The Way This Feels

Chapter 18: Bone

The next day, while watching British TV with my grandma, the fever breaks.

"You're sweating." She says, sending her needle violently through her embroidery. "That means the fever has broken." Sure enough, I'm coated in a thin layer of sweat. I don't know how true the statement is, but I do know it's gross.

...

Violet lives in a split-level home that is decorated exactly like a magazine from the 80's. Leather couches, wooden panelling, brown carpets, and lots and lots of wallpaper. That's where I go on the first day I'm allowed to go back outside post illness. Her dad answers the door, a portly man with graying hair, mouth etched in a straight line, with Violet's kind dark eyes.

"Hello Mr. Wilson." I say tentatively.

"Hi Will." He's stressed. Two boys go racing behind him, one of them older, the other younger, the younger one heaves a foam football at the other and screams. Their dog is barking loudly from somewhere in the depths of the house.

"BOYS!" Mr. Wilson yells behind him. "Sorry." he grimaces at me. "Violet is in her room if you want to..." he strikes me with a look that I can't identify. Maybe it's the dreaded, "Don't get my daughter pregnant." look that I hate so much, or possibly my name has cropped up in conversation lately. I cringe imagining Violet discussing me and my supposed self isolation at the dinner table.

"Ok." I say pleasantly. "I won't be long." This seems to satisfy him, and he steps aside to let me through. I take the steps two at a time, pivoting off the landing. I tap Violet's door and it swings open; she's sitting on her bed. Her room is decorated in shades of navy, two walls are wallpapered with blue flowers, the other two white. Her bed is a white wire framed thing, and she has a denim colored quilt and comforter.

As soon as she sees me, she dives off the bed and throws her arms around my neck. "Will!!" She kicks the door shut with her foot and pulls me into the room. "What are you doing here? Where have you been??"

"I've been sick for a few days, no big deal." I say. "I just wanted to..." I'm not exactly sure what made me decide to come all the way over to her house. Partly because the need to know what information has been floating around and if I'm involved, no, how exactly I'm involved because I know I must be if Micah's acting guilty, has been eating me alive since his visit to my room. "...say hey." I falter. It would have been too much to ask for her to buy that.

She raises her eyebrows, so I plow on. "I wanted to say hey, I haven't been out of my house for a few days and I was going stir crazy, but also... well Micah was just being weird so I thought we could chat."

Her face glows, and I feel a bit guilty baiting her with possible gossip, but I sit down on the edge of the bed anyway. "So what have you been up to?" I ask innocently.

"Oh nothing, no youth group this week, but I did chat with your friend a bit. He wasn't being weird though." She says eagerly wanting more from me. But that's not was catches my attention, a bit. That makes it sound like they talked more than just the one time Micah mentioned.

"When did you guys chat?" I ask, and my voice is darker than I'd intended it to be. Her face shows this, she almost back away from me in surprise.

"What?"

"What?"

"Are you...?"

My face floods with heat.

"No no, I just... I said he's being weird um..." I look at my shoes, playing with a lock of hair, and praying the blush diminishes.

"What do you mean by he's being weird?" She asks. I force myself to look at her.