“I’m never leaving my bedroom again,” I vowed, trying to hide another yawn.
“Let’s tell your parents I walked you home because you didn’t feel well. Milk it for three days and return to school refreshed on Friday.”
“Will I see you at all?” I asked, trying to sound casual—like my question was an afterthought.
“Yeah, I’ll bring your books over after school.” Logan paused, taking a deep breath. “Besides, we need to talk.”
“About what?” I feigned ignorance, and Logan answered with a wide-eyed are-you-kidding-me look.
“We don’t need to talk,” I muttered. “We’re cool.”
“Paige, come on. We need to talk.”
“So, let’s talk now,” I said, leaning back and misjudging how far I was from the bodega window, hitting the glass with a thunk.
“That’s why we should talk after you’ve rested up a bit,” Logan said with a smart-alecky smirk, rubbing the back of my head. I pulled away from him, scowling. Don’t hit me with the dreaded “We need to talk” while rubbing me down, buddy.
“Let me sort some things out first, okay? Just...promise me you won’t hate me,” he asked timidly. I forced myself to meet his eyes—cinnamon-colored eyes that seemed regretful, even though it sounded like he was the one about to break my heart, and I nodded. The problem was that I was far, far away from ever hating Logan Bradley.
Chapter 9
“WE SHOULD WAKE her up and find out if she has a temperature.”
“She feels hot, Richard. It’s safe to assume she has a fever. We don’t have to wake her up to stick a thermometer in her mouth. Just give her aspirin when she wakes and let her sleep.”
“We should wake her up to go to the hospital.”
Those words, spoken frantically by my father, penetrated the thick layers of sleep that wrapped around me, forcing me to open my eyes. My lashes felt like they were glued shut, and I rubbed them as I sat up in bed, my bleary eyes focusing on my alarm clock. It was around seven.
“No hospitals,” I croaked through my cracked lips. My mouth was so dry it made sandpaper seem positively luxurious in comparison. I reached for the red-and-blue water bottle on my nightstand—another freebie my dad had collected, this time from some sneaker company during the marathon—and gulped the now-lukewarm liquid, cringing as I recalled the story Logan had concocted when he took me home a few hours earlier.
My father had been in the kitchen when we got home, slicing potatoes for a dish that was sure to ruin carbs for me forever.
“Want to help your dear old dad try out his new vegetarian shepherd’s pie recipe? It’s got boiled beets and kale in it— Oh, hello, Logan,” my father had added coolly, his cheerful demeanor fizzling like my appetite when he saw Logan helping me out of my coat in the living room. I’d gotten progressively weaker as we walked home, and Logan practically had to carry me during the last five blocks, my bed taunting me as its pillowy treats got closer.
“That’s not your uniform,” Dad suddenly snapped, pointing at the oversize black sweater that fell far below the hem of my uniform skirt. I appeared to be wearing Logan’s sweater—and nothing else.
“Where are your clothes, Paige?”
My dad addressed me but glared at Logan, his face matching the flaming red color of his hair. I quickly tugged the hem of my sweater up, letting the bottom of my blue plaid skirt show.
“I’ve got my clothes, Dad,” I replied, giving Logan a panicked look. To his credit, he only briefly matched my expression before giving my father a wide-eyed, beatific look.
“Hi, Mr. Kelly. There’s a bug going around school and I think Paige caught it. She, um, threw up on herself during last period,” Logan added, wrinkling his nose as he laughed uneasily. “Her shirt was kind of ruined. So, uh, good thing I keep a spare sweater in my locker, right?”
“Paige, are you all right?” my dad asked, his suspicion quickly turning to concern. “Why didn’t the school call us?”
“No one noticed...I just feel tired,” I stammered truthfully enough, swaying on my feet. Logan reached out his hands to steady me, and Dad narrowed his eyes when he noticed Logan’s hand gripping my elbow—because apparently, letting me face-plant into the television would have been preferable to Logan actually touching me, according to my overprotective dad.
I could have gotten a migraine from the effort it had taken to not roll my eyes.
“Dad, if it weren’t for Logan I don’t think I could have made it home,” I said quickly, and Logan dropped his hold on my arm as he shifted underneath my father’s withering stare.
My dad had grumbled something about his kale burning and stalked back into the kitchen. When he was out of eyesight, I turned to face Logan, who was nervously staring after my dad.
“Really? I threw up on myself?”
“I couldn’t think of anything else!”
I grimaced now as I remembered the humiliating story, and my mom pressed a cold hand to my forehead, then to my neck, mistaking my sullen expression for discomfort.
“Does your stomach still hurt?” she asked. I studied my mom as she sat on my bed. Her dark hair was coiled into a no-nonsense bun, and she was in a classically tailored blue pantsuit—one of her “power outfits,” she called them. She only wore them when she was expecting a particularly stressful day at work.
“I’m feeling a lot better,” I said cheerfully, not wanting to worry my mom. She must have had a trying day at work if she’d dressed in her power armor. I stretched and yawned, my sore muscles twingeing. “Still achy and a little sleepy. But so much better.”
“Still sleepy?” My dad’s eyebrows practically shot off his face. “Paige, you’ve been asleep for fifteen hours.”
My alarm clock didn’t say 7:00 p.m.—it was 7:00 a.m.
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’ is right,” my dad replied, grabbing a thermometer off my nightstand. “Now, let’s see how this fever’s doing.”
It was one hundred and two, just as Logan had predicted.
“I think it’s this bug going around. It usually lasts about three days,” I said, trying to ease the worry off my parents’ faces that I’d put there. Again.
“We should take her to the doctor. She’s got to have an infection for her temperature to be so high,” Dad fretted to Mom, as if I weren’t even there.
“No!” I nearly yelled, and my parents stared at my outburst in confusion. I didn’t want to add antibiotics to the list of fake medications I was supposed to be taking. “Look, if it’s not better by tomorrow morning, then you can take me. I promise you, I’ll be ready to do jumping jacks by then.”
“Paige, I think—”
“I already feel so much better than yesterday. It’s only the stomach flu. Just let me rest. Please, Daddy?” I lowered my head and stuck out my bottom lip, gazing at him through my lashes. My pouty face was the one surefire weapon I had in my anti-Dad arsenal, so I used it rarely. But Logan and I hadn’t counted on my father’s overreaction to everything that had to do with my health in our It’s So Easy to Fake Sick scheme.
“Fine, but if your fever hasn’t gone down, you’re off to the doctor,” he said adamantly.
I agreed—making sure my face was extra-smiley for my mom’s benefit. I didn’t want her stressed out at work, distracted on my behalf. I knew it crushed her to leave me when I was sick. Craziness couldn’t be cured with cough drops and chicken soup, but a fever was something my parents knew how to fix.
After a stomach-flu-appropriate breakfast of weak tea and toast, I convinced my father that I’d be fine at home while he picked up some rich kid in the West Village. But the front door had barely shut before I ordered a massive bacon, egg and cheese sandwich from the bodega, cursing the bagel hole as I ate for not being full of delicious bagel. Apparently, opening portals to other dimensions really burned calories, because I was still hungry—and contemplating pancakes from the diner—when my dad returned with lemon chicken soup and convinced me to join him on the couch for a movie marathon.