spread from the back of my neck all the way down my arms. No. What was wrong with me? I dropped the ice back in the cup, clenched my hands into fists, and forced them to my sides. I sat like that for a long time, listening to him breathe, willing his body to heal.
The doorbell rang and I slipped out of Cooper’s hold and stepped out of his room. It was a good excuse for a break.
The pizza guy was in the open door by the time I got there, giving Amelia some change.
“I thought I told you to wait for me,” I said to her.
“Oops,” she said, taking the pizza and shutting the door. “Sorry.”
I hip-checked her.
“You want some?”
“What kind?”
“Pepperoni and mushrooms.”
“Sure.”
She put the pizza on the table and pulled two plates from the cupboard. “I heard the fish painting is going to be in the show. I knew it would work.”
“I’m happy it did.”
“Do you think Cooper will let me come to the art show?”
“Yes. Of course. You’re all invited. Your parents can come too. It’s Sunday night.”
“My parents are out of town.”
“Oh, right. Well, tag along with Cooper. He’s bringing my mom for me too.” My plans for the night involved me taking Cooper outside anyway, away from everyone, to the overlook. Was I still going to be able to do that? Was he going to be well enough?
She took a big bite of pizza. “He’ll have to come get me at my friend’s house. My mom arranged for me to spend Sunday over there.”
“Where’d your parents go, anyway?” I asked, sitting down.
“My dad took my mom on some anniversary cruise trip for the weekend.”
“Fun.”
“She called. She’s seasick.”
“Oh. That’s not so fun.” I slid a slice of pizza out of the box and onto the plate that now sat in front of me. “And where was Cooper today?” I tried to ask casually, like I didn’t care. It was weird not knowing what he’d been up to this week.
“I guess he took Ris to some fish spa?” She said it like she didn’t know what that was.
“He did what?” I asked, mad that he wouldn’t do that with me but had stolen the idea to do with her.
“I know. Weird, right?”
“Yeah . . . weird.” I took a couple of deep breaths. I was not going to get mad. “Do you like her?” I asked.
Amelia shrugged. “She’s okay. She bakes a lot.”
“Yeah, she told me she liked to bake. That’s cool.”
Amelia leaned forward and lowered her voice, like Iris was in the next room. “She needs a bit more practice.”
A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. Amelia’s cheeks went pink.
We each ate two slices of pizza before I threw my napkin on my plate and pushed myself away from the table. “I better go check on your brother.”
“He’s a baby.”
“Most of the time, yes.”
“Did he call you to come over here?”
“He texted me.”
“Huh,” she said with a small nod.
“What?”
“Nothing . . . he’s just a baby.”
I could tell I wasn’t going to get what she was really thinking out of her, so I left. Cooper’s shoulder rose and fell in a steady rhythm as I stared at him from the door. I let myself inside and gently placed my hand to his forehead. His head felt a lot cooler and I took a breath of relief. Hopefully this was just some twenty-four-hour bug.
I walked slowly around his room, looking at the things on his walls. I’d been in his room a million times before, so I’d seen them all a million times before, but I hadn’t really looked at them in a while. He had lots of pictures. For his birthday a couple of years ago, I’d bought him a Polaroid camera, the one that immediately spits out a low-quality picture. And there were tons of those, like a border, at eye level around his room. His eye level, not mine, so I had to stand on my tiptoes to look at them. So many were of him and me in various places over the years—beach, Taco Bell, dunes, school. There were some of the four of us too—Cooper, Justin, Rachel, and me. But they were mostly of just the two of us.
He’d carried that camera everywhere for a while, like it wasn’t easier to just snap a picture with his cell phone. “These ones, I can hold in my hands instantly,” he’d said when I told him as much. But gradually, he stopped bringing it places, and I hadn’t seen it in several months. That’s why the last string of pictures surprised me—him and Iris. Him and Iris on his quad, him and Iris at the beach. She made the wall. That was new too.
My hands started to sweat as I stared at those pictures. It was fine. It wasn’t too late. My plan was going to work. He’d chosen me the other day. He’d chosen me tonight. He’d choose me again.
But what if he didn’t? What if it was too late? I swung around and was almost to his door when Cooper said, “Abby?”
“Yes, what, huh?” I said, a little too loudly. I rushed to his bedside.
“I thought you left.”
“I didn’t leave. I’m here.”
“Good. I like it when you’re here.”
“Me too.”
“You’re my favorite,” he mumbled.
My shoulders relaxed. “I know. You’re mine too.”