A Symptom of Love (GERI Labs #1)

25. Spacing

25

Spacing

A fter that breakfast encounter, Eleanor manages to go the rest of the day without bumping into Aiden. Or maybe it’s his sophisticated way of giving her space. Probably the latter, because due to their shared scientific interests, they both attend the same exact lectures throughout the entire day. And luckily there’s no sign of Tiffany or Oren, so they don’t have to pretend they’re a couple. Not anymore.

Eleanor tries to keep her heart in check and the butterflies in her stomach to fold their goddamn wings and stay muted.

An impossible task, but she has the rest of her life to master it.

In the evening, back in their hotel room, Alannah is busy packing, preparing for her red-eye flight back to DC. She has a big experiment she couldn’t postpone—the price of collaborating with other groups and the challenge of finding that ever-perfect timing that works for everybody.

“So you broke up with your fake boyfriend?” She can’t hide her not-fake disappointment.

“No, just taking a break after the most amazing night of my life…”

“I can’t really speak from experience, as you know,” Alannah says, stupefied, “but do normal people usually need to take a break after,” she air-quotes, “the most amazing night of their life ? It just sounds counter-intuitive.”

“Normal people—maybe not,” Eleanor explains patiently. “But let me remind you, I’m not ‘ normal people .’ And I must do it—to guard my heart,” And from the way her words roll out of her, it sounds as if this is the most reasonable thing to do.

“Oh, because falling in love with a guy who’s already desperately fallen for you would be so terrible?”

“Desperately fallen for me?” Eleanor snorts. “None of it matters if he takes it back.”

“Why would he take it back?”

“Love is a slippery thing. There’s no guarantee of forever.”

“No, there isn’t, there’s never a guarantee.” Alannah agrees. “But it’s worth the shot, don’t you think? Why do you bother running scientific experiments? You already know most fail. Yet you show up, and you bring your best foot forward. And you don’t give up. Because you believe.”

“Well said, Al! Only this one experiment is not one I can afford to fail at. I wouldn’t be able to deal with the potential consequences. Too painful. Too distracting. Not for me.” And with that, Eleanor locks up the topic.

Alannah just sighs, resigned, and goes along with it. And then she’s off to the airport. And Eleanor, she shifts back to actual science, her safest and most reliable aspect of life, even though common knowledge is something that tends to change too.

When Eleanor wakes up the next morning after a not-very-restful night, she tries to count the long list of her new symptoms. She’s gotten used to the impossibly fast heartbeats, the vivid dreams at night, the daydreaming, the butterflies, the uncontrollable bouts of excitement. All Aiden induced. Initially in his proximity, then even when he’s not around. And after their night together—it’s a constant—a very-not-steady steady-state. But this—this is new. She can barely drag her head off the pillow. Her body aches all over. Her eyes are burning. And her roommate is long gone, probably back in DC by now.

Eleanor struggles out of bed, dragging herself to the bathroom. Her reflection in the large mirror confirms that she looks even worse than she feels. And she’s pretty sure this is outside of any Aiden-induced symptom. So she stumble-crawls to her suitcase for that little self-test kit she still insists on carrying around with her, even though most people don’t carry these anymore, and face masks came off a while ago. Her favorite online custom-made mask store converted its website to other, non-medically related products. And people don’t even use the term pandemic in conversation anymore.

She runs through the motions, performing the test almost by muscle memory. Then she waits, staring at that little stick that within seconds already displays two lines. Once upon a time, two lines on a stick would have likely been associated with a positive pregnancy test, and oh God—that would have been so much more complicated, although unlikely for such test to come out positive overnight. But, she reminds herself, this is not a pregnancy test. And in this case, and generally nowadays, two lines on a stick are more commonly associated with a positive viral load. So all things considered—that’s a much simpler outcome. Yet—the timing sucks. And what also sucks is that she’s far away from home and has a flight to catch in less than twenty-four hours. And there’s no mistaking here, the line is bright enough to announce she’s positive, which means that she can’t go on her flight tomorrow, since she’s a responsible person that doesn’t want to get others sick. But even if she wanted to get on that flight, she probably wouldn’t be able to, because putting values aside for a minute—and that’s a strong enough argument—she also feels like… shit. Which is a massive understatement.

Eleanor slams her head back into the pillow, pulling her blanket over her throbbing head, letting her eyes—which are about to burst into flames any minute—rest. She feels lightheaded, although heavy-headed sounds more accurate… She’ll just sleep it through for a bit, then take care of everything else, like calling reception to extend her stay, postponing her flight, God knows what else. Every task seems like an immense effort.

When Eleanor opens her eyes again, she feels even worse. So much worse. And the room is dark now. How long has it been? Her phone buzzes, reminding her she might need to let someone know. She has like thousand unanswered calls, most of them from Aiden… “Booked us an Uber to the airport,” is one of many text messages he sent her while she was busy snoozing or passing out.

“You’ll have to go without me,” she types. Or at least tries to; different, unrelated letters jump onto her screen. Luckily auto-correct is helping out, hopefully guesstimating the correct verbiage, because re-reading is too much effort right now. She just hits send. So of course what comes next is an incoming WhatsApp video call.

Seriously, video?

And despite her current dubious state, her brain decides to delve into the fact that someone re-downloaded WhatsApp. She tries to decline the call but accidentally presses—

“Ellie?” Aiden’s face appears on the screen, his eyes worried. “What’s going on? Are you in your room? Hold on, I’m coming over.”

Does he have like a sixth sense to know it’s not some sophisticated way to avoid him?

“No, don’t come over here. I have—“ A loud cough escapes her. Great, another symptom to add to the list. “I’m positive.” Her voice sounds froggish. “There was a violent cougher at the evening session yesterday, I bet that’s where I got it from.”

“Your voice is so cute,” is what her fake boyfriend has to say. “But, man, I’m sorry. How are you feeling?”

“Had better days.”

“I’ll be over shortly with some soup and Tylenol. Anything else I can get you?”

“No, I don’t want you to get sick too! Planning to quarantine here until I can—“ another cough— “safely travel home without spreading it into the world.”

“You’re going to need some supplies if you’re planning to quarantine yourself. And some company.”

And since it might take several days before she can lift her head off the pillow, she says, “I’ll say yes to the supplies if you promise to leave them outside my door.” Another cough gets the better of her.

“Whatever you say, baby.” He looks worried, yet amused, by her tired insistence, and it makes her smile.

“Already feeling better,” she says.

Because yeah, his voice has that effect on her. Should she add that to her long list of symptoms?

She crawls into the bathroom to pee and wash her face, painfully chugging the last bottle of water in the minibar. She feels too tired, legs too heavy, to pick herself up from the carpet. Her head is spinning and pounding, her throat feels like a giant thorny lump has settled in it and will not, under any circumstance, consider relocating. She tries to cough, but her muscles hurt so much it’s an extreme effort. Getting back to bed feels like an impossible marathon she hasn’t trained for. She decides that a change of scenery can’t be a bad idea and possibly falls asleep right there and then, or maybe it’s a version of passing out.

Aiden seems to appear in all of her hallucinations, which is not surprising given he’s been starring her dreams since that night at the airport. In those dreams, she is always breaking their rules, especially her rules—the no relationship, not falling in love rules. Her dreams are the one place where her subconscious can break free and take over, where her rationale and concerns are not accounted for and very simply ignored.

But these dreams now are different, more like prolonged, fever-induced delusions. It feels nice, being carried back into bed, and tucked in. And having her bangs smoothed off her forehead with a wet, cold towel. Even if none of it is real. Imagining Aiden next to her, helping her up, trying to feed her soup, supporting her head, bringing water to her lips. And mostly making sure she knows he’s there for her. That she’s not alone. Not anymore.

When Eleanor wakes up in the hotel bed, not on the carpet anymore, she has to rub her eyes. Because this gorgeous, incredible man is asleep on the couch next to her. Which instantly makes that sweet delusional world and reality collide, or rather merge. She has no idea what time it is, but judging by the bright light shining through the blinds, it has to be morning.

“Your flight!” Her froggish voice comes out as a low, scratchy sound with zero volume. “You’re going to miss your flight.”

Aiden opens his eyes and appears by her side instantaneously. “How are you feeling, baby?” he asks softly. There’s that same motion of his hand, smoothing her bangs off her forehead, like the one she thought was part of a dream.

“Better, thank you,” she says weakly. “You’ll miss your flight.”

“I had Mrs. Jones book us new flights. Our previous flights left a couple days ago.” He gives her a fond smile.

“I’ve slept for two days?” Not possible.

“On and off,” he says quietly. Now that she strolls through the depths of her memory, she does recall some assisted trips to the bathroom. And some more attempts to get her to eat and drink. Gosh, she’s been so drowsy. And he’s been taking care of her this entire time, never leaving her side. “And we’ll finally have a chance to finish that puzzle.” A boyish smile on his face.

“Why do you care so much?” is what her brain demands to know.

“I just do. And I promised your mom I would take care of you.”

“When did you do that exactly?”

Was it after their first kiss? After that incredible night they shared?

“When you fell asleep on my chest, on the plane.”

Really? Why?

And it could be the fever, but she’s at a complete loss for words. A very uncharacteristic event, and very uncomfortable by all Eleanor’s means.

“So you’re one of these people who pay for WiFi on flights?” She brings them back to a safer territory.

“From everything we’ve just talked about, that’s what piqued your interest?”

“Well…” She gives it some thought. “Yes.”

A white lie, white lies are allowed.

“It’s expense-able, under WiFi fees during business travel.”

A smile creeps up across her face. It hurts her head. “I told you to stay away,” she mumbles with lost conviction. “I didn’t want you to get sick.”

“Ellie, I could care less about getting sick right now,” he says, “be it the latest pandemic or Ebola or whatever. You thought I’d leave you all alone, sick, in some hotel room in San Diego?”

“Wow, my pretend boyfriend was willing to risk getting ebola for me?” She tries to laugh but what comes out feels more like the consistency of dust.

“Ellie, I’m not pretending. I was never pretending,” she thinks she hears him say. “And I hope it’s not going to scare the shit out of you, but I want more than a fake relationship.”

Her brain and all other possible parts of her body that would normally partake in proper thinking, speech and reaction, all betray her. Including her heart, which just beats happily and stupidly, as if she hasn’t been running a fever and fainting on the carpet. They’re all willing her to say yes.

Except… no.

It must all be her mind playing tricks on her. A figment of her imagination. And her cough medicine. Even if her heart will be playing it on repeat forever.

And Aiden is right—it scares the shit out of her. So she just blames it on the fever, because there’s no way he’s putting down what her heart thinks it’s picking up. So in between her loud coughs she noncommittally says, “Even as a fake boyfriend you’re still the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”