[How Do u stay hydrated when you find drinking agua tedious bc I had to go to urgent care the other day because of it & it's been a nightmare since then
Also I'm still on semi-hiatus but my notifs are as dead as my will to do my homework]

The clock on Dallon's nightstand read two when I woke up in the middle of the night. My head was pounding, and I was sweating so much I could've filled an Olympic swimming pool if I wrung out my shirt. I didn't even want to look at the mattress; it was probably drenched.

Dallon was dead asleep, like usual. Whenever I'd tried to wake him up in the past, he'd almost hit me in the face with the baseball bat he kept by his side of the bed for emergencies that started with 'zombie' and ended in 'apocalypse'. Needless to say, I tried to creep out from under the covers without jostling him too much before sprinting to the bathroom next to his closet, and coughing up my lungs into one of the sinks.

I watched phlegm slide down the drain, ribbons of orange flowing with it, an eerily similar color to the pasta carbonara I'd eaten for dinner. It was disgusting. I never got sick. Getting sick was for wimps. Pete got sick all the time, but he had an excuse and slight medical issues. All the other people I knew that had been marked as frequently absent, were all stupid, and I hated each and every one of them.

In the mirror, I saw the lights flicker on and Dallon sit up. The sheets rustling were the only sound in the room, beside the monotonous hum of the ceiling fan that was more white noise than anything.

He rubbed his eyes for a few seconds and patted down the left side of his hair. He always got bedhead in that area because he couldn't sleep on his back. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Just... thinking about my future again." Honestly, sickness and that would have the same symptoms. Both made me want to puke.

The blankets flew up, and Dallon was out of bed in an instant, quietly making his way across the creaky floorboards, hopping on to the countertop.

"It's not a bad thing to admit that you aren't feeling well," he dug through the medicine cabinet over his sink, which was overflowing with so much medication, I could probably mix up some new types of hallucinatory drugs and sell them, "I used to get ill all the time, when I was little, at least."

"Oh yeah? Well, I have an immune system of steel. I never get sick." I said. Even my voice sounded congested and gross. Dallon pulled out a bottle of children's Motrin, and a tiny blue box from the top shelf.

"Sorry. I hate to break it to you, Superman, but it sounds to me like you're getting coming down with something. You can't fool anyone." He held out a dose of Motrin, and rinsed out the extra stuck in the little cup after I'd downed most of it.

"No I'm not! Getting sick is the stupidest thing ever. I hate it."

"When you get sick, you build up an immunity to whatever virus is in your body. Being sick is a good thing sometimes, because now you're more likely to avoid whatever this illness is, and never have it bother you again—"

"Fuck off. Who even gets sick anymore? Not me. I'm too good for that. I haven't treated my immune system right for seventeen and a half years for it to fail me now."

"Even the mighty fall." He held the back of his hand to my forehead for a moment. He frowned and reached into the box, and pulled out a small strip of gel spread over a piece of cloth. "Here. These things are called Cool Patches. They're supposed to help with fevers, and you have one, and they work really well. Appreciate the fact that we have them."

[theyre real things and lemme Tell u. I used to get sick all the time as a child and those things were lifesavers. They're amazing.]

Before I could protest, he peeled off the paper covering the gel and pressed it on my forehead, smoothing the edges. I was kinda glad I didn't get the chance to push it away, because it felt like a tiny piece of heaven. Even if I wasn't under the weather, I'd probably use it on a daily basis. "Wait, holy shit, where'd you get these?"

He smiled and slid off the counter. "They're nice, huh? I'll tell you in the morning, you should get some sleep."

I wasn't in the mood to argue. We had to go to school in the morning no matter what, something about the schedule with his parents and their work routines for the week, and my head was still hurting. So I followed him back to bed and let him pull the blankets over me, and I was definitely not arguing when he moved a little closer to me than usual.

🖍🖍🖍

"I think I forgot something at home."

Dallon pulled the keys from his car and froze. "No you didn't. Your backpack is in the trunk. You have your binder. Nothing is missing."

"Could you... check again? Please?"

He shut his eyes and rubbed for a good ten seconds, but even after he was done he didn't glance in the backseat. "Yeah. Everything's there. I know you're ill, and that you really just want to go home—"

"But we can't because we have three tests today, we're starting a new math unit, and all that bullshit." I'd gotten sick on the worst day possible. If I'd started puking my guts out yesterday, we'd have stayed home and I would've been able to sleep all day and throw up whenever I needed to. I couldn't bring any Cool Patches to school, either. Apparently they could've easily been mistaken for drugs, and after the spray paint incident, security had been heightened dramatically.

"Hey, now, come on," he pressed his lips to my forehead quickly, "we can watch a movie when we get home, and if you're still under the weather in the morning, then we don't have to come here tomorrow. We'll stay in bed all day."

I didn't wanna miss later. I lived in the moment. "Can we sit here for a while then? I'm, like, really dizzy."

He checked the clock on the dashboard. It was ten minutes away from the first bell, and we always got out fifteen minutes before and we'd barely make it on time because we had both gotten in the nasty habit of idling through the halls until the very last minute. "What if I carry your things? We're running a little behind schedule, and I don't want to be too late."

Truthfully, I'd rather die at the hands of bloodthirsty koala bears than to get out of the passenger seat. "I can carry my own things."

He nodded and slid out of the car, and I followed, but not as quickly. I still wanted to go home. He grabbed my backpack for me and tossed it into my arms, and waited for me to sling it over my shoulder before passing my binder over the roof. Then he reached for his own bag, locked the vehicle, and off we went.

We'd had people over last night. It was nearing Christmas time, so Dallon had hosted a small holiday party. I'd gone upstairs and slept and missed the whole thing, so I didn't know who was there. But he and Tyler were close enough, I knew he was supposedly invited. And it hit me that somehow, he probably got me sick. I wasn't sure how, and I didn't care to find out the exact details, but deep down I just knew it was his fault. Everything was probably his fault.

When we reached the top of the stairs, there were police officers standing at the gate, and the metal detector was running. God, I couldn't catch a break. I hadn't tried anything since I was transferred, and they still didn't trust me. It was truly a fantastic feeling, but it'd set us behind further, and chances were we wouldn't get a late pass if the bell rang.

Dallon held the door open and I trudged in and waved to the security. I recognized a few of them, but I wasn't sure if it was true on the other end of the stick.

I'd barely stepped through the door, just barely, god, the toes to my shoes were on the carpet. And the drug sniffing dog went insane.

My heart stopped. Dallon froze, dropped the bags, and held his hand to his mouth.

I don't do drugs. I've never done them. I would never smoke a cigarette let alone drugs. He of all people should've known that, why was he so surprised? We'd spent months around each other nonstop, and it looked like he believed the stupid dog more than he believed me.

"C'mon, Dallon," I kept eye contact and put my arms over my head as the guard started to crowd around me, "you know I don't have anything on me, don't look at me like that!"

He just shook his head and bit back tears pooling in his eyes while I got the pat down and thorough search. I wasn't scared. I didn't have anything. I never did anything. I'd piss in a cup and take a thousand drug tests without hesitation.

After a minute or so of looking for anything they could find hidden in my jacket, they pulled out a chunk of beef jerky from my front pocket.

I hadn't even noticed it. As soon as they pulled it out, the same dog that'd gone crazy earlier started barking again, pulling towards it like its life depended on that one piece of jerky.

"Huh," someone behind me huffed, "well, she's still in training. I guess she's got a long way to go."

Another one laughed. "No kidding. We should've brought Scooter instead; he doesn't slip up."

I shot him a glare over one of the guard's shoulders. He didn't trust me. He said he loved me, I'd said it back, and he couldn't muster up enough trust to believe me.

They cleared both of us, and shoved us away without so much as a late pass to excuse our absence.

"Okay, look, Brendon. I knew you didn't—"

"Shut up." I said, and I yanked my backpack out of his arms without another word.

Tyler Joseph was behind all of that.