The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  “You’re burning up, Catherine. You need to go home.”

  I started to shake my head, but he pressed his lips together in a hard line and glared at me. His glare was dark, way darker than my mother’s. It smoldered. Somehow he even made his eyes look sort of hollow, and I paused mid-shake and grumbled, “Okay…” then pushed myself up onto my feet. No one could glare like Michael.

  My teeth chattered.

  “Shit,” he said.

  “I’ll live.” I looked down at my cell and saw it was J.C. who buzzed me. I started to dial him back.

  “What do you think’s wrong with you?” Michael asked me. The phone started ringing.

  “Flu…” I said absently.

  “What? Catherine!” I looked up into his face as J.C. answered his cell. Oh crap. My mouth really needed to learn when to shut up.

  “Hey, Cate. Where are you? You’ve been gone for three hours.”

  “I’m just heading out now, J.C.” I said, and Michael and I started to walk.

  “You must be freezing. I’m already in the parking area. I’ll meet you at the edge of the woods.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “It’s fine. I’ll see you in a few.” And then he hung up. I guess J.C. needed his Michael fix today, too.

  “Don’t they make like shots to keep people from getting the flu?” Michael asked me. My heart momentarily stopped beating. I was so stupid. Really stupid. Really, really stupid.

  “What?” he asked. I avoided his eyes and looked down at my boots slogging through the snow. My stomach lurched. I did feel like shit. Damn it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked again.

  “I was supposed to go to the doctor’s office the last time I was here and get my shot, but there was a really long wait, and I wanted to see you. I—”

  “Catherine…”

  “Hey! I didn’t know I was going to get grounded and not be able to drive myself back to the doctor’s office later that week!” I snapped. This was all becoming a tangled nightmare.

  “Why didn’t you just have your mom or dad take you?”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Oh,” he said. Yeah. Then my parents would have known I hadn’t gotten my shot in the first place. That would have meant another lie to add to my rap sheet.

  “I don’t want to go home,” I whispered. Crap. I really, really didn’t want to go home. Everything sucked at home, and it was about to suck even worse. Michael reached out his hand and rested it on my upper back, caressing the nape of my neck lightly through my hood with his thumb while we walked. I tried to breathe deeply to let go of some of the tension, but my lungs were sore and tight, too.

  “I’m sorry, Catherine.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t infect me with flu.”

  “Yeah, but—” He stopped abruptly and looked down at the ground with his hands on his hips.

  I stopped and turned around. My momentum gone, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get moving again. But I waited.

  “Catherine…” He looked back up at me, his eyes hot with guilt. “Face it! If it weren’t for me, you’d have gotten your shot. You wouldn’t be fighting with your mom. You wouldn’t be grounded for lying. You wouldn’t have stitches in your hand—”

  “Michael…” I was way too beaten down to lift his spirits one more time.

  “Just…go.” He waved me down the path with his hands.

  “You have to come with me,” I pleaded, my teeth chattering again.

  “Why?”

  “Because…I need you,” I whispered.

  “Right,” he said sarcastically, but he crossed his arms over his chest and started moving again. He was silent. Brooding.

  J.C. was waiting for me at the entrance to the woods. He scrunched his eyebrows together over worried eyes when I arrived. “You look terrible, Cate.”

  “Thanks,” I snapped, and J.C. took a small step backward. Then he whispered, “Is he here?” He didn’t have to specify who “he” was. But he nodded without waiting for my reply. He must have caught the scent of Higher.

  “Hey,” J.C. said quietly, casting his eyes about.

  Michael stepped forward and circled J.C. noiselessly, leaving no trace of his passage in the snow. Then he passed his arm right through J.C.’s chest. J.C. didn’t bat an eye. He had no idea.

  “See,” Michael said, a grim smile gracing his face. “It’s always been only you, Catherine. Tell him I said, ‘hey.’”

  I cleared my throat. “Um…Michael says to tell you, hey.” J.C.’s eyes bugged out, and I couldn’t help grinning. Then he rolled his shoulders, glanced from side to side, and tried to look casual.

  “Tell him to give us a minute,” Michael said, walking back to stand next to me.

  “J.C., Michael says he wants you to give us a minute.”

  J.C. just stood there with his mouth hanging open, and I tried to take pity on him, but patience was out of my reach at the moment.

  “J.C.! I’ll meet you at the car!”

  “What?” he said.

  “Go wait for me in the car,” I repeated more quietly, reminding myself that he’d been an awesome friend over the last two weeks.

  “Oh…OH!” exclaimed J.C., and even Michael grinned.

  Michael rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then leaned toward me and whispered, “Tell him…tell him he’d be great.”

  I looked up at him curiously, but Michael just nodded his head toward J.C., urging me to pass his message along. J.C. was already picking his way back across the bright field of snow.

  “J.C.!” I called. He stopped and turned around.

  “Michael says to tell you, you’d be great.”

  J.C. smiled softly and glanced down at the snow. “Tell him I said…thanks,” he said. Then he turned back toward the car.

  Michael nodded to himself and grinned again.

  “You’re not going to tell me what that was about, are you?” I pressed, smiling back through a fever haze.

  “Nope,” he said, and then his grin receded like a playful wave retreating back out to sea.

  “Catherine—”

  “Don’t,” I said. I didn’t want to hear any more apologies. He lifted his hands, palms toward me, on either side of his chest, and I pressed my hands against them. They tingled softly. Then he tilted his forehead down and rested it against mine. The pain in my head eased up as it fell under the influence of his magic.

  “Just…don’t like…die…or anything…” he murmured.

  “It’s only the flu.”

  “Please?” he said, lifting his eyebrows.

  I nodded, and he lowered his palms and took a step back.

  He started to fade.

  “Michael! God never forgets.” I stuffed as much conviction as I could into my voice. “Never.”

  Michael gave me a half smile that didn’t even come close to touching his eyes.

  “Merry Christmas…Catherine...” he whispered and then disappeared.

  My mom took one look at me when I walked in the door on Christmas Eve and sent me straight to my room. I had actually hoped that maybe I could cope with being sick on my own in my own miserable way, but there was no hiding my red eyes, cough and dripping nose from her. She’d found me in my room a few minutes later, huddled under several blankets, still shivering with fever.

  “Oh, Catherine…” was all she said. She’d put her hand on my back, but even the lightest of her touches irritated my feverish skin. Waves of chills coursed through my body, my throat was on fire, and I was just so PISSED OFF AT EVERTHING!

  And with that caustic mindset, I drifted off into a febrile fog that lasted right through Christmas. Yeah. After all my talk of Advent and hopeful waiting, I missed it all.

  On the morning after Christmas, my mom decided it was time to call in reinforcements. Since our house now played host to hospice nurses during the day, she took me to the doctor herself. The nurses were a perk she’d received when the doctors gave my grandmother just
months to live. How’s that for morbid gratitude?

  “Cate?” the nurse called, checking her clipboard. I hauled my miserable self out of the waiting room chair and followed her, trailing my mom behind me. Once inside the examining room, the fragile truce we’d called in honor of my trip to the doctor was dragged out onto the thin paper of the exam table and prepared for dissection. It cowered under the fluorescent lights.

  Maybe I should beat the doctor to the punch line? Tell her about missing my shot?

  You should…definitely.

  Going once…

  Going twice…

  “Mom…” I began in a hoarse whisper, but the door swung open, and Doctor Fontana bustled in. He smiled at both of us, projecting his cheerful confidence into the room.

  “So…” he said, flipping through the pages on his clipboard. “What brings you in today, Cate?”

  “I—”

  “She’s been sick since Christmas Eve. Her fever won’t come down. She’s using her inhaler as often as she can, but she’s still having trouble breathing…” My mom went on and on, doing all my talking for me. I rolled my eyes feebly.

  “Let’s have a listen,” he said, approaching me with his stethoscope out. “Breathe.”

  Ha! I thought.

  My breath rattled through my clogged airways. In. Out. Crap. Cough…

  “Any body aches? Sore throat?” he murmured, hopping his stethoscope across my back.

  I glanced at my mother and almost shook my head no. I had become attached to our current truce. But something shoved a barely-visible nod out of my head.

  Doctor Fontana finished listening and turned to my mom. “I think we should do an influenza swab. Flu’s already hit our area.”

  Confusion clouded my mother’s eyes. “But she got her shot.”

  Doctor Fontana flipped through my chart again. He shook his head. “I don’t see it here.”

  Confusion was replaced by stark understanding. I lowered my eyes to the black-flecked tile floor. No words were needed. Our truce was shattered.

  “I’ll send the nurse in,” he said, then left. And then…

  “Catherine…no shot?”

  I shook my head, but kept my eyes on the floor.

  “And your hand?” Her tone was weighed down with disappointment. She reached for my bandaged palm. I pulled it away from her, remembering the stitches that needed to come out.

  I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her everything.

  I lifted my eyes, my throat tight, but she was staring out the window now. Then the door swung open, admitting the nurse with her test kit.

  I hated the flu swab. Worse than the strep test. It just didn’t seem right that someone could shove a Q-Tip six inches up your nose, twirl it around, and not do some serious damage. But I sat there and allowed it. I gagged. My nose burned. My eyes watered.

  “Ten minutes,” the nurse said as she left the room.

  Deep space silence took her place. Ten minutes. I should have cherished those minutes because, as uncomfortable as they were, they were all I had left before I started to drown.

  “She has the influenza virus,” Doctor Fontana announced as he reentered the room. “When did her symptoms start?”

  My mom shot me a loaded gaze.

  “Christmas Eve,” I mumbled and then coughed violently, bringing up a thick glob of unspeakable gunk from my lungs. It sat on the back of my tongue, and I grimaced. Doctor Fontana handed me a tissue. I spat the crap out, then balled the tissue up in my bandaged hand.

  “I’d like to put her on an antiviral, an antibiotic, and prednisone.” My heart stalled at the mention of the last two drugs. I’d just finished a course of amoxicillin, would that matter?

  “Doctor Fontana…” I interrupted, almost without thinking. “Can I talk to you alone please?”

  My mom’s gaze went nuclear. I glared back at her, my mouth pinched tightly shut. The doctor glanced from me to my mom and then back to me again. He set his clipboard down on the exam table.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “Is that alright, Anne?”

  “Fine,” she said. She snatched up her purse and walked out the door.

  Doctor Fontana waited.

  I started to unwrap my hand. “I need you to do something for me,” I said, pulling off the last of the bandage and thrusting my palm out toward him. “Can you take these out?”

  His bushy black brows flowed together but then relaxed. He opened a drawer and pulled out a few stainless steel instruments.

  “Your mom doesn’t know about these?” he asked as he started snipping at the knots.

  I shook my head.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Well Cate, you didn’t stitch yourself up.”

  I looked away, and he sighed.

  “And I…um…just finished ten days of Amoxicillin,” I mumbled.

  He glanced up from his work. “That won’t make a difference. You’ll still benefit from another course.”

  “And…I don’t…want to go on prednisone,” I stammered, still avoiding his eyes. “My grandmother—she lives with us—she’s on that for emphysema. Doesn’t it like have bad side effects?”

  “Yes. But you’re healthy. You’ll only be on it for a week or so.” Then he paused, concentrating on the last stitch, which clung stubbornly to my palm. When he finally succeeded in yanking it free, he looked up, a serious expression on his face. “She lives with you?”

  I nodded, and his brows pulled together again.

  “Cate, when you go home, you need to stay away from her and be careful to wash your hands. Flu could be especially…problematic for her.” He studied my face to make sure I comprehended. My heart stopped, and then it pounded raw fear instead of blood through my veins.

  Oh God, what have I done?

  TWENTY-THREE

  CATASTROPHIC FAILURE

  NOW I KNEW how Michael felt while he waited with the Gardiners around his kitchen table for word on Luke Devlin. Only I waited alone to find out whether or not I’d killed my grandmother.

  And I waited…

  And waited…

  And coughed up the crap that settled in my chest into the shower drain every morning. My ribs and chest muscles were bruised and sore from all the coughing, but the pounding water and hot steam helped. I don’t know how other asthmatics fight their chest infections, but that’s how I attacked mine. The payoff for coughing everything up was lungs that were a little clearer for the rest of the day. The payoff was breathing.

  Grounded from the phone and the computer, and quarantined in my room, I had nothing else to do each day but worry about my grandmother, worry about Michael, and berate myself over and over.

  You stupid bitch…you selfish brat…what have you done?

  It was an insidious mantra streaming through my head in a voice I didn’t recognize. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t even get a message to Michael that I was alright. J.C. had flown to Puerto Rico with his family to spend the holidays with relatives.

  A week into this wretched existence, I was startled out of a restless sleep by the sound of my father shouting.

  “She’s sick. I’m not waking her up and—”

  “I’m not leaving until I see her! You need to—”

  Jason? What was he doing here? I pushed myself up to a sitting position, feeling lightheaded.

  “She’s not allowed to see anyone, Jason.”

  The storm door springs creaked and groaned.

  “You don’t understand!”

  “Jason, you can’t—”

  “Cate!”

  His voice was louder. I grabbed my robe and half stumbled out of my bedroom.

  “Cate!”

  He was standing at the bottom of the stairs. His hair was limp, his eyes were dull, and he’d definitely lost weight. He had to be sick, too.

  “Jason! What’s wrong?” My throat was filled with phlegm, and I coughed to clear it.

  “Go back to bed, Ca
te,” my dad barked furiously.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” I said, coming down the stairs.

  “I need to talk to you,” Jason said. He was calming down, but he was sweating, breathless.

  “Okay…what?”

  “Not here.”

  “Oh for the love of…” My dad reached up to grab Jason’s shoulder. Oh, crap. Think fast.

  “Can we talk in your car?” I asked.

  Jason nodded.

  I looked pleadingly at my dad. “In his car?”

  My dad shook his head no, but I was already moving toward the door. “Caty…”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I promised, throwing my robe on over my oversized T-shirt and then the unzipped parka over top. What was he going to do, physically restrain me? Punch Jason in the face?

  It was cold outside. My ankles were bare above my slippers and took the brunt of the icy wind. I pulled the terry cloth collar up over my nose and mouth to warm the air before I breathed it in. Jason pulled open the car door for me and then hurried around the front of the car, slid in behind the wheel and flicked the heat on high. He was shaking.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He turned to grab his backpack off the back seat, and I grabbed his arm. “Jason…”

  He stopped mid-twist. “I forgot about your stitches, Cate. They could go septic. I need to—”

  Then everything clicked. “Jason, it’s okay.”

  He turned around again to reach for his backpack.

  “Jason, wait! I had my doctor remove them a few days ago.”

  He stopped, but still looked flustered, so I held my hand out to him. “See?”

  He pulled it toward him and ran his thumb back and forth over the scar. Then he leaned his head back against the black leather seat and rubbed his eyes with his whole hand.

  “Are you okay?”

  He stopped rubbing his eyes and faced me again, nodding slightly. “Yeah…I’ve had some kind of stomach…thing.” I leaned back away from him reflexively, and he gave me a lopsided grin. “I’m definitely not contagious, Cate.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t look so great yourself,” he observed.