Page 80 of Cocky Nerd
“You stay away from my woman. I know I’ve always been protective of you, because you’re my little sister and I don’t want you to get hurt. But I think you’re being overprotective of yourself right now, and if anyone’s going to hurt you, it should be Johnny, because it’ll make you stronger and he will do whatever it takes to make thingsright.”
“He might not want to seeme.”
“I don’t care if he wants to see you or not. Go check on him. As a friend. He sounded…lonely.”
The Lyft driveris outside my apartment building within ten minutes. I text Callie to let her know where I’m going. I text John to know that I’m coming. I don’t hear back from him. I have the driver wait for me at a Whole Foods while I buy ingredients for my mom’s specialsoup.
I ring the doorbell,expecting someone to answer the door—Gracia or Sanjay or Richard or some tech nerd employee whose name I do not know. I knock three times, the way Johnny always did when he came to our house. No answer. I panic. Because inside the brain where it makes sense that John would ask my brother to call and break up with me, it also makes sense that John isn’t answering his door because he’sdead.
I am so glad I still have his house key. And then I pause before pressing down on the thumbpiece of the door handle, because the sassy black lady in my brain is all:Wait, girl, just wait! What if this is all some kind of ruse to get you to come to his house? Some surprise grand gesture is waiting for you behind that door. Take a breath, get your shit together and make sure you look hot and lovable when youenter.
Okay, thanks brain, I’ll dothat.
I shake off the panic and open thedoor.
I am not met with a surprise grandgesture.
I am met with a series of very sophisticated-soundingbeeps.
The securitysystem.
I drop my shopping bag and go to the security keypad. I guess now we’ll know if John really remembered my birth date. I punch in a six-digit code, plus the “off”button.
The system turns off. He got my birth date right. Ofcourse.
“John?”
A few table lamps are on in the living room and foyer, the kitchen lights are set todim.
The first room that I check is his office, because it occurs to me that he could be working with his headphones on, but he’s not inthere.
When I get to the master bedroom door, after cursing my brain for presenting me with the imagined image of John in bed with crazy Montana, I poke my head in and see him in bed, alone,still.
“John?”
Hegrunts.
He’salive.
I go over to the side of the bed and kneel on the floor. He’s like an infant, so sound asleep. I place my hand on his forehead, and the shock of my cool skin against his hot skin wakeshim.
“You’re burningup.”
“You’re here.” He holds onto my hand with a weakgrip.
“I’m here. You’resick.”
“It’s not the flu. It’syou.”
“Well that’s justrude.”
“It’s not havingyou.”
“Who says you don’t haveme?”
“I took TheraFlu to knock meout.”
“You sounddehydrated.”
