Letters to Nowhere(37)

“You’ve got a fever,” he said with a grunt as he set me down on the couch.

My eyelids felt too heavy to keep open all the way. “It wasn’t real, was it? It’s just the fever, right?”

Coach Bentley knelt down in front of me, pushing the hair off my face. “You were having a nightmare. I tried to wake you, but it took a while.”

Tears slipped from eyes and even with the pounding headache, I felt weak and humiliated, crying in front of my coach. Had I been crying in my sleep? Screaming? “It was just a dream. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

Something pressed into my ear, pressure that made my head pound even more. “Jesus, Dad,” I heard Jordan say. “A hundred and five. What are we supposed to do? Call nine–one–one?”

“Calm down,” Bentley said to Jordan.

“What if she has meningitis? She needs a doctor!”

“Get me a bottle of Advil and a glass of water, okay?”

I could only see their feet and the bottom of Jordan’s flannel pants, but the wood floor kept creaking with every movement they made, making my head pound even more.

“She said she has a headache, what if her brain is swollen? Seriously Dad, you are totally screwing this up, I know you are!”

I covered my face with my arm and started crying harder. I was too sick to even care what was wrong with me. I just wanted my headache to go away.

It didn’t help that Coach Bentley stormed off with loud pounding footsteps. My teeth began to chatter again. I felt a thick blanket land on me and then someone tugged it off.

“Don’t cover her,” Bentley said. His voice moved closer to me. “Karen, I need you take some medicine, okay?”

Being the obedient gymnast that I am, I lifted my head just enough to toss the four Advil in my mouth, sending them into my bloodstream with a single swallow of water.

“Come on, Dad,” Jordan said. “I’ll warm up the car. We can toss her in the back with a blanket.”

I felt my lower lip trembling, more tears tumbling out between the shivering. I covered my face again with my arm. The last thing I wanted to do was go outside in the middle of winter and ride in the back of a car.

“If her fever isn’t down in an hour, we’ll take her to the hospital, I promise,” Bentley said. I felt him sit down beside my head, the couch cushion sinking in. He slipped a pillow under me. The material felt cool against my cheek. “Go to bed, Jordan. You have school in the morning.”

“Whatever,” he snapped. Then he stomped up the steps.

“Is my brain really swollen?” I asked. It felt swollen, like ready–to–explode swollen.

“No,” he said. “My son apparently spends too much time reading about communal diseases spread most commonly through college dorms.”

The TV turned on, volume low enough that it made a relaxing hum rather than noise that would aggravate my headache.

“Coach Bentley?” I said after several minutes of dozing in and out of consciousness.

“Yes?”

“Did I blow it in Houston? It’s over for me, isn’t it?” I knew he wouldn’t tell me either, but in my distress, with that nightmare fresh in my mind, I wanted to tell him what really happened.

“Everyone knows what you’ve been through. They know you need time.”

“It was so great,” I muttered into the pillow. “Having them all watch me like maybe I could actually stand out for once…and then for a second all I could think about was finishing my routine so I could text my mom and tell her all about it. Then I remembered…”

Coach Bentley didn’t say anything, he just patted my head gently, causing the lump in my throat to double in size. That was something my dad would have done. Though he’d have had no idea what to do about a hundred and five degree fever and would likely have panicked like Jordan and called 9–1–1. Mom would have been moving around the kitchen, getting me 7 Up while on hold with the pediatrician’s office, demanding to speak to the doctor and not a nurse. She’d have everything written down on a piece of pink scratch paper—my fever and at what time she’d last checked it, exactly when my symptoms began, any medications she’d given me. Then Mom would recite it all to the doctor without even glancing once at the piece of paper.

And Dad would have sat beside me, stroking my hair and telling me Mom would figure everything out. He called her superwoman.

I missed them both so much right now I thought my heart would break into a million pieces even before my head split open.





CHAPTER ELEVEN





When I woke up on the couch, following my horrible night, I was more than surprised to be hit with the late morning sun. My head still throbbed in the worst way, but my stomach had settled enough to prevent me from barfing again. I could also feel the heat in my cheeks and chills and aches all over my body.

“What time is it?” I asked after seeing Coach Bentley’s feet tiptoeing around the living room.

“Ten thirty,” he said.

I tried to sit up, but failed miserably. “What about practice?”

“Stacey’s covering it,” he said. “And you’re getting at least the day off. I made the mistake of letting Ellen practice with the flu last week and look how that turned out. Had she taken the time to recover, she might have avoided getting pneumonia and being out for a week.”