Stay with me

Chapter Seven

“There’s a fire within her,

golden embers in her eyes.

She makes me burn so deep

That just breathing hurts.”

—Oliver Masters

TIME PASSED QUICKLY as I fell in and out of sleep in the nurse’s station. The last time I’d checked, it was Tuesday, when I was only supposed to be here for one more day. A steady fever idled days after the nurse said it should have been gone, and no one could understand what was wrong with me. Bringing up the ecstasy wasn’t an option. I wasn’t a snitch.

Jake’s bright smile came from behind the white curtain.

“Hey, Mia,” he said, empathy lacing his tone. He stood uncomfortably beside my bed with his arms full of books and snacks. He looked down, and pity struck his blue eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not dying, Jake. I only had a fever.”

“A fever? Really, Mia? Everyone’s talking and saying they heard you freak out in the middle of the night.”

I groaned. “Great, so everyone’s talking?”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re okay.” He adjusted the items in his hand before a bag of chips fell out, but he managed to catch it. “I brought your homework assignments and snuck some extra snacks from the vending machine. I didn’t know if you had access to the good stuff in this … sterile environment.” Jake glanced around at the surroundings. “It feels like I walked through heaven’s gates with all the white.”

I squinted up at him. “I know. It’s blinding.”

Jake placed the stack of books on the side table and built a mountain of snacks over the top. He glanced over at me and brought his hand to the back of his head. “So, Ollie’s waiting outside … can he come in?”

The way he said “so” made it seem so casual yet afraid to touch a nerve.

“Why is Ollie here?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mia. Perhaps he wants to check on you?” He rolled his eyes. “Believe it or not, you do have people who care about you.”

Throwing my head back into the pillow, I faced the ceiling. “Fine, send him on in. Why don’t you bring Bria and Isaac while you’re at it?”

Jake made sense. He had a purpose for being here, bringing over my homework assignments, and, well, because he was Jake. But Ollie had no reason to come unless it was to find out if I had told the nurse anything I shouldn’t have. I raked my fingers through my hair and wiped the corners of my eyes before Ollie stepped in from behind the curtain.

My chest constricted from his presence and his green eyes penetrated my empty soul, knocking on every door, reminding me it was never the ecstasy—or had my fever never left me?

He paused to take in my condition and surroundings.

“You look like shit,” he said through a sarcastic smile and dragged a chair beside my bed.

I exhaled. “Thanks.” At least this wasn’t as awkward as I’d thought it would be. Maybe we could put the whole night behind us. He gri

His arched a brow while his other arm fell across the arm of the chair. “Checking on you, love. What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine and don’t worry. I didn’t say anything about the … you know …”

A small grin formed. “You think that’s what I’m worried about?”

If I were him, I would have been worried about that. It could have gotten him, and everyone else, sent to solitary confinement in the best case scenario. “I don’t know … what else would you be worried about?”

The expression across his face was nothing like mine. “You, Mia. I’m worried about you,” he said as if I should have known this already. But the only thing I knew was the direction it was going.

“No, don’t do that,” I muttered and waved my hand in the air.

He quickly uncrossed his leg and leaned into his elbows. “Do what, Mia?”

“Don’t take what happened as a sign we are in some relationship now. We were doped up.” I laughed lightly. “It was a mistake.”

He hung his head between his shoulders and slowly shook it from side to side.

Three seconds passed before he glanced back up at me, and something changed in his eyes. Half the hope was sucked out, and the only half remaining was mixed with confusion. “For the record, you were doped up. I wasn’t. I did what I did because I wanted to. Dammit, Mia, what I wanted was to wait until you weren’t fucked up, but you didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“You didn’t … take any?”

“No, I don’t do that shit. I’ll drink now and then, but there’s a line I’m not willing to cross.”

“Now I can see why,” I said as I looked down at myself. From an outsider’s perspective, I was sure I looked pathetic—ridiculous, even. Bria, Isaac, and Jake weren’t here after taking the drug. It was only me in this hospital bed hooked up to a monitor, the one who couldn’t hang, and who everyone else would make jokes about for the rest of the semester—or even worse, the rest of my time here.

Ollie reached for my hand, and I froze as his thumb stroked mine. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean for this to happen.” He paused and turned his head for a moment as if he was contemplating words he would later regret. “But what happened between us wasn’t a mistake, and you know it. Frankly, I’m confused because you said it yourself. You said you didn’t want the feeling to go away.” He said the words regardless.

Shut it down, Mia. I pulled my hand from under his. “No, I don’t think you understand. I have absolutely no interest in you. You were there, right place, right time I suppose. It could have easily been Isaac.” I shrugged.

A heavy silence built between us, and if there was ever a time I wished the nurse needed to check my vitals, it was now.

Ollie stood to his feet and glanced around the room as he rested his hands over his hipbones. I could almost see the thoughts repeating in his head as if they were white bubbles hovering over him like storm clouds. Was he going to blow up? Was he in denial? Was he self-destructing before my eyes? Had he already fallen for me after one stupid, drug-induced kiss?

But he didn’t take the drug …

“I know you didn’t kill your mom,” he said to me. “Why are you really here?”

My heart rate on the monitor steadily increased as I lost myself in his question. It was the last thing I had expected him to ask, and the one question I didn’t have an answer to.

“I’m tired.” I turned away from him to lie on my opposite side. Maybe I was unfriendly—cold, even—but it was the only way to stop while he was ahead.

“No,”—he puffed before a doubtful laugh followed—”you’re not tired, you’re impossible.” The sound of the curtain against the rod was the only proof of him leaving, and suddenly the room felt empty.

This was my fault. I’d let him chase me, but I’d been fucked up, and there was no possible way he could understand the truth. No one ever did. They believed it was a front, a charade, like I was doing this to myself.

I pulled the white sheet over my head to block out the fluorescent light. This was precisely the reason why I never kissed anyone. In the end, it was the boy who would develop feelings and get hurt in the end.

That evening, I was discharged after going twenty-four hours without a fever which ultimately screwed me on Oscar-Tuesday. I needed Oscar to smother this fire Ollie built inside me.