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“Okay. Call me if anything changes?”
“Yeah, of course,” she replied. “Get some sleep, Shay.”
“I will. I’d say, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ but I don’t think I will unless it’s on video.”
“We’ll video chat when you get back.”
“Okay. Night.”
“Night,” Layne replied.
She hung up and popped the thermometer back in her mouth.
CHAPTER 27
Shay had hardly slept in that terrible hotel room. While half of their games every season were away games, and she’d gotten used to one crappy hotel after another, she’d also gotten used to having a roommate. So, despite complaining about not having any alone time when they were on the road for the past four years, Shay suddenly wished she had a roommate that she could talk to because her girlfriend was back in a tiny dorm room, and she was sick. Shay hated feeling like this again. She’d been helpless when Layne’s mom had gotten sick, and she hadn’t been able to do anything to get Layne out of there to protect her. After that, Layne had caught it, and she hadn’t even told her.
Shay was still angry about that part, if she were being honest. While she could understand why Layne hadn’t told her and didn’t want to make Layne’s sickness about her, yet again, thinking about Layne lying in bed over the summer and not at least texting Shay that she was sick and in the hospital, really made her angry and sad. It wasn’t as if Shay could’ve gone to the hospital to hold Layne’s hand, and they hadn’t even been dating officially then, so Layne didn’t owe anything to her, but what seemed to hurt even worse now was that if Layne ended up in the hospital again, Shay still couldn’t go and hold her hand. She’d get sick, too, and even if the hospital allowed it, Layne certainly wouldn’t. So, Shay was, yet again, helpless and miles away.
She wished the away game had been a local one where they could’ve driven back. But with a nine o’clock start due to some COVID-related logistical issues, the game had ended late, and the drive back would’ve been several hours. Shay wasn’t sure what would’ve been safer: driving in the middle of the night, which they’d done before, or crashing in a hotel room where someone had been staying the night before. She could only hope that the hotel was taking the cleaning stuff seriously, but she had wipes with her and had wiped down every surface and had opened the window the whole four inches the thing would allow.
Still, she was too far away from Layne. That was all she could think about: being too far away from Layne and not being able to take care of her if she needed her. This wasn’t the kind of illness a bowl of her grandma’s chicken noodle soup could fix, and while Shay could make that soup close to how good her grandma made it taste, she couldn’t give it to Layne right now, even if she had it ready.
Shay wasn’t worried about basketball at all at the moment. Two teams in their conference had really shit the bed this season. Several of the bigger teams in DivisionI had struggled as well. Many had had to forfeit at least one game or multiple games if things couldn’t get rescheduled. Dunbar had managed to stay healthy up until now, and she hoped that remained the case, but all she could think about as she finally fell asleep around five in the morning was her girlfriend.
That terrified her because basketball was supposed to come first in her life right now. That had always been the dream. Shay wasn’t supposed to find someone like Layne now. Eliza had been someone Shay had loved for a while, yes, but she supposed they both understood they weren’t going to go on beyond college, and that had been what Shay had been looking for. She knew that now. She was supposed to play the best basketball of her life this year since last season had been taken from her, make a WNBA team, play for a few years, hopefully actually getting on the court, and then meet the woman of her dreams. That had always been her plan and was still her hope, but Layne Stoll had been sitting on that bench for four years, and Shay hadn’t even noticed how good they could be together.
It was true that they still hadn’t been able to go out on a date at a restaurant or a movie and that they’d only kissed once and hadn’t slept together yet, but those things didn’t matter. They’d spent almost a year getting to know one another, starting near the end of the previous season and now coming to the end of this year’s regular season. Shay loved her. She knew that. She could see them finding ways to make it work if she got drafted to LA or New York, for example, while Layne was in Chicago, or if Layne decided to stay at Dunbar to finish the graduate program. Shay could only hope she’d get drafted by the Indiana Fever, in that case, or the Chicago Sky if Layne moved there. She could see them making trips to see each other and, eventually, planning a life together. That was scary now for so many reasons.
Basketball was supposed to come first, yes, but Layne had gotten sick again, so Shay had spent half of her night researching the same things Layne had looked up before she’d gone to sleep. Some people who had gotten the virus multiple times did say it was easier the second time around, but in every article she’d found, she also saw many people saying that it was worse. She’d been looking at things like mortality rates and ages of those rates to see how someone who was twenty-three and played college sports – so they were incredibly fit and ate right – might be impacted by a second infection. She hadn’t discovered much because everything was confusing, but Shay had woken up only two hours later to get everything packed in her room because the bus was leaving at eight, and she had hours on that thing to think.
It turned out, that time to think when it was just about basketball and how she’d played was fine. But time to think and worry about her girlfriend being in bed and probably in pain and misery only meant that Shay ended up letting tears fall down her cheeks before she wiped them away, hoping no one noticed.
When they got back to campus, the bus dropped them off at the dorm since that was always easier, with them all living there, and they didn’t need to go to gym for anything. Shay took the stairs slowly, letting her teammates go first. The whole time she’d been gone since she’d found out about Layne, she’d been trying to get back here as quickly as possible, but now, she took the steps one after the other and lumbered up them instead of rushing to her room, calling Layne, and checking on her, which was what Shay should be doing. She unlocked her door and dropped her stuff inside it. Then, she locked the door behind herself, flopped onto her bed, and stared up at the ceiling. When her phone buzzed a few minutes later, she quickly stood to get it from her bag, expecting it to be Layne maybe waking up because she’d slept in.
Hilton: Hey, I wanted to check on you on the bus, but you looked like you needed to be alone. Saw you crying, though. Everything okay?
Shay sat on the side of her bed and typed.
Shay: Layne has it.
Hilton: I know. Freaking out about us? Think we might have it, too?
Shay: No, it’s not that. I mean, yeah, of course, I am. We could all have it right now and just not know. But it’s more than that.
She debated telling Hilton about her and Layne, but they’d known each other for years now, and she trusted Hilton not to say anything to anyone unless Shay or Layne said it was okay.
Shay: We’re together, Layne and me. She’s my girlfriend. We sort of started something right before lockdown but made it official when we got back to school. I’m terrified right now.
Hilton: Oh, wow. I had no clue. Damn. Really?
Shay: Yeah.
Hilton: Shit. I’m sorry, Shay. Can I do anything? I think the answer is probably just stay away because that’s safest, but whatever you need, okay? How did she even get it? I’ve seen how careful she is. Do you think you have it, too? I mean, if you’re together.
Shay: We stay away from each other unless it’s a practice or a game. So, I don’t think it’s from me, and I don’t feel sick, but I also don’t know, honestly. She mentioned maybe the bathroom as a place she could’ve gotten it. I guess that’s the most likely location for all of us to get it.
Hilton: Yeah, true. Hey, hold on a second.
