Page 56 of The Last Love Song
“Your fever is way too high.” He cut her off. He grabbed his phone and jammed it in his pocket. “I’m bringing you to the ER because whatever you’re doing to take care of yourself, it’s not working.”
“Not in town.” She wouldn’t cave on that. No way in hell did she want the news of this getting back to her family—her mother—and adding to the Finley drama. “I can’t drive myself. But I won’t go somewhere local.”
Damn it. She hated relying on other people. Hated being in this position where she felt weak and hurt and couldn’t stand up for herself. This was why she wanted to get out of town.
But right now she hurt too much to be a good advocate for herself. Something had to be really wrong, something more than arthritis. Virtually everything she did was colored by waves of pain that churned nausea and forced her to lie back down. And that’s exactly what she did now. Gently, she placed her head back on the leather sofa and listened to Zach rummage around the room to find her clothes.
He dressed her gently. Thoughtfully. Even so, she could feel his anger and frustration in the tense way he moved. The cool divide between them. She wanted to tell him this wasn’t a big deal, but the fatigue of so much pain kept her from doing anything that wasn’t necessary. Besides, she remembered how much he hated secrets and agendas.
Her body had given up. It killed her to think that an hour ago she’d been enjoying the sensual nature of her body—and his—in a way she never had before.
Sex had been beautiful. Profound. And she’d been looking forward to more with him all night long. Except she didn’t have that kind of physical stamina anymore. In fact, when the time came to leave the house and head to a medical facility, Zach didn’t bother trying to help her to her feet.
Instead, he scooped her up in his arms, cradling her as if she weighed nothing, juggling her in his arms as he slid her into the passenger seat of the SUV, already warmed and ready with blankets inside.
He was such a good man. A good, angry man. She didn’t quite know why he was so upset about a health secret that was hers tokeep. But the cold set to his jaw as he drove her north—out of town—toward Franklin, told her everything she needed to know.
He’d treated her with tenderness and made her body come alive under his touch, but in exchange for a beautiful time together, he felt betrayed. Too exhausted to figure out why, let alone explain or apologize, Heather closed her eyes and fell asleep to escape the hurt.
Not only the physical kind, either. There was a new ache in her heart that had Zach Chance’s name on it.
The morning afterconfronting J.D. on the baseball field, Megan waited in line at her study hall teacher’s desk to get a pass to the physics lab. The class was quiet, the room unnaturally dark with a rainstorm raging outside. The girl in line in front of her wore headphones despite the teacher’s strict rules against it. Her head whipped back and forth to music only she could hear, her spiky blue Mohawk immobile, shellacked into place.
Sure enough, the teacher gave Mohawk Girl a pass to the principal’s office.
“Can I go to the physics lab?” Megan asked. “I have a makeup to complete.”
“I don’t know. Can you?” Mrs. Markowitz, an old-school English teacher, already scribbled the information on a scrap of blue paper.
Seriously?
Megan tried to smile as she corrected herself. “May I?”
Mrs. Markowitz winked at her as she handed over the pass and Megan scurried out the door. She’d dressed in sweats and a hoodie today, so tired from the night before she hadn’t even showered. But she needed to take the lab she’d missed the daybefore. She knew the science teacher—Ms. Leister—had a free period and would let Megan make it up.
As much as she hated being stuck in the halls of Crestwood High every day, she felt guiltier hating it when she knew how much Wade would give to trade places with her.
Wade.
His name circled her mind as she hurried past the full classrooms and down toward the science wing. She’d thought about him way too much since his unexpected kiss. What was she doing mooning over a boy when she needed to leave Heartache as soon as school was done? It wouldn’t be fair to let him think otherwise. And yet…
The kiss had been the nicest thing to happen to her in a long, long time.
Turning a corner at the end of a row of red lockers, Heather hurried into Ms. Leister’s room. A handful of underclassmen were already working in the back of the lab. Up front, she spotted the teacher speaking with Bailey McCord.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
She spun on her heel, causing her tennis shoe to squeak on the hard floor.
Everyone stared. At least, it seemed that way.
Her face burned.
“Your timing is perfect, Megan!” Ms. Leister called with a seemingly never-ending supply of good cheer. No other teacher embraced their subject matter with as much insane enthusiasm. “Bailey missed yesterday, too. You can be lab partners for the makeup.”
Bailey made eye contact for the first time in months. With her perfect makeup and flawless blond hair held off her face by a black lace headband, Bailey looked about as different as possible from Megan in her ratty sweats. Yet their expressions matched perfectly—both their mouths hung open in disbelief.
Megan’s brain worked fast to think of an excuse. She was deathly ill. She just got her period. She could fake a fainting spell like the women in all those Ann Radcliffe novels she’d been obsessed with last summer.
