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Then Donovan disappeared and I was being handled by lots of different people, some with bright lights and some veiled in darkness. I tried to tell them that hide and seek was a solo sport, that they weren’t allowed to help me or Donovan would call me a cheater again, but when I opened my mouth I couldn’t seem to find my voice to say the words.
Then I slept, but I was in a different bed than the one in the hotel, and I hated it because Donovan’s warm body wasn’t cuddled against me.
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I noticed were the ceiling tiles. They were different than the ones I had memorized at the Residencia Al Gladiatore. There was a whiteboard on the wall across from me. Most of the words were Italian, but I recognized my name.
To my left, the window showed a dark sky. It was night.
To my right, Donovan was sitting in a chair that had been pulled over to the hospital bed. His head was slumped onto the edge of the bed, and he snored softly.
“Don…” I tried to speak but my throat was raw. I coughed a few times, which was evenmorepainful.
Donovan leaped to his feet. “Molly! Let me get you some water…”
He filled a cup from a pitcher and placed it in front of me. There was a straw, which made it easy to sip. The water was cold and soothed my throat.
“More?”
He refilled the cup and I drank all of it again. I opened my mouth and this time it didn’t hurt as much to speak.
“Donovan.”
He leaned over me and caressed my cheek with his thumb. His dark hair was messy, and his beard was fuller than I remembered. His steel eyes were sunken into his handsome face with exhaustion, but he smiled broadly at me.
“Where am I?”
“Your condition got worse,” he explained softly, still caressing my cheek. “Your fever got high, and you couldn’t keep fluids down. Which is weird since vomiting isn’t listed as a symptom anywhere. But it made things worse for you since you couldn’t eat, and you started sleeping more. When your breathing started getting raspy… I had to do something. I brought you here. It’s been a day and a half.”
I smiled weakly. He looked so worried that I quickly tried to think of a joke. “It’s a good thing Italy has universal healthcare. Otherwise I would hate to get the bill for an ambulance.”
He smiled wryly. “The wait was too long for an ambulance. I brought you here.”
I blinked in confusion. “But how…”
“I carried you.”
“You carried me? All the way to the hospital by the testing site?”
“Well… It turns out that hospital was full. I had to carry you twice as far. We’re at the Ospedale Britannico.”
“Twice as… You carried me a kilometer?” I said groggily. “That’s, like, a bunch of meters.”
“A thousand of them, to be exact.”
“How did you not pass out.”
“I kind of did!” he said cheerfully. “I made it to the door before nurses took you. Then I woke up in the bed next to you, with an IV drip in my arm. They said I was dehydrated. I guess I was so worried about taking care of you at the hotel that I neglected myself.”
I closed my eyes and chuckled softly. “You passed out from carrying me to the hospital. All I did was make you crappy pasta you couldn’t taste.”
He picked up my hand and kissed it softly. “Molly, it’s all my fault. I must have gotten infected on my trip to the store. Then I gotyouinfected. Carrying you here was the least I could do. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be sick.”
I found the remote control that operated the bed, and used it to raise the back until I was in an upright position. Then I took one of his wide hands in both of mine and squeezed it to my chest.
“Oh, Donovan. It’s not your fault. You did everything you could to keep me safe. And you took amazing care of me. It’s fuzzy, but I remember you making me drink Gatorade, and trying to feed me…”
I frowned as another memory came back to me.
