“Hold on, Marcus,” Nurse Diamond says. “Let me just check if I have any more ice packs.”
As the nurse disappears into a back room, I notice that Marcusis giving me one of his easygoing smiles. His hair is slightly ruffled. He’s clearly spent the whole period in here.
My eyes give him a quick sweep, looking for any ailments. Predictably, there are none. I mean, he’s noncommittally holding ice to his left elbow, but that’s Marcus in a nutshell: noncommittal, indifferent, unbothered.
“Good nap?” I ask. In the background, a kid groans like they’re in pain.
Marcus’s smile gets wider. “Not bad. Though those pillows could stand to be a little softer. I go wild for duck feathers. What’s your preference?” he asks with a completely straight face. “Firm? Medium?”
“Marcus, get f—”
“Okay, here we are,” Nurse Diamond says, returning with a blue ice pack. When Marcus takes it, I stop myself from pointing out that he is putting ice on the wrong arm. Typical that he can’t be bothered to get his story straight.
“Thanks for everything, Melissa,” Marcus says.
I manage not to roll my eyes when he leaves.
“Zadie, let me get you Advil for your head,” Nurse Diamond says, only too happy to attend to me now that her star patient is gone.
I’ve had a couple of migraines before, and they were so awful I thought I might be dying.
“How’s Jason?” Nurse Diamond asks as she shakes two pills into a small plastic cup. “Marcus was telling me they saw some improvements in his scans.”
“Was he?”
Last I checked, Marcus hasn’t been back to see his cousin since Friday when the whole soccer team was mandated to be there. I’ve been there every day since, and I haven’t seen him once.
As I head over to the vacant bed, I tell her about the small hopeful changes with Jason. It’s the bed Marcus must have just been in. I find myself wondering what he wasreallydoing here. Probably his favorite pastime of getting out of class or hiding from some girl whose heart he broke.
After taking the two pills, I fall asleep.
When I wake up what feels like five minutes later, the room is shadowed and dark, which makes no sense. I groan and turn over, confused and bleary-eyed.
“Good nap?” a voice says.
“Oh my God!” I shriek, shooting up, only to slam my head on the top bunk. “Ouch.”
“Careful. There’s a bed there.”
It’s freaking Marcus again.
I narrow my eyes at him. Look around at the empty infirmary. “What time is it?”
“I’m guessing like five p.m. The infirmary closes at four, but when Melissa tried to wake you, you apparently begged her to let you keep sleeping.”
“I absolutely did not,” I say, on the simple basis that begging doesn’t sound like me. Plus, I only shut my eyes for a few seconds.
“So Nurse Diamond just left?” I ask.
“She had to pick up her kids, so I offered to keep an eye on you.”
“Oh my God,” I say, standing more carefully, smoothing down my skirt. “I don’t need you to babysit me.”
“Well, when you have a head injury and come in complaining of a migraine, you do. Are the doctors sure you don’t have a concussion?” There’s a hint of worry in his voice.
“Yeah, they think I—wait, what do you care?”
Marcus blinks at me. “I don’t.” The split second of hurt I feel is made the tiniest bit better by the nearly imperceptible wince Marcus gives at his own words.
