I struggled through morning practice in a haze of watery eyes and never dry tissues. A normal person would have called in sick, but since I was sick all the time, I’d learned to deal with it. I managed to choke out a few gruff good mornings in between hacking up unbelievably huge wads of phlegm into the garbage bins. Did I get some concerned looks and questions? Yes. Did I manage to finish the work out? Also yes, but a bit more strained.

I could actually form a thought process without frying the systems now, but my throat was super swollen and I was still hot all over. Yet again, for the thousandth time in my life, I asked God why I’d been blessed with a body so seamlessly infused with a faulty immune system, because boy did it make life way harder than it had to be.

Classes were a blur. If I took any notes, I doubt I could even read ‘em let alone trust ‘em to be coherent. I was poppin’ cold meds like candies. But alas, the drugs soon failed me, making my bike ride back to the apartment unnecessarily laborious. I just wish I could’ve biked in a straight line, it would’ve saved me a whole lot of trouble.

After ignoring that blood stain on my carpet again, knowing it was too late to save it, I was already fully settled in a blanket hovel upon the floor, when a haunting realization hit me. I’d never talked to my professors about missing those tests. My eyes went wide. Not good.

I groaned and rolled over to cover my face with the blanket. Now I had messed up hardcore. They probably thought I didn’t even care. I still couldn’t believe I’d managed to miss the stupid tests in the first place. It’s not like this was my first rodeo. I was a senior for cryin’ out loud, not some clueless freshman. No offense... actually, a little offense.

The three tests were for classes taught by the most unforgiving teachers on campus. Professor Takahashi, Werner, and Edgerton. The Three Diablos in the common college tongue. Long story short. Don’t mess with these profs.

Of course, their tests all just so happened to be scheduled on the same day. And they just so happened to be the biggest tests of the semester which would decide our final grade. As Bill and Ted would say if this was part of their excellent adventure. Bogus!

I needed to move. I rolled to my feet with a groan, dragging my blanket along with me to the kitchen, my mind searching frantically for a solution to this situation. Making the tests up was not an option. That had been made perfectly clear earlier this semester. If you were going to miss a test for any reason you had to notify the professor at least twelve hours in advance. Guess who hadn’t done that because her body was incapacitated? Ding, ding, ding! That’s right. Me. I also didn’t have the option of hoppin’ into a phone booth time machine.

I have to fix this somehow, I thought as I chugged orange juice straight from the bottle, because I gave no cares at that point. Just for the heck of it, I popped a few more pills. Couldn’t hurt.

Lacking a better option, I used the last of my cognitive abilities and whipped up three emails, sending them off to their respective professors. Fingers crossed they checked their emails on weekends.

With that, I checked out for the night.

Sleeping for thirty-six hours brought me dangerously close to recovering from whatever sickness got me into this mess.

I rolled over to squint at the blurry lights of my alarm clock. Slowly the glowing symbols morphed into something legible. 3:30, maybe? It matched up with how dark it was outside. Good enough for me. After muffling a cough in my blankets, I sighed with frustration and rolled onto my back. I gazed up at the ceiling, listening to the hum of the furnace, contemplating life, worrying about graduating, pitying my misfortunes. Ya know, normal 3 a.m. things.

There was nothing I could do but wait for a response to my emails.

I turned onto my side and snuggled against my stuffed animals, their pressure on my stomach and chest comforting. The darkness was oddly calming, gently wrapping around me, making everything wrong with the world seem far away.

I laid there for a few seconds, trying desperately to ignore how much I had to pee. It’d been a while since I’d sat atop the porcelain throne, and my bladder was not shy in letting me know. Although I was loath to leave my warm blanket hovel, nature called, and unless I wanted to do some major laundry later, I figured I should get moving.

Sighing in defeat, I dragged myself from bed, taking my blanket with me. Not yet ready to abandon my hard-fought warmth, I fashioned it into a cape around my neck. I shuffled into the bathroom, smacking my shoulder into the door frame and letting out a few choice words to go with it.

So, I took my pee. I should’ve timed myself or something ‘cause I swear I peed for like, a solid forty-five seconds, maybe even a minute. Guess we’ll never know. After washing my hands, I felt around for a towel. I hadn’t turned on a light ‘cause electricity is expensive; I ain’t payin’ for that. Anywho, the towel, usually resting on the edge of the sink, was nowhere to be found. Not dissuaded in the slightest, I kept searching, assuming it had gotten tossed aside at some point, but my hands just got wetter? Confused, I grudgingly flipped on the light switch.

After recovering from my temporary blindness and a few forceful squints later, I took stock of what I was looking at. It seemed so out of place.

It was blood.

On our bathroom sink.

Again?

I guess?

My half asleep, still-recovering-from-sickness brain was like: Is this still from Thursday? Dang, blood lasts a long time. And then panic hit me that I hadn’t washed my bloody clothes yet and by now they were probably ruined forever. That, and the head-sized spot on my bedroom carpet was going to be a permanent feature of the apartment now.

Then the more rational side of my brain said, ‘Hey, I can’t really do laundry right now anyway, so don’t worry about it. How ‘bout I get a snack from the fridge instead. Yeah. Sounds like a much better idea.’

Leaving the blood lie, I walked into the kitchen and almost astral-planed into a different dimension, probably one with talking trees.

A dark shape sat at the table. Mothman?

Hm. After going through all the different variations of panic, I realized it was Kyle. Again. Doin’ what he do. I guess. He must really like hanging out in the kitchen in the dark. Little weird, but everyone’s got their thing. He was also asleep. Not sure how, because that chair came off the street and had been there for a reason.

With a shrug, I continued on my quest for snacks. I was trying to quietly sift through the cupboard for my vanilla wafers when a sneeze slammed through me, which then slammed my head into the cupboard door, which then made me yell, “Fudge!”, which made Kyle jump up from his chair, which then made him kick the table over, which then slammed into me, which then knocked me to the floor, which then spilled my precious vanilla wafers, which then made me start crying, which then made Kyle yell “Frick!”

All in all, it was probably one of the most tragic sneezes in history. It was awful. My poor vanilla wafers were now scattered across the floor, wasted for always and eternity. And I guess I was now being crushed by our kitchen table.

Kyle ran over to me. “Shit, Sawyer. You scared the crap out of me. Are you okay?”

“I will be once this table is off of me,” I mumbled, sniffling a couple times.

He lifted the old folding table off, and I pushed myself up with a few grunts. He grabbed my arms and pulled me up the rest of the way.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fin – actually, I’m not okay.” Tears fell from my eyes like the earth was flat and they were on the edge of the world. “Because all my vanilla wafers are gone, and this was the last box I had, and I was really hungry, and I don’t know what day it is, and my nose won’t stop running, and I can’t see.” I dragged my shirt sleeve across my face and stepped back, wafers crunching sadly beneath my feet. “How ‘bout you? Are you okay?”

He sighed with a soft laugh. “Yeah, except for that start you gave me. I’m fine.”

“Good.”

“Yeah.”

“Ya know.” I looked up at him. “We should stop having weird meetings in the dark in our kitchen. It’s apparently not good for our health.”

“Yeah, I’d say.” He laughed, then stopped. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah,” I reached up and rubbed the back of my neck. “I think I’m bleeding again. Either that or it was raining in here and only my head got wet. Take your pick.” I felt wet drops gliding down my face. Once again, my clothes were covered in blood.

“Damn it! Come on.” He grabbed my arm. “We’re going to the bathroom. Again.”

The light was still on from when I was in there earlier, and so was that blood, glaringly bright atop the pale sink. I was awake enough to know that this time, it definitely wasn’t mine.

So, there we were in the bathroom again with Kyle cleaning blood off my face.

“Thanks, man,” I said after a while. “This probably isn’t what you wanted to be doing at four o’clock in the morning.”

“Nah. It’s okay,” he replied while dabbing at my forehead with a cotton ball. “It’s my fault anyway.”

I hesitated, slightly embarrassed. “Actually, I think it was my fault.”

“It was?” He paused, confusion in his voice.

“Yeah. You remember that bang that woke you up?”

“Yeah, I heard it. The neighbors need to learn when to sleep.” Funny coming from him.

“Well, actually, that was the sound of my head smashing into the cupboard doors when I sneezed.” I grimaced and could barely look at him.

“What?” He scoffed like I was some kinda weirdo, then let out a breath of a laugh. “How does that even happen?”

I sat there, not nearly as amused as him and not sure what to make of this Kyle. I admit I could see the humor in it if I looked past the pain between my eyes. I was slightly concerned, because I rarely saw him smile, let alone laugh. “Hey,” I started, “when you’re done. Could you maybe get a bandage on my forehead? That’d be great.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He laughed again, like he was replaying the whole situation in his mind. I sat there horrified, of course. I think this boy was sleep-deprived. “How much of a disaster do you have to be to pull that one off? Wow,” he marveled while dragging a pale hand through his hair, the short white-blond strands popping right back into their natural position. He kept the hair on the sides shorter than the top.

I sighed grumpily. “Nothing new, I know. I’m just a walking trash heap of disaster and bad decisions.”

He finally pulled out a bandage and placed it firmly on my forehead, patting down the edges to make sure they stayed. “Well, it sure makes my life more interesting, so there’s that.”

“Happy to be of assistance, dearest housemate.” I even threw in a mock bow just for his pleasure.

“Hey.” He leaned back, looking offended. “No need for the sass. I’m the one who has to clean up after you all the time. The least you could say is thank you.”

“Yeah, right. You’re barely ever around.”

He leaned back. “Ouch. Somebody needs a nap.”

Something about his tone just rubbed me the wrong way. Why was I the only one in the wrong here? I lurched to my feet and snapped, “I have been asleep for approximately thirty-six hours. Don’t tell me I need a nap!”

“Woah. Hey, just a friendly suggestion. In fact, I rescind that and am making a new one. After being asleep that long, you need some food,” he said lightly.

I crossed my arms and frowned, my sudden spike in anger receding. “Well, I already tried that once and look how that turned out.”

“Well, I’ll help you this time. See if that makes a difference.” He smiled, actually really nicely. I guess he had maybe half a nice bone in his body. I, for one, liked nighttime Kyle much better than daytime Kyle. Daytime Kyle was an a-hole.

“Fine, but none of those Nutella and cheese sandwiches. Those are just gross.”

“Okay, whatever you say. It’s your snack time.”

We meandered towards the kitchen and away from the bright blood stains that were already leaving my memory.

“How ‘bout some kettle corn and peanut m&m’s?” I suggested.

“Sounds good to me.”