Page 63 of This Time It's Real
His lips twitch again, but his voice is firmer, more serious, when he says, “Don’t sound so certain. Touching my head with your hand isn’t an accurate way to assess temperature anyway.”
“Oh, well, sorry for not carrying a professional thermometer in my bag—”
“It’d be more accurate,” he continues, undeterred, “if you were to press your forehead to mine. Then you could properly compare the temperatures.”
I stare at him.
He stares back, a challenge in the sharp set of his jaw, the dark gleam of his eyes. He thinks this will be enough to get me off his back. He thinks I won’t be able to do it.
“Whatever works,” I say sweetly, relishing the flash of genuine surprise on his face before I wrap one hand around the nape of his neck and pull him forward.
Our heads touch, and at once I can feel the intense heat rising from his skin, his parted lips, the flutter of his long lashes when he blinks. And then the most wildly inappropriate and unhelpful thought of all time pops into my brain:
This is how it must feel to kiss Caz Song.
I jerk back so fast I almost pull a neck muscle.
“So,” Caz says after a pause. “What’s the diagnosis?”
“You have a fever,” I inform him, feeling somewhat feverish myself. Suddenly, I’m scared I went too far. What if he thinks I was trying to make a move? Or that I’d wanted to kiss him? Is it possible to detect these things?
The shrill ring of the bell cuts through my thoughts. When I look up, flustered, Caz is already rising from his seat.
“Are you going to seek out medical attention?” I ask hopefully.
“No, because I don’t need it,” he says, walking away before I can even protest, and I decide that I hate him. I will not talk to him, or question him again, or reach out to him. I couldn’t care less if he lives or dies.
Seriously. I mean it.
The moment I get home from school, I text Caz:
hey
are u feeling slightly better?
I stare at the message for a good fifteen minutes after it’s sent, as if I can somehow will it through the ether to wherever Caz is, but the little blue tick that indicates “read” doesn’t show up.Whatever. He’s probably sleeping.I slam my phone down and try to distract myself with a set of chemistry questions for homework.
It doesn’t work.
At 3:52 p.m., cursing Caz Song’s name under my breath, I message him again:
just checking to see if you’re still alive!!
But that doesn’t get a response either.
My imagination starts to run wild with the very worst scenarios: Maybe he fainted on his way home, and no one was around to help him. Maybe his fever was actually a symptom of something far worse, like cancer, or some other chronic condition that only gives him a few more months to live. Maybe he’s collapsed inside his own house. Maybe he’salready dead.
Logically, I know I might just be scaring myself for no reason. He might not even bethatsick; it’s not like I’m a doctor or anything. Maybe he isn’t looking at his phone . . . Or maybe he just doesn’t feel like texting me.
But logic doesn’t stop my stomach from tightening every time I check my phone.
None of my messages have been read.
At 4:15 p.m., I curl up in the corner of my room and stress-send another string of texts:
hi, it’s me again
sorry for the spam lol but I’m lowkey really worried about u? Are u at home rn??
