Page 72 of Shiver
I slowly open my eyes, because doing anything at regular speed feels too hard. There’s concern still. Shining brightly.
“Come on, Egon,” he says quietly, petting my hair. “You need a shower.”
When I don’t argue, he takes that as consent and slips from my bed, pulling me with him. Deciding I don’t particularly want to be dragged across the floor to the communal bathroom, I try to cooperate. But everything in me feels broken and sluggish. Nothing works. My arms don’t move where I want them. My legs are too heavy for me to shift.
I stumble and Caulder catches me. “Easy,” he murmurs. “I got you. Come on, catch your breath.”
Only when he tells me to catch my breath, do I realize I can’t breathe. My lungs hurt and I feel dizzy. My mouth is so fucking dry.
“There you go,” Caulder says gently. “Come on.”
He gets me into the hall. It’s bright and I close my eyes, groaning. There are bodies around me. Faces. Watching me. But the lights make me sick, and I lose the ability to stand. My body crashes to the ground, taking Caulder with me.
There’s commotion, and I just lay there. Groaning at all the new pains in my body from where I met the floor. I should have just stayed in bed.
Caulder is saying something, but I can’t hear him properly. The world spins around me. My new friend, the darkness, pokes at me. Opening his arms. With a sigh of defeat, I let myself fall. Maybe Rake will be there. Maybe he’ll tell me why he hates me now. Or maybe I can escape to a place where he still wants me instead.
* * *
The world issilent when I wake up. I’m more comfortable than I had been on the floor. My body doesn’t feel so heavy. It’s bright, but the light doesn’t burn my eyes through my eyelids. As I wake up a little more, I hear the steady beeping.
That’s new. Is it my phone? Do I have a text message?
My heartbeat spikes and the beeping picks up. Maybe it’s Rake. Opening my eyes, I reach for my phone and freeze. I have no fucking idea where I am. This isn’t my room. Or the hall. It’s not Rake’s apartment. It’s not the rink or the locker room or the gym. Not a classroom.
Fuck, where am I?
“Finally awake.”
I turn at the voice, startled to see Coach Larder sitting next to the bed. The curtain half pulled across the room makes me stare and then I look down at myself.
“Fuck,” I mutter, raising a hand to my face. There’s a tube coming out of my arm that I pause to look at. “What the fuck?”
Coach chuckles. “You’re in the hospital, which I think you’ve worked out.”
I look at him. He’s going to tell me I was in a hockey accident, isn’t he? I have a concussion? Did I break something? I don’t remember being on the ice.
Maybe he knows what I’m thinking. Or sees my panicked confusion. It might just be the beeping of the machine being a tattletale and announcing to the world that I’m freaking out.
“You were severely dehydrated,” Coach says gently. I look at him, dropping my hand to my stomach. “And starving.”
His last words were said carefully. He’s watching me intently. Waiting for my reaction. “Starving?” I croak.
Coach nods. “Yes. Doctors said you hadn’t eaten anything in several days. You hadn’t drunk anything either.”
My brows knit together. How long was I in bed?
“Want to tell me what happened?”
I shake my head, and shrug because I don’t really know what happened. “I… forgot?” I say, looking at him like he’ll have the answer.
“Your teammates were concerned when you stopped coming to practice and missed a game entirely,” Coach says, still watching me. I gape at him.
Seriously, how long was I in bed?
He nods, apparently understanding something on my face. He rests a hand on my arm. “Egon, if you’re in trouble, if you need food, or to talk to someone, whatever you need, all you need to do is say something. It could be as simple as ‘I need help’ and we’ll make sure you have the support you need. But if we don’t know, we can’t help.”
I like his words. Iappreciatehis words. They make something inside me feel better. Feel seen. And yet, they don’t.
