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“Joey! Why don’t you sit up straight, please, and tell me what you have for question three?”
Biting down on his lip so he doesn’t groan out loud, Joey slumps his weight back in his chair, hoping it looks more acceptable than slumping forward apparently did. Breathing in determinedly, he makes his heavy eyes focus on the questions on the board. He hasn’t written anything down.
Some shit about plants.
“Uh… light?” Miss Fadden nods, but she’s still looking at him expectantly. “Water, and uh… food.”
“Rather than ‘food,’ what do we call it…?” She prompts.
Joey wants to crack his skull open on the desk.
Gripping his pen, he tries to hide his eye roll and shrugs.
“Stuff from the ground.”
There’s the smallest chuckle from the class and Miss Fadden clearly decides it’s not worth trying to force the answer out of his mouth.
“Nutrients,” she sighs, turning to scribble on the board. “And please pay attention next time, Joey, or I’ll have to send you out.”
Her back is turned, and then she’s calling on other people, so he lets his head fall heavily on his hand, letting the lesson fade into a watery blur around him. The longer it drags, the harder his head pounds. He turns his head so the heel of his hand presses into his eye.
“Joey!”
The pain spikes through his skull like Miss Fadden has whacked him with a hammer rather than just call his name. Repeatedly, if he has to guess.
He crushes his eyes shut for a second but lifts his head. When he blinks groggily up at Miss Fadden, hands on her hips at the front, she sighs sharply, nostrils flaring.
“That’s it. If you don’t want to be in my lesson then why don’t you step outside?”
Fucking finally. Joey just wishes it felt like a relief, but the loud scrape of his chair echoes in his ears and all he wants to do is sag to the floor when he stands. But he trips into the row and storms out as fast as he can.
She’s saying something about his manners, or his bag, or both, but he’s a bit preoccupied with the aches blooming from every corner of his brain. He tosses the door open and finally throws himself against the wall in the corridor, tipping his head back against the cool surface.
She’s still shouting, inside. “You’ll be in the same trouble as him if you walk out that door–”
The door falls shut and Corey walks towards him.
Raising a tired brow his way, Joey says nothing.
“You feeling worse?”
“I dunno, man. Still felt like shit this morning. Just wanna– ugh.”
His feet ache, so he gives in and lets his legs fold, sliding down the wall to the floor. Dropping his pounding head carelessly onto his knees, he tries to focus on the cold bricks at his back, the rest of the world tilting a bit too much. He keeps his mouth stubbornly shut, hurriedly swallowing back thin, nauseating saliva.
There’s a warmth beside him. Corey probably thinks he’s being nice, but if Joey wasn’t so drained of energy he would be cringing away from the invasive heat.
He groans in the back of his throat. Why can’t things stop touching him, why can’t he just be asleep and wait for this to be over already?
“Sucks that your dad made you come in.”
“Don’t wanna stay home anyway,” Joey grits.
The door clicks again. It’s probably the teacher, but Joey can’t bring himself to stand up. She’ll probably yell at him, though.
He manages to look up, and flops against the wall with relief. It’s Paul.
“Got your detention notes – two of them,” he adds, with a look at Corey.
“I’m just being a good fucking friend, dude!”
“And I’m the one who convinced her to let me take Joey to the nurse.” He lifts Joey’s backpack in one hand.
“Why do all the teachers like you?” Corey grumbles, snatching his detention card from Paul.
Paul’s still chuckling as he hauls Joey up from the floor. His skull squeezes even harder with the altitude, but he wobbles stubbornly upright by himself. He doesn’t exactly complain when Paul throws an arm around him and steers him down the hall, though.
The thought of pulling away makes his head complain, so he lists into Paul the whole way to the nurse’s office, where he dives for the first chair he sees.
“I’ve been telling you kids all week not to come in with this flu,” she berates him once the thermometer comes out of his mouth. “It’ll go through the whole school.”
She’s writing a sick note. Joey should be happy, but he’s too busy fending off his drooping eyelids and the temptation to slam his head onto the table.
The clacking of her keyboard ricochets in his brain. Luckily, Paul cuts her off.
“Joey’s dad’s away with work. You can’t call him.”
“He needs to go home,” she sighs, eyeing the way Joey stares morosely at the desktop.
“I can call my mom?” Paul quickly suggests. “She’s not busy, she could pick him up.”
So the nurse gives Joey a cup of squash that tastes like acid to his fried tastebuds, and lets Paul dial his mom’s number on her office phone.
“Hi, mom. Yeah, I’m alright. Can Joey come to ours? He’s, like, really sick.”
There’s another kid coughing loudly in the hall, so the nurse lets Paul go out front with Joey to wait – and then Paul is bundling Joey into his own passenger seat and driving them both out the school gates.
Joey’s too tired to question it. Just gives Paul a sceptical look while already curling himself into the seat.
Paul smiles over at him, but Joey’s eyes are already sliding closed.
He doesn’t relax, face still pinched as the beat-up car rumbles along. For a second, he thinks the cold window against his forehead is a good idea, until it shudders and his head bumps against it.
From there, he spends the journey fidgeting in the seat, failing to rest his head in any position that doesn’t make his neck start hating him.
“Mom doesn’t wanna get sick,” Paul says as Joey lopes behind him into the house. “We can hide out in my room.”
Joey couldn’t have suggested anything better. He drowns himself in Paul’s comforter the second he can, groaning for a good reason this time as he’s surrounded by a soft, horizontal surface. He doesn’t move from the position he falls into the bed, the room filtering out into static.
That’s the magic of Paul’s place. Joey had been awake half of last night, needing to cough but not wanting to wake his dad up, wanting water but the room spinning if he tried to stand to go get it. Here, he’s out in minutes. He doesn’t need to keep thinking, keep pretending to pay attention or putting one foot in front of the other. And he doesn’t need to listen out for anyone about to come shout at him.
Paul closes the door, chucking his and Joey’s stuff down. There’s a space big enough for the two bags in his otherwise messy wardrobe. Joey’s been over here enough.
He presses his tv on and sits on the bed waiting for the screen to blink on. As it does, he takes a look over to Joey on the other side. He hasn’t budged at all.
“Joe?” He tries.
Nothing.
Paul sighs and mutes the box. So much for skipping school for a sleepover with Joe. He plays Gamecube lying on his front, like they normally do when Joey shows up to camp out for a night or two, but this time it’s just him and the quiet. He dies to the same boss five times in a row because you’re meant to hear his stupid power-up in time, but he values his friend’s sleep over his, admittedly fictional, life.
The phone ringing makes him drop the controller off the bed. He practically leaps off the mattress to snatch it up from the port by the door.
“Hey, it’s Paul,” he says breathlessly, glancing over his shoulder. Joey hasn’t even stirred.
“Yo, it’s me!” Comes Corey from the other end. “I told the guys. Should we come over there, or what?”
Paul leans against the wall. He can picture it: the lot of them sitting around the back of the gym, where they go anytime they wanna do something that’ll get them in trouble. Like sneaking out Mick’s cell phone.
“Joey’s, like, properly sick, dude,” Paul speaks softly. “I’ve been playing games by myself since we got back. He’s sleeping.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Mom’s got us locked down for now anyway, so she’d kick you guys out.”
“That’s bullshit, man, why do only you two get to bunk off?”
“Not stopping you, dude. Just go do it at your own place.”
“Nah, not as fun. He’s gonna give it to you, you know that?””
“Probably. Nurse reckons it’s coming for us all in any case.”
“Shotgun me next,” Corey laughs.
Paul smiles, eyeing the motionless head of hair in his bed.
“You’ll regret that.”
“I’m tougher than Joe!”
“Like fuck you are–”
“Oh shit, teacher’s coming. Punch Joey in the arm for me.”
“Whatever.”
He does, eventually, punch Joey in the arm.
Joey cracks his eyes open and wonders when a truck ran him over. He’s fused with the mattress, like his limbs are made of concrete, sunken into the fabric.
“Mom made soup,” Pall tells him.
Joey’s skin is cold and shivery but his chest is a furnace inside. Somehow, his concrete arms manage to fight off the smothering comforter and sit up just enough. The blanket is still tangled around his legs, the warmth pressing in on him, but the air outside is making little shudders run across his clammy, goosebumped skin.
Paul folds onto the bed next to him. Gives them both a bowl and watches Joey’s sluggish movements as he eats, slowing before the bowl is done. Joey stares at the soup the whole time, spoon after spoonful. Its warmth rolls in his stomach.
When he stops, leaning his head back and shutting his eyes, Paul takes the bowl back before it can tip too far.
“If you’re staying tonight, you should change.” He pushes Joey a little, before he can slip off to sleep again.
The only indication that Joey hears him is his long-suffering sigh. Paul decides not to give him shit for it, this time. He has a feeling it’s genuine, so he just throws Joey’s pyjamas at his head. Or, the closest ones Paul has in Joey-size. They’ve basically become Joey’s; Paul never wears them anymore.
At least Joey hadn’t made much effort dressing that morning. He peels off his jeans, actually kind of relieved once they’re gone. They’d been collecting an uncomfortable sheen of sweat on the inside.
“Do you wanna tell your dad? I could call?”
“He won’t even notice.”
At last, Joey’s flopping back into bed. Paul makes him gulp down some pills and water before he rolls over.
Paul gathers his controller again, settling on the pillows beside Joey, who’s lying still on his back. Paul’s loading up the same boss fight again when Joey clears his throat.
“Thanks, Paul,” he murmurs, voice kinda hoarse.
Smiling even though Joey’s eyes are still closed, Paul gives him a nudge with his elbow.
“’S fine. I wanna be served soup when I catch it, though.”
Joey snorts.
“That all?”
Paul grins, starting up his fight on the tv.
“You should sneeze on Corey. See how he likes being sick.”