Beside me, a teenage sister and brother text nonstop while their mother cries into a tissue. A guy with a new baby and a toddler tries to jostle the baby while interesting the toddler in an aquarium built into the wall. On TV, a woman with saggy chins is told to pack her knives and leave a reality cooking show. The baby shrieks like a cat. Over the din, I hear Deborah’s tinkly laugh, followed by her struggling to push an empty wheelchair alongside a jacked orderly who resolves the problem by kicking up the chair’s metal feet.
Deborah stops short and coos, “Why, it’s Shane Cuthbert! And Julia!” oozing charm in front of the handsome orderly with the pipes. “You’re a little late for a visit. Liv is about to be discharged. It was just a touch of mono.” She looks pointedly at Shane. “No flowers?”
Shane, low in his seat, lolls his head to one side. “No, ma’am.”
Deborah looks up at the orderly. “Everyone has been so worried about Liv. Popular girl, you can imagine. Well, this works out perfectly. You two can keep Liv busy while I sign the discharge papers. First door on the left.”
Shane rises and slinks down the hall. I follow at a distance. He stands at the doorway, as if to say, Me or you?
“You go,” I say roughly.
Hands jammed into the pockets of his shredded jeans, he sways his hips and gives me a once-over.
“What are you looking at?” I say, so sharp it slices the air.
He nods, smirking, and slides into her room. I sink to the corridor floor and wrap my hands around my knees as Liv calls out, “Shane, oh my God. Thank you for coming. I’m already discharged, believe it or not. I would have told you…”
The door closes partway. “You didn’t answer my texts,” Shane says.
I scramble to the door and place my ear flush to the crack.
“The service in here is very spotty,” Liv says.
“I’ve been worried,” he says, hangdog. “I love you, Liv.”
“Oh, Shane. That’s so sweet. I don’t deserve you.” A creak, the sound of her shifting in her bed. “You know what I learned? The incubation period for mono is four to six weeks. You might want to get checked.”
“When did you start feeling sick?” he says, suspicion threading his voice. I can hear the gears in his head turning, see the bubble over his head that says, We starting screwing around on this date … Even Shane is capable of mental math.
“Four weeks ago. I think I got worn down, spending all that time preparing for my ethics oral. Mr. Austen has been really hard on me.”
Liv took ethics last year. What is she talking about?
“Austen? The guy who got caught in the sexting scandal with Gina Rubino?”
“Yes, him. Also, remember that reporter, Ryan Lombardi from WFYT? He and I have been working really hard on this story he’s writing about the state’s corrupt parole board.”
My muscles go rigid. That’s Paula’s angle on the story, not Ryan’s. And there’s no way Liv would be working with the media; she hates the media, wants the attention to go away.
“The guy you told me you think is good-looking?” Shane’s voice quavers.
Liv laughs lightly. “Did I tell you that? Sometimes I’m too honest for my own good. Anyway, I’m not sure if you heard, but the police failed me. There are so many facts you have to dig up—it’s perfectly exhausting. We’ve been spending hours and hours together, often until very late.”
“You’ve been with that little putz?” His words are compressed, as though his teeth are clenched.
“Ryan is a cruel taskmaster. But that’s okay. You, if anyone, know I like things rough.”
I spring to my feet and knock briskly on the open door. Shane whips around, close to the bed now, his ears angry pink seashells.
“Julia! I’m so glad you’re here!” Liv says, flushed. “Shane was just checking in to make sure I didn’t need anything. I told him I’ve been getting everything I need.”
Shane’s head snaps back to Liv. Against his thigh, his fist opens and closes.
“They’re letting me out early, mainly because I gobbled up every last bit of goo they thrust upon me and washed it down with plastic cups of apple juice. Yellow custard, neon Jell-O, crystalized Italian ices. All that sugar! Deborah made puffer-cheeks at me the whole time.” She says the last part to me, winking.
“I overheard you saying crazy, nonsensical things just now,” I say, underscoring every word. “Because of your fever.”
“Nope. Not saying crazy things, no. Shaney, could you find one of those hospital carts and steal me a tube of that hospital-grade Eucerin? It’s hand cream. Everyone steals it, the orderlies, the dietary aides. I’ve been watching them. It’s like hotel soap: you’re supposed to take it.”
Shane’s eyes flicker between confusion and malice.
“They keep syringes in there too,” Liv says.
He wipes his nose hard and stalks away in search of a cart.
“You look really well,” I say, because she does.
“Yeah, well. They overfeed you here.”
“I was at your house when it happened. Your mother was looking everywhere for you. They said you passed out at youth ministry?”
“Mono can cause anemia. I guess I just fainted.”
“Liv,” I say softly, approaching the bed, “can we talk about you and Shane?”
“I really need to go to the bathroom and get dressed before Deborah comes back. Will you stay?”