Between Everything and Us

by Rebecca Paula

  “And I told you we can fight when you can breathe. So be quiet.”

  My body is a traitor. I start coughing again. “Whatever,” I mumble, reaching for a tissue. I have blood and gross junk in my mouth. I wish he’d get out and leave me alone.

  Beau hands me a glass of water and some pills.

  “What are these?”

  “The antibiotics the ER doctor prescribed.”

  I let him stand there with his hand outstretched. “Will you take these already?”

  “Why? Do you have a date?” The hospital bracelet around my wrist scratches.

  “As far as I remember, that doesn’t matter anymore.”

  I remember, too. That still doesn’t prepare me for the way my chest aches when I hear him say as much. “Then go.” I cross my arms, only now remembering that I’m not wearing a bra.

  “This is simple. You take these, and I leave. Got it?” He turns his head and coughs. Not a little cough, but something eerily similar to mine that reaches from the very bottom of your toes to rip out your lungs.

  “Are you sick, too?”

  He wipes his brow. “I don’t get sick.”

  “Ever?”

  He doesn’t look at me when he says, “Never.”

  ***

  My mouth is dry, and I’m pretty sure I’m being crushed alive by a ton of bricks. I remember flashes of white and strange faces, voices that were familiar and others that weren’t. I remember yelling and snow and how my heart had been racing before the night started to spin. How I felt as if I were on fire and how Cole pointed me out in the crowd.

  I remember him under the spotlight, playing my favorite song to a packed room. For me.

  Panic stabs at my chest, but my limbs don’t move. Everything is so heavy, and I can’t shake myself out of this stupid fog. My eyes part finally, my room coming into view. My lips feel swollen, and as soon as I remember why, I pat my hand over my teeth to make sure they’re all there.

  “You have a big bruise there.” Reagan points to her chin.

  I struggle to push up onto my elbows as Reagan stands in my doorway.

  “I wasn’t even drinking that much.”

  She walks in and sets down a steaming cup of tea. It smells like chamomile and mint. “You have pneumonia, Matisse. You don’t remember?”

  “You can call me Matt.” I scratch my head, trying to make sense of the things I do remember, like being stuck at the ER with Beau. I remember him and Reagan in my room earlier, hovering over me as though I were some science experiment.

  A cough scratches at my throat until I cover my mouth and let it rattle me. I flop back against my pillow. “Ugh, this sucks.”

  “Are you warm?” She grabs another blanket from the floor. Conflict plays across her face until she unrolls the blanket and throws it over my body. I get the feeling she was going to throw it at my face.

  “Thanks,” I say, avoiding eye contact. I don’t think she wants to be here, so I’m confused why she is.

  “Here,” she says, tossing me my phone. “Call your mom. She’s been freaking out.”

  With every sentence, Reagan looks pained to speak to me. I’m not sure why she hates me so much.

  “Well, thank you for—”

  “Yeah, sure.” She waves me off and leaves.

  I sit in bed, buried under blankets, staring down at my bracelet, then my phone. I’m not sure where to start. I scroll through my messages and send another quick text to Aubrey. I have a few from Cole asking if I’m feeling better.

  We were supposed to get something to eat after the show. Cole and I had plans. There was possibility there, and I messed it up.

  I’m about to respond when my phone rings. My mom. Great.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake.”

  “Hi, Mom.” I sink back into my pillow, clamping a hand over my forehead. “Yes. I heard you’ve been calling.”

  “This is not something to joke about, Matisse. Your father and I have been worried. We feel so disconnected with you being so far away. How am I supposed to take care of you when you’re in Oregon?”

  “I’m taking care of myself just fine.”

  “You wouldn’t have pneumonia if that were true.”

  I hold back a cough, even though it’s painful. It bubbles up into my throat, and I’m afraid I’m going to explode all over the phone if I don’t cave and let it out.

  “I’m working hard and caught a cold, Mom. I’m fine. The doctors told me I’ll be fine.”

  It’s a lie. I have no idea what the doctors told me. I don’t remember that part. I remember being wheeled in for an X-ray, then having to breathe through some sort of machine that made me jittery. I remember Beau sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, watching over me. The pained look on his face while he sobered up.

  “What about your finals? The deadline for the internship?”

  I knew I was forgetting something. Shit.

  “My finals are all set. Don’t worry.”

  I am worried, though. I look at the date on my phone and realize I’ve missed everything—every single one of my finals. I want to die. I can’t fail this semester. I need to keep my grades up, or I won’t be coming back when I go home for winter break. My parents will lock me up in my room again until I figure out my life. And if I don’t submit my portfolio, I don’t get an interview with Aiden McKenna. I get nowhere, and I’ve wasted all fall on a pointless pursuit.

  “We worry about you.”

  Her voice is frail, and I swear she might be crying. I get it, but at some point, they need to let go. I need to do my own thing and fix my own problems.

  “I could have gotten pneumonia at home too, Mom. I’ll be fine.” I start wheezing, and the cough I’ve been suppressing presses upward in my throat. “I’ll call a bit later. I think I’m going to take a nap.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  The line’s quiet when she sniffles. No one wants to make their mother cry. It’s not even my fault. Well, not really.

  “We’ve changed your flights. I called the doctor, and you’re not supposed to be flying.”

  And there—that’s the classic mothering I’m used to. She doesn’t trust me enough to take care of myself, to figure things out.

  “I have to go. I’ll call later.” I hang up before she can say goodbye and cough and cough until I have phlegm and blood all over my hands. Gross…

  It takes everything in me to get to my feet for a shower. I take an extra-long steamy one to the point where the warm water starts to runs out. I sit on the edge of the old bathtub and dry myself off and towel-dry my hair.

  That’s all I’ve got in me. I crawl into bed without brushing my hair or checking my laptop or figuring out the adult things I need to do. I should eat, but I don’t. I’m thirsty and I should have tea, but I can’t. I fall deep into sleep again, hugging a pillow, alone.

  Beau

  If I just had a cold, I wouldn’t feel like death, so whatever shit Mati gave me more like the plague. Pneumonia, my ass. I’m stuck in bed, hacking up my lungs, watching Netflix for the fourth hour in a row. I haven’t gotten out of bed because I’m too much of a coward to see if my legs are going to fucking work or not.

  “Matt, you owe me thirty dollars for the humidifier,” Reagan yells, slamming the front door.

  I bite back a grin. Reagan always did have a way with words.

  “You sound like shit,” she yells next. “I brought soup and stuff. It sounds like the zombie apocalypse in here.”

  “I’m fine,” I yell back. It’s more like a croak, but whatever. I am.

  She’s standing in my doorway next, her arms folded, her nose pink from the cold outside. “Don’t make me say it.” Her words are full of anger and sadness, and it’s fucking uncomfortable to deal with.

  I spot the heaps of paragraphs she holds in her eyes—her lecture. “Say whatever you want, Reagan. It’s never stopped you before.”

  She slams my bedroom shut and storms up to the bed. “I’m not doing this again. I’
m not going to be your fucking nurse when you can’t be bothered to go to the doctors.”

  “It’s a cold.”

  “Mati passed out, and you brought her to the doctors for a cold.”

  “Is this about her? I thought you and me could be friends, move on…”

  Maybe I should be nicer, but we were finished a year ago. Despite everything that happened with me, we had our problems, too. Mati is a hurricane, but Reagan is the human iron curtain. She never lets anyone in, not even when we were dating.

  “Does she know?” Reagan pops her hip, her bangs brushing over her thick-framed glasses.

  “About us?”

  “You’re fucking impossible. I don’t care what she knows about us.”

  “No?” And now I’m an ass on purpose. She was nice enough to offer me this room when her roommate ditched, but even I knew she wasn’t over me when I accepted.

  “You were nothing but a mistake, Beau.”

  The art of passive-aggressiveness is lost on her during a conversation. She goes straight for the jugular. “Get to the point.”

  “You haven’t told her you’re sick,” she says.

  “Hacking up my lungs isn’t quiet. I’m sure she can figure it out.”

  “Don’t do this. Don’t be an asshole.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  Reagan steps closer, her hands on her hips. “No. You were a good guy once.”

  This is what pisses me off about Reagan—she thinks of me as if I’m fucking Jesus Christ. Beau before MS and after MS. Like I can’t possibly still be the same guy. I get it, I do. She’s hurt and I hurt her and I was fucking miserable to be around when it happened, but if she can’t let it go, it’s not my problem.

  Everyone’s so quick to judge, to write me off.

  “I’m calling your parents. You know you can’t play with this.”

  “I’ll move out if you call my parents,” I say. “And leave Quinn out of this, too. This my decision to make.”

  Reagan nods, her lips in a tight line. She’s always mad, it’s part of who she is, but when her anger is toward me because of a decision I have the right to make, I draw the line at feeling bad. I spent enough time trying to make her happy. It was fucking impossible.

  “Whatever.” She rushes to my door, cursing under her breath. “Do whatever, you fucking idiot, I’m not going to stick around to get sick. You’re on your own.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Matisse

  His room smells like stale pot and motor oil. I have the humidifier box tucked tightly beneath my arms while I’m frozen in the doorway.

  “I’m not getting in that bed.”

  Beau tosses a few things off the bedside table, then kicks a pile of clothes until they’re mounded high in the corner of the room. “I’ll change the sheets.”

  “Nope, not happening.”

  I’m rooted at the threshold. I can’t be here with him, even though I know it makes sense that, since we’re both sick, we share the one humidifier. We can look after each other easier if we’re here together.

  “You’re so quick to judge.” He grabs the humidifier from me, taking it hostage. I cave and chase after it, refusing to let it go so easily.

  I take it back, scowling. “You’re telling me you invite all these girls back for polite conversation and tea?” I open the box and toss all the wrapping onto the floor, then plug it in, realizing I need to fill it up first.

  “I’ve seen the guys you bring home.”

  “There’s only been two,” I argue.

  If I hadn’t broken into another coughing fit, I might have managed to sound upset instead of pathetic. I’d rather forget the dry-humping incident with Cal. The other guy—I forget his name, but he was a really good kisser. That’s as far as it went before he passed out in my bed.

  “Doesn’t matter. Why are you slut-shaming me right now?”

  “I’m not,” I say, shaking my head. A cough rakes his body, but he still manages to raise his eyebrows at me, daring me to face the truth. “Fine. A little.” I kick my slippered foot over his floor, frowning when it sticks. “Maybe.”

  “A lot. For sure.”

  I stick out my tongue and leave to fill the humidifier’s tank with water in the kitchen.

  “I haven’t brought anyone back in a while,” he yells out after me. I almost miss the words beneath the running water.

  I think back to that blonde girl, then blurt out that he brought her back when I return to his room with a full tank of water. Beau’s body tenses as he turns to his closet, somehow managing to find a pile of clean sheets in a mess of shirts and jeans.

  “She doesn’t matter.” His voice is low and hoarse.

  “You hurt me, you know. When you did that.”

  Beau glances up from stripping the bed and scratches his face. Our eyes meet. I can tell he’s about to say something, except he only curses under his breath and goes back to stripping off the sheets and making up the bed.

  “Do I need to haul in a bunch of mattresses for you, too, or will this be fine, princess?” When I don’t answer, Beau looks up, his hands on his hips. “What?”

  “That was a fairytale reference.”

  “Mmhmm.” He whacks his pillow, then turns down the comforter. It’s funny seeing someone all tough-looking fluffing their pillow.

  “I never took you for a fan of fairytales.” I’m trying my best to fight back a smile.

  “I have a younger sister.”

  Something I didn’t know. Beau’s not exactly an open book, but this takes me by surprise. I walk around to the side of the bed, then volley my glance between the mattress and Beau. Why do I feel like this is the biggest mistake of my life?

  I crawl in, snuggling deep into the blankets. I have to admit, I like the way his sheets smell like him. I like the fact that his queen bed is heaven after being stuck in my twin for the past few months.

  I’m already drifting off to sleep when he says, “Hey, Mati?”

  I sort of hate how I’m so completely comfortable here. With him. “Yeah?”

  “You’re in my bed.”

  I roll over and clothesline him across his stomach, luckily avoiding his broken ribs. “It took me having pneumonia. Don’t sound so smug about it.”

  “I’ll count my blessings.” His voice is low and soft. I convince myself it’s only his cold, nothing to do with the short distance between us…in his bed.

  I push up onto my elbows and wrinkle my nose. “Keep it up and I’m going to leave.”

  He ruffles his hair, wearing satisfied grin. “Fine, I’ll draw a line down the middle of the bed. Will that make you happy?”

  My eyes are pinned on the way he’s biting his bottom lip. I can’t think about his mouth. I shouldn’t. “For someone who can’t breathe, you sure do talk a lot.”

  The bed shakes, and I peek over my shoulder as I settle back on my side. He tries to hold back a laugh, which quickly turns into a cough. His face grows red as it shakes his body. I can hear it rattling his chest. It must hurt, especially after his accident.

  For whatever reason, I move a little closer, my fingertips brushing against his on top of the covers.

  “How do you feel?” I ask softly.

  “Like shit.”

  It’s a few minutes before I say, “At least we feel like shit together.”

  That might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever said to anyone.

  ***

  Like every predictable rom-com, I wake nestled tight against Beau in the morning. I’m wiping my drool off his chest when he wakes up.

  “You crossed the line, shortcake.” Beau’s voice is as low as the rumble of his bike pipes.

  I fight back yet another smile. “I thought we talked about these pet names of yours.”

  “That was creative.”

  “It’s also a dessert,” I say. “Cut it out.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  That’s the truth. I’m the oldest twenty-year-old I know.

  Beau grabs
his phone and scrolls through it for a few minutes, then suddenly says, “According to WebMD, I’m dying. Grant a dying man his last wish?”

  I roll my eyes. “Not a chance.”

  I yawn, then slap my hand over my mouth. I’m in Beau’s bed. It probably smells like a fish died in my mouth.

  “You won’t make me soup?”

  I try to play it cool and finger-comb my hair. “You’re dying and your last wish is for soup?”

  “I can’t breathe enough to kiss you.”

  The guy’s covered in my drool, he has morning breath bad enough to knock me out, but he’s still got game. I think it’s the hair. I must be a sucker for messy hair. I mean, it has to be something because I’m staring at his lips, aching to feel them against mine again.

  We’ve only been together twelve hours, and already I’m forgetting why we’ve been avoiding each other. Why I was out that night for Cole to begin with. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want to be here with him.

  I roll away. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “Good. You smell.”

  I push up onto my knees and crawl back to Beau. “I thought you couldn’t breathe.”

  He sets the phone on his lap and licks his lips. His eyes narrow before his mouth breaks into a smile and that damn dimple comes out on his cheek.

  “You’re cute when you wake up. Even if you have drool on your face.”

  Oh God. I wipe my face with the back of my hand, mortified. It’s bad enough that I drooled on his shirt. Now I wake up with the crusty mess on my face, too.

  “I do not,” I protest. A cough rumbles in my chest. I can’t fight it. I start coughing and flop backward onto the bed. Dying. I’m sure of it.

  “You okay?” he asks when I’m finished.

  My hand is over my mouth, my heart racing in my chest. It feels as if my body is being torn into two with each cough. I only nod.

  The humidifier hums, but it’s quiet otherwise. Well, except for Beau’s wheezing.

  “You sound like shit, too, Grady.”

  His eyes are dark again, focused on my lips, and even if I could breathe, I wouldn’t be right now. I’m not sure how I’ve ended up almost in his lap. His waist is pressed against mine. It’d be so easy to lean closer, to rest my face against his chest and have his arm wrap around me.