Fever

hot. everything’s hot, but i’m so cold. everything’s cold, but i’m so hot. what’s that? i don’t know. can’t really see; too…blurry. everything’s blurry. then there’s cold on my face. which part? i don’t know. forehead? yeah. forehead. cold on my forehead, wet maybe. i feel cold fingers. hear murmuring, can’t understand. say… ‘i’m here’? i don’t know. … later. i can see more, less blurry. still can’t understand. see her, though. pretty, like she always is. taking care of me. she feeds me something hot. soup? yeah. broth. … later. can understand her now. says, ‘you feel less hot. that’s good.’ still hot, still cold. don’t know. know i’m really messed now. messed up. … later. feel so much better. smile at her, thank her, refuse to kiss her because it’ll make her sick. i don’t want to play nurse. … later. a few days later. totally better (hopefully). give her a quick kiss, nothing more. she sniffs slightly; i roll my eyes.

Post-Fever
I scold her, of course, as we sit together on the couch. I tell her that she should have been more careful. We’re wrapped in a blanket, and its warmth and her presence are making me sleepy. That doesn’t help me in my stern reprimand.
  She shrugs, sniffing and rubbing her nose—which has turned red and is starting to run. She says, “I don’t care. I got you better.”
“But now you might get as bad as I was. And then I’ll have to deal with you being horrifyingly sick.”
“What, you don’t want to baby me? I’m insulted.”
I sigh. “Becca, I was totally out of it half the time. When I was aware of anything, the one thing I was thinking was that I had really f***ed myself up.”
“You were really sick, Donna. It was kind of scary.”
“Exactly. It’s not that I don’t want to baby you, it’s that I don’t want you to have a temperature of one-oh-two degrees.” I lean my head against her shoulder, and say, “Besides, you’re better at playing nurse than me.”
She hums—whether in agreement or just acknowledgement I’m not sure. We’re quiet, and almost drifting off into sleep. Then I say, yawning, “So what was I like as I hallucinated and thrashed in the throes of fever dreams?”
She rolls her eyes at my melodrama. “Sweaty. You mumbled a lot about being hot and cold. I don’t think you knew how much time was passing, or anything.”
“I didn’t, I don’t think… How many days have you been here?”
“Well, it was Tuesday when you didn’t respond to my text and I started panicking—”
“I can’t help the fact that I was delirious!”
“And that’s why I came over. I mean, I knew you were sick, but you’d responded before, so I was assuming that you were too sick to respond this time. So I told Jake I had to check on you, and he let me leave work early. When I came over, lo and behold, you were burrito-ed in your blankets and shivering and sweating.”
I pull a face. “I bet I was disgusting.”
She shakes her head. “It was kind of cute, actually.” She laughs. “You know you really love someone when you think they’re cute when they’re sick.”
I smile.
“Anyway, that was Tuesday, and today’s Saturday, I think. You do the math.”
“Did you stay here the whole time?” I ask.
She nods. “Apart from going to the grocery store to get some food that was actually edible. Jake let me take a week off.”
“But who would spend all day making iced coffee for the poor parched summer tourists?” I ask playfully.
She laughs, and then her laugh turns into a yawn, and I say, “You won’t mind staying here another couple days? I want to make sure you’re alright.”
“See? You are babying me!”
“You love it.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”

Fever
We end up falling asleep on the couch, and when we wake up, she’s overly warm and too sleepy. I frown and complain, but get her water and a pill to take. She thanks me, takes the pill, and goes right back to sleep. By lunch time, she’s still not awake.
I gently shake her awake. “Becca… Becca, sweetheart, you need to get up.”
She gives a small moan. “Don’ wanna.”
I feel her forehead. It’s warm. “Becca, we’ve gotta get some food in you. Come on, baby.”
She squints up at me. “Donna? I don’t feel good.”
“I told you you’d get sick taking care of me like you did.” I help her into a sitting position, and get her a piece of toast. She nibbles it, and complains when I make her finish it. But after she eats, she admits that she feels better, and we spend the rest of the day watching movies. That night, we move to the bed.
I’m woken up by her tossing and turning. I rub my eyes, then reach for her forehead. It’s hot now, and I purse my lips. I go get a washcloth, and soak it in water. I bathe her forehead, and the cloth gets warm much sooner than I would have liked. I get up again, and this time get a bowl that I’ve filled with ice water. For the rest of the night, I try to bring her fever down, having to change the ice water a few times as it melts and warms. I nearly fall asleep three times, still tired from my own sickness.
At around six-thirty, her eyes flutter open, and she mutters my name.
I stroke her cheek, and say, “Hey, baby. How are you feeling?”
She doesn’t respond to my question, and I frown, remembering my own inability to understand her. I get a thermometer from the bathroom, and manage to coax her mouth open and get her to place the cold thermometer under her tongue. I wait for the beep, brow furrowed with worry. She’s gotten very sick much more quickly than I had.
The beep sounds, and I gently pull the handheld machine out of her mouth, peering at its tiny screen. I swallow. 104.1?. “That’s hot,” I mutter. She blinks up at me, uncomprehending. I feel a small marble of panic appear in my chest and slowly start expanding, and I press it down firmly. “Okay,” I say, deciding that speaking to her, even if she can’t understand me, will calm me. “Becca, I’m going to get you some water. Try to stay awake for me, honey, okay?” I don’t wait for her lack of response, just get up and hurry to the kitchen for a glass. When I return, her eyes are closed, and I curse softly. I shake her, and her eyes open again. They’re unfocused, and I swallow the lump in my throat. “Here’s some water, sweetheart. Sit up for me?” I help her up, and help her drink the water.
She falls back asleep soon after that. I continue bathing her forehead, the marble of panic in my chest growing as she stops tossing and turning and instead merely lies on the bed.
Hours pass. When she finally wakes up around noon, I take her temperature again. It’s raised to 104.8?, and my hands start shaking. “I don’t know what to do, Becca,” I whisper.
Her eyes are already drooping shut. She whispers, “Donna?”
I lean forward immediately, and say, “I’m here, baby. What do you need?”
She fights to keep her eyes open. “’M sick.”
“I know. I know. What do you want me to do?”
“Donna?” she asks again. “Donna?”
The marble’s become a baseball, and it’s steadily growing. “Don’t worry, Becca. I’m gonna call a doctor, and they’re gonna tell me what to do, okay? We’re gonna be okay.”
She nods. I don’t know if she really understands what I said, but I let her drift back to sleep. I watch her for a few seconds, and then snatch my phone off the bedside table. I’ve opened it and my fingers are hovering over the keypad before I realize I don’t know the number of the doctor’s office both she and I go to. I scrabble around in drawers and her purse, until I finally find the little scrap of paper with the phone number on it, attached to my fridge with a magnet. I nearly cry when I find it, half because of relief, and half because I was so stupid not to check the fridge first.
I dial the number, and wait. The phone rings once…twice…three times… My breathing picks up as I touch her forehead and wait for the phone to be picked up. A fourth ring…
“Hello, this is Kaiser Permanente, how can I help you?”
At the first words, I can feel my heart lurch as I think the greeting is a prerecorded voicemail. At the query, I heave a sigh of relief. A small part of me thinks quietly that they should get a new person to answer their phones, so no one thinks they’re getting voicemail.
A much bigger part of me takes control of my mouth, and says, “My girlfriend has a high fever and I don’t know what to do.”
The conversation passes in a blur, and before I know it, I’m being told to bring her in so the doctors can check on her. I wrap a blanket around her, and half drag, half carry her to the car. I place her in the back seat, covering her forehead with the limp cloth, now holding ice cubes inside it for the ride, and start to drive. I struggle to follow the speed limits, telling myself that if I crash the car and kill us both I’ll have defeated the whole purpose of what I’m doing in the first place.
My hands are tense on the wheel, and I keep up a steady stream of slightly panicked, one-sided dialogue with her sleeping figure. When I get to the hospital, I gently scoop her up. The cloth-wrapped ice falls to the floor of the car, and I consider leaving it there, before wondering if they’ll make us wait and picking it up. I carry her up to the waiting room, where we’re told she’ll be seen to in just a few minutes. I settle her in my lap and wait, nearly falling asleep although it’s only around one o’clock in the afternoon.
When her name is called by a woman holding a clipboard, my head pops up and I feel a crack in my neck. I grimace, and scoop her up, walking over to the woman.
“Becca Stone?” she asks, glancing at the papers she has. When I nod, she leads me into a room, and tells me to put her down and go back to the waiting room.
“You mean I can’t stay with her?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Sorry, but only doctors and nurses can be in this room. We’ll tell you if anything happens.”
I wander back to the waiting room in a daze. I plop back into the chair I was waiting in, and tip my head back, staring at the too-clean white ceiling. It’s too bright. I squeeze my eyes shut, and yawn, then settle myself in for my wait.
Before I know it, I’m drifting off. I jerk myself awake, eyes going wide open, but I immediately feel them drifting shut again. I pull a face, but relax, and let the darkness take me.

Post-Fever
A hand on my shoulder wakes me up. I jump, and the man who woke me smiles kindly. “You’re here for Becca Stone?” he asks.
I nod, sitting up and asking, “Is she okay?”
He nods, still smiling. “She’s going to be fine. She’s still a little sick, but she’s awake, and can take a visitor.” I sit up straighter. His smile grows. “She’s been asking for you,” he says. “Follow me.”
I do, and a quick look at my watch tells me it’s six pm. I feel a blush creep across my face at the thought that I’ve been sleeping since one-thirty in a completely public space, but I push it down as the man opens a door and ushers me in.
She’s lying on a bed, and has an IV attached to one arm. She gives me a smile. “Here to gloat? You were right about the kiss.”
I sit in the chair next to her bed, and take her hand. I squeeze it, hard, and say, “You terrified me, Becca.”
Her smile fades, and she says, “I know. I wish I could have stopped it, but it was my body doing what my body will do. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I was just…scared.”
She reaches up with her other hand, and runs her fingers through my hair before tugging my head down so she can hug me. I cuddle into her, taking a deep breath. “I love you, Becca.”
“Love you too.”