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Brown eyes drift across the room, finding me. He blinks, and tugs the comforter higher up, hiding the lower half of his face.
“Hey,” I say, taking a step into the room.
I think he mumbles a hi back, but it’s muffled.
Izzy swings her head around, long, frizzy brown hair flying. She gives me a smile and says, “See, I told you he’ll be okay.”
She did…
She did tell me.
And seeing him now, awake, and clearly fine…
I suddenly feel like I’m gonna throw up. My chest hurts. My fingers feel all buzzy, and I can’t tell if I wanna cry or curl into a ball or run away.
There’s a sniff, then whispering. Jeremy…Izzy’s blocking him again as he says something to her.
“Juice? Yeah,” she chirps, and whirls away. “Be right back.” She blows past me, there and gone faster than I can blink.
And suddenly it’s just Jeremy and me.
He sits up, the blanket falling around him. “Are you…are you okay? You look like you’re gonna throw up.”
Lips clamped together, I shake my head. Three steps separate me and the bed. “M’fine.”
Jeremy’s face is pale, and his blond hair is all knotty, curling around his ears. He’s frowning, his brown eyes darting around my face, like he’s not sure he believes me.
I don’t think ulcers are contagious, so I don’t know what this is.
But there’s an itchy feeling inside me, kind of like what I felt when Dad left us. Like when Mom got in her car acceident a couple years ago.
“I—” I gasp, and it hurts. I clench and release my fists, looking around the room. “You-you’re okay?”
His frown deepens, and he says, “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
I nod jerkily. “That’s…that’s good. Does it hurt?”
He looks down at the bed, and it’s a long moment before he says, “A little. They gave me medicine, so it’s not as bad as it was. Are you?—”
I go to speak, but I’m cut off by Mom calling up from downstairs. “Mason? It’s time to go.”
Slumping, I blow out a breath, and yell out, “Be right there.”
Footsteps thud up the stairs, telling me Izzy’s coming back.
“Um, I’ll see you next week,” I tell Jeremy quickly. “Feel better.”
I go to turn, but pause, and say, “If it hurts again, you’ll go back to the hospital, right? Just in case.”
Jeremy searches my eyes, lips twisting, brows furrowing. I can’t make sense of the emotion in his eyes, but whatever it is seems to soften a second later, and he nods. “Yeah.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
A throat clears, drawing me back to the present.
“Sorry,” I murmur. Shaking my head, I sit up a little straighter, and grip the arms of the chair. Fuck, I haven’t thought about that in years. “Um, where was I?”
