Page 75 of Say You'll Stay

He’s saving her again, just as he has countless times before. Willing to carry that burden for the rest of his life to spare her from it and she hates how wrong it feels to accept so much of someone who keeps giving and giving. The longer the fever rages, the closer they get to a fate that short-circuits her brain to dwell on. So, she focuses on those tiny little breaths instead of how Lucy’s begun to sweat.

“When I was pregnant, I used to talk to her all the time.” Olivia smiles through her tears. “I’d tell her about all the places we’d go and things we’d see. How much fun she’d have out here in the world. Adventures we’d take.”

“Like what?”

“Silly things. Going to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. Have s’mores by a campfire. Ride roller coasters and play fetch with our dog. We didn’t have a dog. Things I knew we could never do, but I promised her that I’d be braver. That I’d protecther…and look what happened. I couldn’t keep her safe. I couldn’t do the bare minimum as a parent.”

“What you did back there was amazing. This wasn’t your fau—”

“Cole, don’t.”

“No, I’m gonna say it ‘cause it’s true. You did that all by your damn self. You set that place on fire and got her back. Didn’t need me or anyone else to rescue you. No one coulda done better. No one. You saved us both.”

With her breath hitching and her heart squeezing, she only wants to settle into his lap and stay in the shelter of his arms, where tragedies like this can’t touch her. At any other time, she’d soak his words up like a sponge, but right now, nothing can reach any part of her that hears it. “You’ll stay, right? The whole time?”

A deep-seated fear of abandonment forces a question she already knows the answer to. There’s no chance she could do this alone. Can’t do it at all, but without him to keep her going she’d lay down and die, too. It’s too much responsibility to put on any one person, but she lays it on his broad shoulders anyway, wishing she didn’t have to.

“I’m staying. Don’t give up yet, we still don’t know if she’s immune. It’s possible.”

“A lot of things are possible, but that doesn’t make it likely and I can’t let myself hope.”

“I’ll keep hoping for both of us, then,” he whispers.

She has no doubt he will.

Even the cat knows something is wrong. Curled in a ball at the foot of the bed, Flower no longer seeks attention or purrs like a Harley motor. She is quiet and sullen and Olivia tries not to take that as a sign. Animals have a sixth sense aboutthese things, she worries, and it’s difficult not to read into the reaction.

The four of them settle in for a long night, fearing what the morning will bring.

* * *

They’ve got a washcloth soaked in cool water from a stream on Lucy’s forehead, treating the fever despite knowing it might be futile. Unable to watch her baby suffer, they’ve done their best to keep her comfortable.

It’s not enough, but it keeps Olivia from feeling entirely helpless.

She hasn’t gotten worse but isn’t better either. She hovers in limbo, hot and sweaty and too miserable to do much more than sleep. Hasn’t cried after her fit at the lab when Olivia found her. She’d give anything to hear a scream right about now.

Still, twenty-four hours later, her daughter is alive, and that has tomean somethingthey’ve both been too afraid to voice. Eventually, Olivia lifts her head from the pillow, propping up on an elbow to look over the baby at Cole. “How long does it usually take after a bite? Do you know? The news reports were all over the place.”

It’s like she flipped a switch, giving him permission to speak what he’s been mulling over. “Not sure, but once the fever sets in, it’s quick.”

“Quicker than this?”

“Saw someone once get bit and turn all within a few hours.”

“That’s fast.”

There it is. That thing she’s afraid to consider. Hope sneaksin and makes a home in this room, moving like an electric current between the two of them until it can’t be snuffed out. If they’re wrong, the crash will be even harder, but if they’re right, everything is about to change in more ways than she thought possible.

* * *

One day blurs into two, and before long, the fever becomes a far greater concern than the typical outcome.

Lucy is still hot and that can’t last forever, but they’re woefully under-supplied and lacking ways to treat it. She has to fight this on her own. It’s even harder to watch when body heat makes holding her for comfort forbidden.

As a last resort, they improvise a bath by filling the sink with creek water and plugging the drain. Lucy’s cry of protest when they lower her in is both a welcome thing because it means she’s strong enough to do it, and heartbreaking because they’ve made her more miserable.

“It’s for her own good.” Cole wraps an arm around Olivia’s shoulders while she props the baby up.

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