Page 141 of Wish You Were Mine
Ah, dang.
Strep wasn’t just a casual sick day. I’d had it a few times in the past and it always knocked me flat—fever, chills, the fire-in-your-throat kind of misery.
But at least Lucy was alive and able to text… which was more than I could say for some of the scenarios that had been running through my head during the past hour.
Ones involving dark alleys and hulking, nefarious men.
Yeah…apparently, I still wasn’t over what happened to her a month ago.
I wanted to text her back right away. Ask if she was okay. Offer something—anything. But I was still mid-lecture, standing in front of a lecture hall full of students with all eyes on me.
The second I got back to my office, though, I shut the door and fired off a response.
Me: Do you need to go see a doctor? Getan antibiotic?
Theo’s sister: Just got out of the doctor’s office. My mom took me. She’s in the pharmacy picking up my prescription right now.
Me: Thank goodness for moms who live close by and can help.
Theo’s sister: Seriously.
And I knew I shouldn’t be disappointed that she hadn’t called or texted me first…but part of me was.
Not because I thought sheshouldhave since I understood why she went to her mom.
Mrs. Archibald struck me as the nurturing type. The kind of mom who’d drop everything to take care of her kid, even if that kid was technically an adult.
Besides…it wasn’t like I could do much.
I had lectures to teach. Labs to run. And there was still the inconvenient truth that I was her professor.
Taking care of a sick student didn’t exactly fall under my job description.
Still…I couldn’t shake the ache in my chest that wished I was the one sitting beside her.
Holding her hand.
Making her chicken noodle soup.
Me: Are you going back to your dorm to rest?
Theo’s sister: My mom is taking me home with her since it’ll be easier to take care of me there.
Me: Sounds like a good plan. I hope you get feeling better soon.
Theo’s sister: Me too. Hopefully, the antibiotics will kick in fast. I don’t have time to be sick. (I may be panicking slightly about missing practice and all my classes. I really can’t miss the Nebraska meet on Saturday.)
She was probably spiraling. All week, she’d been stressing about how slim the odds were of her team making Nationals.
Sure, she and Nora had been rock solid all season, but the team had lost some really great gymnasts last year, and the team wins weren’t coming like they had the year before.
Lucy had been pushing herself to the brink trying to carry the weight of that pressure, saying that if the team didn’t make it, she at least wanted to qualify on her own for the all-around.
But with her getting sick, I wondered if she’d been pushing herself too hard.
Her body could only do so much, and she was running herself ragged.
I’d say that at least we have spring break next week and she could hopefully have some time off to relax. But when I’d asked her if her coach might lighten their load in honor of spring break, she just laughed and said that with only one meet between spring break and the conference championships, there was no chance of that.
