By Your Side(49)

“Owen!” I squealed. “What are you doing here?”

“Wednesday classes got canceled, and since I only have Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes, I thought I’d take Friday off and make a week of it.”

“It must be nice to be in college, playing by your own rules, being your own boss.” I smirked at him.

“Looks like someone else I know is her own boss too. What’s up with being gone all night?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s only nine. And I was just saving the world, one coma patient at a time.”

He scrunched up his face. “Sorry. Is he still not doing well?”

“Actually Dax is doing much better.”

“Who’s Dax?”

“Dax? Did I say Dax?”

Owen raised his eyebrows and nodded his head.

“I meant Jeff. He got out of the ICU today. The doctors say things are looking good. So hopefully things are only going to get better from here.” I was rambling, so I stopped.

“That’s good about Jeff. Now who’s Dax?”

My cheeks went hot.

“Wow,” Owen said.

“No, it’s nothing. He’s a friend.”

“Ha. That’s not what it looks like. I want to meet this friend.”

I shoved his arm. “Don’t be such a brother.”

I started to escape down the hall when he stopped me with, “Why are you carrying shoes?”

“These got left in the library. I picked them up today.”

“First time back?”

“Yep.”

“And you handled it okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, I don’t know, last time you were in the library you fainted with a panic attack.”

“I handled it.” With help.

He gestured toward the kitchen. “Just a heads-up: Mom was worried about your emotions and stuff visiting the hospital so much.” And this was another reason I had a hard time telling my friends—I already had enough people worried about my emotions.

“Look at you, home fifteen minutes and already playing my spy.”

He looked at his watch. “I’ve actually been home for two hours. You haven’t been.”

“Details, details.” I finished my walk down the hall toward my room.

He called after me. “You owe me some quality sibling time this week. No acting like I’m not here.”

“I’ll pick out the nail polish color tomorrow.”

“Hey now. I pick out my own nail polish,” he said. I smiled and closed the door behind me, then sank to the floor. I felt a headache forming behind my eyes. I hoped I could go to sleep fast tonight, not play and replay the day in my head for hours like my brain sometimes liked to do.

Dallin stood at the head of the lunch table the next day like he was conducting a meeting. I had a lingering headache from the day before, and this looked like it was only going to make it worse.

He pounded on the table with his fist to get our attention. “Jeff got out of the ICU yesterday, but his mom requested only one visitor a day. I’m sending you all a text right now with the schedule for the next seven days. If you can’t do the day I assigned you, try to find someone to switch with.” Serious-Dallin was tripping me out. I wasn’t used to him.

My phone buzzed with his incoming text. I pulled up the schedule.

Today—Connor.

Wednesday—Avi.

Thursday—Zach.

Friday—Dallin.

Saturday—Lisa.

Sunday—Morgan.

Monday—Autumn.

Repeat until the Jeff is Free party that I will host when Jeff is free.

Seriously? He was going to play this game? It was obvious he was still mad at me. The rest of the group was busy talking and switching days. I looked up at Dallin. He played innocent.

Lisa leaned over to me. “I’ll switch with you.”

“But you haven’t seen him yet.”

“It’s okay. He’d rather see you.”

“I don’t know that he knows who he’s seeing. It’s fine.” I could handle this if it would make Dallin feel better.

“Maybe he’ll start doing better and his mom will allow more visitors.”

I nodded. “Hopefully.”

When the bell rang and everyone had cleaned up their stuff, Dallin lingered behind until we were the only two left. “It’s only fair, Autumn,” he said. “Since you’ve already seen him a lot.”

“I agree. Good job,” I said. It was obvious he wanted me to get mad at him, but I was determined to mend our friendship.

Just because I couldn’t see Jeff, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get a report. I needed that for my mental health. So the next morning, I found Connor before first period. He was at his locker, shoving more papers into an already paper-filled mess. “How was he?”

“What? Who?”

“Jeff. You saw him yesterday, right? How was Jeff?”

“Oh. Hi, Autumn. Nice to see you this morning too.”

I smiled. “Hi, Connor. How has your morning been so far?”

“It was good. I overslept, I—”

I smacked his arm. “Connor. Come on.”

He laughed. “He was fine. Really tired, but he looked good. The doctor said he should be more and more alert every day.”