Page 83 of The Catch

“I stayed in,” he said like it was any other night. “Shawn asked me to go to Mass with them, but that’s not really my thing. And I felt like shit.”

“So you wouldn’t have gone with me?” she asked quietly. “If things had been different.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She wasn’t sure which answer she’d been hoping for, but that one hurt.

Thirty-four

When they walked out ofthe doors of the urgent care into the dark, the parking lot had turned completely white. It had been snowing for days, just enough to coat the ground and cars and make slushy puddles on all of the walkways. During the day, it would melt, then collect all over again when the sun went down.

After chest x-rays and blood tests, more breathing monitors, and a round of fever-reducing drugs, Josh had finally been diagnosed with pneumonia—the kind that required antibiotics and a case the doctor deemed fairly severe. The only reason he wasn’t admitted overnight was his relatively young age and good health, and the fact that the doctor had probably assumed Cat being by his side meant he had some supervision. With a prescription in hand, they were finally allowed to leave.

The Tylenol they’d given him had dropped his fever enough that his teeth weren’t chattering anymore. Even so, the cold night air hit him like a punch to the chest.

“I’ll go get the car,” Cat said when the first breath he took launched him into a coughing fit. “You can wait inside.”

“I can make it.” She looked at him like she wanted to put her foot down. In another lifetime, she certainly would have, but she simply sighed and started walking. “I really feel okay to,” he said, so she wouldn’t think he was being intentionally defiant. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but he also didn’t know how he was supposed to act. Seeing her was as hard as he thought it would be. At first, he’d been preoccupied with the pain and the fever. He barely remembered the ride there, but once they were left alone in that room, and he saw the sadness in her eyes while she cared for him like she was still his, he wasn’t sure he could take it on top of how shitty he felt. Now he just wanted to be home in his bed, asleep and unaware for as long as he could manage.

They drove a few blocks in silence, and Cat left the car running as she ran into the pharmacy to fill his prescription for him. Another thing he’d told her she didn’t have to do. Somehow, telling her that seemed to hurt her more than just letting her do it, so he stopped protesting.

They finally arrived at his house after a long ride where he’d been in and out of sleep.

She carried a couple of bags she’d ferried over from his car, standing so close he could feel her body heat as he unlocked the door and flipped on the porch light. He turned to take the things from her, but she shook her head, nodding for him to lead the way into his house.

The cold and the car ride had exhausted him, and he walked straight to the couch and flopped onto it, kicking off his dress shoes. He threw an arm over his eyes, but not before glancing around the room and noting the evidence of the depressing last couple of weeks still littering his house. Half-empty mugs of water and ginger-ale were on the end tables. His recycling bin was overflowing with the remnants of microwavable groceries. There were sweatshirts and socks on the floor where he’d gone through cycles of bundling and stripping, depending on his fickle temperature.

Cat took a seat in the chair across from him, sitting silently for a few moments while he rested his eyes. Finally, she stood and walked to the kitchen. “I’m going to stay,” she said over her shoulder as she began opening cabinet doors.

“Cat…”

“You need to rest, and you need to eat and drink enough to keep your strength up. You can’t do both of those things if you’re here by yourself.” She pulled down a mug and walked to the stove where the kettle sat on the burner, turning it on.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” he said once she was back in front of him. Getting through the holiday was hard enough; he couldn’t go backward in this.

“You didn’t ask. I offered.”

“It’s not… we’re not…” He sighed, running a hand through his hair and pulling himself up to sit. “I’m not your responsibility,” he said, forcing himself to look in her eyes.

“Look, I’m not going to get the wrong idea,” she said. She was forcing her voice to sound neutral, but he heard the shake. “I understand what this is. And afterward, if we can’t be friends, well then I’ll accept it, but right now you need someone and I’m already here. I haven’t stopped caring about you, Josh. Let me do it for one more night.”

The fever was still lapping at his brain as he considered it. An almost dream-like vision filled the dark behind his eyelids: waking up in the morning and finding her there making coffee in the kitchen, her laying on the couch with her legs slung over the arm, watching some ridiculous reality show. He forced the picture from his mind before he got used to it.

“It’s too hard, Catia.”

“Then go to bed,” she said matter-of-factly. “Just pretend I’m not here.” She turned away then, hiding her quivering bottom lip with a fake yawn.

Josh pulled in a breath to respond, but it stabbed at his ribs. He was too tired to argue, too weak to look out for either one of them. “Fine,” he said, pushing off of the couch and standing with some difficulty. “Do what you want, Cat. I can’t stop you.”

She nodded. “Is the guest room okay? I’ll find the stuff.”

“It’s all yours.” He turned toward his bedroom, the darkness of the hallway calling to him as he tried to ignore the image of Cat sleeping in the double bed in his spare room upstairs, alone. It was the same room he’d moved into as a kid when his parents died, then moved back into when he and Sarah had done this: played house even though they both knew it was over. He should board up that room—let it rot. He should tell Cat to sleep on the couch, keep her memory from mixing with the other ones that lived there. But he couldn’t tell her that without explaining how much it hurt, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

The t-shirt Josh had worn to bed was stuck to his chest with sweat. He’d been asleep for hours, and it had been at least a couple before that since he’d taken any Tylenol. He knew he must be due to take another dose by the way the pain in his chest had returned, clawing at him from the bottom of each breath. He kicked the sheets off of his legs and pulled in as much air as he could muster.

Cat was still up. The sound of the television floated in from the living room as he stood from his bed. He wasn’t surprised. She was a bit of a night owl, always keeping up the pillow talk well after his eyes had closed, and his answers became monosyllabic. He hadn’t gotten around to deleting the multiple shows she’d added to his DVR, so at least she wouldn’t be bored.

He used the bathroom and was just crawling back into his bed when the floorboards outside of his door creaked. Then there was a quiet knock.She fucking knocked.Being reduced to these formalities after all of the moments they’d shared in that room, all the ways they knew each other, was salt in a gaping wound. It was exactly why he didn’t want her to stay.

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