Page 40 of Never Thought I'd End Up Here
“Okay, that’s—yeah, don’t worry about it.” I rub my eyes as hard as I can without damaging any vital nerves and sit down on the edge of the bathtub and try to think. As with any time I’ve been sick in the past, whether it was a mild sore throat or a stomachache or a scraped knee, the first person I want to call is my mom. Even if she can’t give any proper medical advice, there’s just something comforting about her telling me I’m okay, I’ll get better, she’ll look after me. But I’m too far away for that, and I remember the uncharacteristically enthusiastic voice messages she sent me yesterday night.
I spoke with your aunt today and she says she’s heard some good things about your progress on the trip! Keep it up!
I’d hate to spoil her mood so soon, or admit that I’m almost considering skipping out on today’s competition because the sight of my face disgusts me. No. I have to solve this on my own.
A few minutes later, I’ve come up with a less-than-ideal course of action. There’s a mall just down the street from the hotel. If I can slip past Daisy and get to a store to buy myself a pair of sunglasses, then hurry back before everyone starts heading down for breakfast, I should be safe. After that, it’ll be a matter of making sure the sunglasses stay plastered to my face until the bugbites go away.
I change quickly into the outfit I’d picked out for myself and left on the towel rack last night, zipping my jacket as high up as it’ll allow and lowering the hood over my face. Then I slip through the bathroom door. I become a human shadow, the world’s stealthiest spy, moving so fast across the room in three strides that I barely catch Daisy’s words before I dash out into the hotel corridor.
“Leah, where are you—”
“Be right back,” I yell over my shoulder in a rush. “You can get breakfast first.”
I manage to make it all the way down to the lobby without bumping into anyone. But just as I’m about to flee toward the entrance, I catch sight of a familiar figure nestled in one of the plush sofas by the receptionist desk. He’s reading. One leg crossed over the other, a metallic bookmark balanced between his fingertips as he flips the page slowly. He’s always carrying a book with him, and never the same book twice. I glimpse the cover from a few feet away. It’s a somber midnight blue, minimalistic, a translation of a Chinese text, judging from the title running down the center and the red-crowned cranes in the design. The kind of book that proclaims itself to be Very Serious—and by extension, whoever is holding it.
I try to muffle my next footsteps and slip around him, but I’m too late.
“What are you doing down here so early? And … why do you look like you’re about to rob this hotel?”
My muscles bunch with dread.God help me.I consider acting like I haven’t heard him, but Cyrus is already snapping his book shut and striding over toward me.
“What areyoudoing down here?” I ask before he can interrogate me any further.
“Oliver snores too loudly,” he replies with a shrug. “Couldn’t concentrate on the book up in our room.”
“Or you didn’t want to turn on the lights to read and wake him up, because as much as you hate to admit it, you’re considerate like that,” I counter. I can tell from the way his dark brows scrunch like I’ve just engaged in character assassination that I’ve guessed correctly.
“You still haven’t answered my question, which leads me to believe that youarein fact about to commit a robbery—if so, all I ask is that you give me advance warning to avoid becoming an eyewitness. And if not, then you’re hiding something,” he says.
My gut tightens, a thousand flimsy lies falling apart inside my head before they can even reach my lips.Screw Cyrus and his incredible observational skills.When I don’t reply, he takes a step closer and has the audacity to reach for my hood—
“Stop it,”I hiss. The elevator rattles open behind me, and as the sound of English cascades toward us, panic erupts in my stomach. Desperate, I seize Cyrus by the arm and drag him around the closest corner with me. It’s the only spot in the lobby that’s empty—there’s just a stall selling overpriced antiques that even the owner must have given up on. Nobody seems to have bothered dusting the shelves in months.
“Wow, this is all, like, really suspicious,” Cyrus remarks. “Are you … hidingdrugsunder that hood or—”
“I got bitten by something, happy?” I tell him, twisting my head away from him.
“What? Is it poisonous?”
I freeze. Honestly, I’d been so worried about how the bumpslookthat I hadn’t even given thought to the actual medical implications. As if determined to validate my new fear, the itching in my eyelids intensifies to an unbearable degree. “I mean, I hope not,” I say, keeping my tone as breezy as possible while I clench my fist tight to stop myself from clawing at the (possibly lethal, but whatever) bites. “I was just on my way to buy …”
“Medicine?”
“No. Sunglasses.”
He takes a moment to digest this. “Okay. Okay, I’ll judge you for that later—let me take a look first. I brought a few different creams with me in case of emergencies—”
I lurch back as far away from him as I can without knocking over a million-dollar porcelain vase from the Tang dynasty. “That’s super generous of you to offer, but I’m not taking this hood off.”
“Leah,” he says, regarding me with what could either be affection or exasperation, as if we’re playing hide-and-seek the way we used to as kids, and I’m still crouching in the corner after he’s obviously already spotted me. “Come on. I promise I won’t laugh.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re going tolaugh.” I tug my hood even lower. “I think you’re going to run screaming.”
“That’s not going to happen. Really, Leah,” he says, gentler, more serious. “At least let me look at it to ascertain that you’re not dying.”
“But I look so ugly right now,” I whisper, my skin burning.
“Impossible,” he says firmly.
