Rain (9 page)

“Thank you,” I told him again. “I can probably find one of my shirts and change now,” I said, even though that didn’t sound very appealing at this moment. The fact that I probably shouldn’t be wearing another guy’s shirt escaped me also.

He looked me over and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Just relax.”

“If you say so,” I responded, trying to keep the relief out of my voice as I made my way back onto the bed.

Kyle followed me before he scooped up my iPod and started going through it. I watched him as his expressions changed depending on what he found.

“Okay,” he said, stopping abruptly. “This is why you got sick. This music sucks.” He looked at me in horror. “Really? Kelly Clarkson and Simple Plan? I can’t even continue. If I find Britney Spears on here, you may need to find a new stranger.”

“Hey! I like my music,” I defended, trying to remember if I had any of her songs on there, hoping I didn’t.

“That isn’t music,” he retorted, putting my iPod in his pocket.

“What are you doing?” My voice rose.

“Saving you,” he said seriously, pulling out another iPod from his other pocket and handing it to me.

“We are trading. Take my iPod, and I will trade back with you tomorrow.” He gave no room for argument.

“Uh…okay…I guess. But if you delete all of my music, I will hurt you.”

He just arched his eyebrow at me, silently saying,
No you wouldn’t,
and he was probably right, especially if he didn’t have a shirt on…

Okay, Taylor, get a grip on yourself. You have a boyfriend.

I’m just appreciating his body. Yup, that’s it
…

I found him grinning at me.
Crap. Does he know what I’m thinking?

“Well I should go before your dad decides to come back and kill me,” he chuckled as he zipped his jacket up.

“Yeah that may be a good idea,” I smirked.

“See you tomorrow, Taylor.” His voice grew softer and his deep brown eyes held mine for a moment before he headed out the door.

I should have said bye, but I just gawked after him until my parents came back with a new nurse.

“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked.

“Worse than I felt before I came here,” I grumbled, some of the nausea I’d had before returning. This officially sucked.

She checked a few things before leaving the room again. My dad’s arms were crossed and he had a tight expression on his face.

“What happened to your shirt, Taylor?”

Oh boy.
“Bathroom. I got sick,” I said, pointing. His face softened. “Kyle gave me his shirt because mine got…dirty and he didn’t know where to find one of mine,” I explained further.

“Well, that was…nice of him…” Dad said, searching for what to say. He smiled at me, and I think he was happy once he figured out that nothing else had been going on.

“Mom, can you get me another shirt please?” I asked.

“Sure, honey.”

Thankfully she got one from my bag right away and handed it to me, because once I had it in my hands, I was bolting for the bathroom again.

CHAPTER SIX

It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when the nurse woke me up again. The night had been spent in fitful sleeping between waking up to vomit every so often. I was tired and felt awful. Kyle’s shirt lay next to me on the bed. I had managed to take it off before I’d begun throwing up again. I didn’t want to get anything on it.

“Your breakfast should arrive soon,” the nurse told me.

I was beginning to get why Nurse Michele had insinuated that I would stop eating. After throwing up all night, food didn’t sound very appetizing. Pulling the blanket over my head and going back to sleep sounded much more appealing, so that was what I did.

***

“I’ll take that soup and crackers now,” I told my parents. This seemed to make my mom happy, especially since I’d slept through breakfast.

“Okay. I will go get it for you,” she said cheerfully.

“Thanks,” I said, pulling out Kyle’s iPod for the first time since he had given it to me.

I was still too tired to read or do anything useful, but I still wanted a distraction, so the music would do. I decided to put shuffle on all of his music since I figured I wouldn’t recognize very much of it. I found that there was a mix of louder and softer songs, and I didn’t hate any of them so far, but some would take longer to grow on me than others. I was surprised when I recognized the song
Home
by Daughtry. It wasn’t the kind of song I pictured Kyle listening to.

Mom came back with chicken noodle soup and some saltine crackers and placed them on the table before pushing it in front of me. Nothing like eating in bed. The soup wasn’t bad, and it was easier on my stomach than a heartier food would have been. I wouldn’t receive another treatment until tomorrow, and I was hoping that the nausea would chill out until then.

My parents gathered next to me, and we channel surfed on the small TV that hung down in front of me. The channels were a blur as we switched from cooking to travel to some overly dramatic soap opera. My dad even groaned when we came about that channel.

Eventually, I let the fatigue pull me back under, drifting from reality into a much-preferred dream state.

***

Austin entered the room wearing a blue shirt tight enough that the outline of his muscles could be seen. It kind of irritated me now. He needed a larger shirt. I smiled at him anyways, still happy to see him.

“Hey,” he boomed, grinning.

I sat up in the bed and patiently waited for him to hug me. I readied myself for the partial hug I would receive. It was even weaker than the other ones he’d given me since he’d found out I was sick. Great.

“You don’t look so good,” he said into my ear, making me cringe. Seriously.

I let go of him and pierced him with an angry glare. I knew I didn’t look
good.
I didn’t need to be told.

“Well, I’m not here for the fun of it,” I said irritably.

“Sorry.” He held his hands up in the air.

I was trying to remember why I’d fallen in love with him since recently he’d been saying completely wrong things and had made me want to punch him on multiple occasions. The only time I’d been happy seeing him lately was before words had come out of his mouth. That was probably not a normal thing to be feeling about your boyfriend.

“Whatever,” I responded, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice, although it should have been a known fact that when a girl said
whatever
, it was never just
whatever.
Too bad guys didn’t usually get that.

Austin was smiling at me again like everything was fine. Everything was just fine. Then nausea hit me again, and things were
even
more just fine.
Throwing the blankets off, I jumped off the bed and rushed to the bathroom. Austin didn’t follow me, and this time I was left alone as my lunch once again ended up in the toilet.

When I emerged from the bathroom, my eyes landed on Austin. He was close to the door that led out of the room, and he was pale.

“I’m…I’m going to head out,” he stammered.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Big strong Austin couldn’t handle his girlfriend getting sick. In a way, it was humorous. I didn’t bother going over to him; instead, I crawled back into the welcoming bed.

“Okay. Send my parents in,” I told him.

Surprisingly, I found myself disappointed. I went from not wanting anyone near me when I was throwing up to being upset that Austin hadn’t even tried to be there for me and help me. Kyle had taken care of me when he didn’t have any obligation to. He could have just left when I got sick, and it wouldn’t have fazed me, but he hadn’t. He’d held my hair back and given me his flipping shirt. My own boyfriend, who should have been here for me, had been the one who couldn’t escape fast enough. I didn’t even notice him leave as I tried to wrap my brain around his and Kyle’s actions. I guessed no one was what I’d expected…

***

“So, Dad and I have to go back to work,” Mom told me nervously once Kyle had left. He had come to visit and switch back iPods as promised. He’d visited for a while, and I’d managed not to get sick in front of him.

“Okay,” I answered. I knew they wouldn’t be able to stop going to work, so this didn’t surprise me. I wanted them to be here all the time, but in the same instance, it was a relief because I felt bad that I hadn’t been very good company and had wanted to sleep most of the time. Things would probably continue to be like this, and it would be good for my parents to escape for a while even if it was just for work. I wouldn’t have to worry about staying awake for them either.

My mom’s nervousness subsided; she must have thought I would be upset. “We will have our cell phones at all times, and we gave the hospital all of our contact numbers. If you need us, we will be here, and we will be back right after work too,” she promised as more worry seemed to set into her face. It was probably hard for them to leave me, in case something did happen.

“I’ll be okay,” I assured, and Mom’s eyes began tearing up. She wrapped her arms around me tightly, hugging me the way I liked to be hugged, and I let my head rest on her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, which made the tears start flowing. I’d meant to do the opposite.

Dad’s eyes looked foggy, but he held it together better than Mom. I felt wet drops hit my shirt and soak through to my skin.

I tried to console her. “It’s really okay, Mom. I’ll get to sleep without feeling bad that you and Dad are stuck with me in the hospital, and that is all I want to do.”

“We aren’t stuck here, sweetie. We want to be with you,” Dad answered for her. I knew they wanted to be here with me, but it didn’t make me feel any better about the situation.

“I know, but when you are here, I feel like I should be awake for you,” I admitted, hoping that this made them think going to work would actually be good for me.

They looked at each other, having some kind of silent conversation like parents did.    

“Okay,” they both said together, which made me smile, and Dad came and joined the hug as Mom held me close to her again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The rest of the week blurred together. I didn’t even realize it was Friday until Liz showed up in my room, sleeping bag in hand. I never knew she owned a sleeping bag. Camping wasn’t exactly her thing, and when she slept over, she just slept with me. That was starting to prove more difficult now that we were both a lot bigger than when we started these sleep overs. I needed to talk my parents into getting me a bigger bed once I was out of here or maybe just buy another bed for Liz to sleep on. That would work.

“How was your week?” she bubbled, throwing down her stuff in the room like she owned the place.

“Let’s see—there was a lot of sleeping and puking,” I said bluntly.

She scrunched up her face and crossed her arms. “Yuck. Maybe I should tell you about my week instead.” She smiled again, and I was ready for her distraction. She sat on my bed and instantly became animated, waving her hands around as she talked. “So you know Jarrod?” she asked but didn’t wait for me to answer. “He asked me out! Well, sort of. He asked me to come to this party next weekend. Can you believe it? If we dated, it would be perfect since he is friends with Austin. We could double, and he is pretty damn hot. I did get that stupid paper done. It took forever. Seriously, Mr. Clarke is trying to kill—“

She stopped mid-sentence as Kyle strolled in. She took him in, arching her eyebrow at him and placing her hands on her hips. Oh boy. He was rocking his leather coat again today; I wanted to wear that coat. Maybe if I had gotten sick again that day he gave me the shirt, he would have given me that next. He wouldn’t have had anything to cover his chest, but that would have been just fine.

Crap! What was I doing?

Liz gave me a curious look before she eyed Kyle again. “Who…are you?” she asked, dragging out the oo part of the who, even though I had told her his name before. Maybe she didn’t remember, but I doubted that because she had an unnatural ability to remember almost every guy’s name, especially the good-looking ones.

“Kyle,” he responded smoothly.

“Kyle who?” She scrutinized him openly.

An amused look appeared on Kyle’s face. “Thorne,” he answered without missing a beat. Dang, she was good. I hadn’t even known his last name until now—never thought about asking.

She slid off the bed and walked around him, inspecting him fully. “Not bad…” she complimented him.

What the hell, Liz?
She’d just gone to a whole new level of crazy.

“Now, Kyle Thorne, what are you doing in my best friend’s hospital room?” she questioned with her arms crossed, standing in front of him now.

“Way to give him the third degree, Liz,” I chastised her, finally breaking my stunned silence. Kyle smirked, clearly entertained by her, but I was still a bit mortified.

“Ah, you are Liz. I thought I recognized that voice,” Kyle said to her.

She arched her eyebrow again, wondering what he was talking about.

“You kind of yelled at Taylor in front of my house,” he told her.

Realization came over her, and she looked a bit embarrassed. “Right, yes. That was me. Taylor had gone MIA on me, and we needed to talk,” she justified.

“I am her new music advisor,” he informed her, which made me laugh.

“I was doing just fine with my music before you came along,” I told him.

“Fine. I guess you can say I’m a friend then,” he relented.