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Amber feels like she’s been hit by a truck. What had started as general tiredness and a little soreness after the parade had morphed into full-blown flu (who even gets the flu in June, anyway?). She hasn’t moved from the couch in hours. Hasn’t moved much at all, really, because every single part of her aches and she cannot stop shivering, no matter how many blankets she’s piled on top of her.
Her phone buzzes and it’s only because it’s already in her hand that Amber actually manages to answer it.
“Hello?” she croaks, realizing belatedly that she should’ve looked to see who was calling.
“Hey, baby,” Alysa murmurs, the gentle, soothing tone of her voice making Amber feel strangely emotional. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No. Can’t sleep,” Amber mumbles, wincing when another round of shivers works through her. She feebly wraps her fingers into the blankets and tries to pull them closer. “Too cold.”
“Sweet girl,” Alysa says and Amber presses the phone impossibly tighter to her ear, like it might bring the other girl closer. “I’m gonna need you to be brave for me, though. Think you can do that?”
Amber whines. It’s pathetic and vulnerable and she’d never dare to make that sound with anyone else, but somewhere along the way, Amber’s brain had begun classifying Alysa as safety, as home.
“I know. It’s gonna make you feel better. I promise,” Alysa says.
Amber squints blearily at the living room, having closed her eyes at some point without realizing.
“Kay,” she rasps, coughing weakly.
“That’s my girl. Go open your door for me.”
It takes a good deal of effort to sit up and even more to stand. She keeps one blanket draped over her shoulders like a cape and shuffles across the floor in socked feet–a true testament to how cold she’s feeling because she cannot stand socks in her own house.
“Did you order me something?” Amber asks, because halfway through her shuffling, her brain manages to catch up.
“Maybe,” Alysa says cryptically.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Amber says but the weirdly emotional feeling is back, clawing at her throat, making it hard to swallow or breathe.
“I know,” Alysa assures her. “I wanted to.”
After what feels like a million years, catching up with an impatient Yuki who is busy tapdancing on the tiles by the door, Amber pulls the door open.
The outside is bright, the sunlight a punishment for the warmth it provides, and it takes Amber’s senses several long seconds to work out what’s actually on her doorstep.
“Alysa?” she croaks, wondering when her circumstances became dire enough to warrant hallucinations.
“My girl,” Alysa whispers, and then Amber finds herself wrapped so tenderly in Alysa’s familiar embrace that she does cry, hot, feverish tears trailing down her cheeks silently as she lets Alysa hold her, her own arms trapped in the blanket.
“You’re…here?”
“Shhh, we’ll talk later, okay? Come on, let’s get you back inside.”
Amber lets herself be guided, not back to the couch, but up to her bedroom, where she hadn’t been since returning from the parade.
Her bed feels like a sanctuary after the couch. Alysa helps her settle, draping the blankets over her before leaning down to gently kiss her forehead.
“I’ll be right back. Promise. Just rest.”
Amber wants to argue, to insist Alysa stay right here and never leave, but she’s too weak to protest, all of her energy having evaporated from the trip to the door and the subsequent journey up the stairs.
She’s not sure how long it is before Alysa returns, time distorted in the way it can only be by sickness. But Alysa returns sometime later, in fresh clothes, with a bowl of something steaming.
“You made soup?” Amber asks.
“Mmm, not exactly. Ellie’s mom made soup,” Alysa explains, helping Amber sit up, propping an extra pillow behind her.
Too tired to question the logistics of that information, Amber just hums.
“Here, hold this, you’re shivering.” Alysa settles the bowl into her trembling hands, the spoon rattling against the ceramic rim until Alysa moves it, lifting it toward Amber’s mouth. “Eat.”
As a child, Amber has memories of her mother caring for her when she’d been sick. She’s sure she’d fed her, made her a bed on the couch, doted on her, much the way Alysa is now. But it’s been well over a decade. Closer to two, now, since that had been the case, and letting someone else care for her now feels strange. But she doesn’t argue. Instead, she eats, and the heat of the bowl in her hands paired with the soup settling in her belly finally warms her enough that the unending shivering finally subsides. In its wake, Amber only feels exhaustion.
“There we go,” Alysa murmurs, setting the bowl aside and lifting a hand to smooth Amber’s sweaty, frizzing hair back from her face.
Suddenly unable to even fathom keeping her eyes open, Amber’s head lolls back against the pillow Alysa had put behind her.
“Okay. Sleep,” Alysa says, somehow maneuvering Amber to lie down again.
“Stay,” Amber manages to whisper.
The bed shifts beside her and then the familiar weight of Alysa is there at her back, framing her. Protecting her.
“Sleep,” she says again, tucking her arm around Amber’s middle, pressing a soft kiss to her shoulder.
The logical part of Amber’s brain wants to object, to argue that Alysa can’t be here, that she’ll get sick, too. But God, she wants this. To be cared for. To be loved.
Her body gives in and she finally sinks into sleep, enveloped in Alysa’s arms.
When she wakes sometime later, she’s sticky with sweat, overwhelmingly hot now, her tshirt sticking to her skin. The pile of blankets feels oppressive suddenly and she whimpers at the effort of trying to get out from under them.
“Hey, easy,” Alysa murmurs and Amber stills. She’d forgotten, or thought she’d been dreaming, or believed her sickness had conjured the ghost of Alysa but she’s here. The blankets are easily stripped away and Alysa’s weight leans over her, dipping the bed. And then Alysa’s hair is brushing her face, her smile sideways as she peers down at Amber. “How’re you feeling?”
“Hot,” Amber says, her voice rasping with disuse.
Alysa hums, a cool palm resting briefly on Amber’s forehead.
“Fever’s breaking. I’m gonna run you a bath, okay?”
For a split second, Amber nearly stops her. Not in objection to the bath, which sounds perfect, but because she doesn’t want Alysa to leave her. It’s childish. Silly. She’s been sick all by herself dozens of times. She’s an adult.
Amber doesn’t move, but Alysa pauses, a small, knowing smile tugging at her lips.
“Actually, come on. You can come.”
A small crease finds Amber’s brow, which she only knows because Alysa’s lips press there seconds later as she helps Amber out of bed.
It’s taken getting used to, being known the way Alysa knows her. All the messy, broken, scarred parts. But the small, soft ones too. The ones Amber hides, even now, because she doesn’t feel deserving of such care. Alysa holds them all like they’re precious, like Amber is worth cherishing.
The shuffle to the bathroom is slow but Alysa never shows an ounce of impatience. She teases Amber instead, about this dance being the strangest choreography she’s ever done. About how crazy Amber’s hair looks. About how Yuki is just Amber in dog form. And then the floor changes from carpet to tile under her feet and they’ve somehow made it to the bathroom.
Amber moves to lower herself to the ledge by the tub and Alysa stops her.
“Wait, wait. Just…hold on.” She steps away but it’s only to open the linen closet and pull out a small stack of towels. It might be all of them, actually, though Amber can’t be sure. Alysa sets the towels on the ledge and then gestures with a small flourish.
“There. Better. Sit.”
Sitting is, admittedly, much more comfortable with the towels cushioning her. Amber feels pathetically weak, exhausted from the short, slow journey to the bathroom.
“Thank you,” Amber murmurs as Alysa turns on the tap. Then, “I’m sorry.”
“Mmm, no apologies. Would you believe me if I said I was already gonna be here before you got sick?” Satisfied with the state of the tub, Alysa picks up Amber’s brush from the counter, kneeling behind her and gingerly tugging her hair tie free.
“You were?”
“I missed you. Like, very pathetically, buying your shampoo and wearing your hoodie all the time kind of pining,” Alysa confesses, brushing Amber’s hair out almost reverently.
“I missed you too.” The tears are back again and Amber bites her lip, staring down at her hands in her lap as her vision blurs. The worst part is, she doesn’t even fully understand why.
Caught up in self-analysis, Amber doesn’t notice when Alysa sets down the brush. She only realizes when Alysa’s arms snake around her from behind, the solid warmth of here fitting to Amber’s back despite the awkward angle brought on by the ledge they’re perched on.
“I just wanted to be here,” Alysa whispers against Amber’s cheek.
There’s a subtle shift in weight as Alysa stretches blindly with one hand to shut off the water before it gets too high. The sudden quiet in the bathroom makes Amber aware of how audibly she’s breathing, still staving off the threat of tears.
“You’re gonna get sick,” Amber mumbles finally.
“Worth it. You ready for the tub now?”
Amber wants to protest. Alysa shouldn’t be risking her own health. She’s not worth it.
“Stay with me,” Alysa coaxes, her body shifting again and Amber clutches tightly at her arm with trembling hands, desperate to keep her close before she can mask it.
“Sorry,” she gasps, immediately releasing the other girl, mortified.
“Amber.” Alysa does move, then, until she’s kneeling on the floor between Amber’s feet, arms looped around her waist. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to go anywhere. Okay?”
WIth a small nod, Amber finally lets herself look at Alysa. There’s nothing but tenderness there and it makes Amber ache desperately. What version of her had decided this wasn’t for her? That her whole life should be built around giving herself completely to others without letting herself get the same in return?
“Bath?” Alysa asks and Amber blinks.
“Okay.”
Once she’s on her feet, Amber thinks she can undress herself. The gestures are simple enough. But moving her arms even to shoulder height feels like she’s swimming through syrup.
“I’ve got you, pretty girl,” Alysa says.
With help, the process is much easier. When the water finally envelops her, Amber thinks she might cry again, from relief this time.
She’s so immersed in the feeling that she misses Alysa stripping off her own clothes until she’s nudging Amber, guiding her forward in the tub so there’s enough space to slip in behind her.
“There you go. Good?”
“Yeah.” She thinks about telling Alysa, admitting that this is hard. Confessing that she’s trying to let herself accept it, but she’s so tired and just thinking about putting it into words has her on the verge of tears all over again.
“Can I tell you something?” Alysa’s voice anchors her to reality, to the very real evidence that Alysa has chosen her, yet again.
“I might cry about it, but sure,” Amber murmurs, a small laugh bubbling out of her even as Alysa’s arms tighten just barely around her waist.
“Before we were…this–us–when I thought about you, this is what I imagined. I mean, not you being sick, just…the normal stuff,” Alysa explains and it’s rare, Amber thinks, to hear Alysa vulnerable but it’s there now, and it makes Amber feel safer somehow. “Like, the rest of everything is so exciting. It’s so much all the time. And I love it. But it’s not what I think about. I like doing the quiet with you. It makes everything feel less lonely.”
The tears she’d known were imminent actually escape this time, leaving hot trails down her cheeks before dripping into the tub.
“But why me?” she whispers, barely audible, her stomach twisting viciously at all the question gives away.
“Because you feel like home,” Alysa whispers back.
The thing about the answer is, Amber can’t refute it. Worse still, she understands it. There’s a persistent hollow ache deep in her chest when Alysa’s not around and she’d steadily lost her grip on how to ignore it.
“Don’t leave me,” Amber pleads quietly, distantly aware that being known, being seen, means risking losing herself, but it’s Alysa, who has only ever kept her safe.
Under the water, Alysa’s fingers slot through her own, steady and familiar.
“I’m not going to say what I want to say right now, because you’ll think I’m fucking crazy. But I promise, pretty girl, I’m not leaving. Okay? I swear.” She seals it with a kiss to Amber’s shoulder and Amber hears forever. It’s always felt claustrophobic to her. Desperate. But now it only feels like relief.
They sit until the water grows tepid, and then Alysa nuzzles her ear.
“Come on. I’ll wash your hair.”
They shower and migrate to the couch and Alysa is never not within touching distance. It’s a conscious choice, Amber thinks, though she’s not sure who it’s for.
The dog is sprawled on the living room floor and only thumps her spiral tail a few times when they appear.
“What’d you do to Uki?” she asks, amused.
“Oh, uh, we played, like, a lot of fetch. And then I maybe let her chase me around for a while. I figured she needed it,” Alysa explains sheepishly.
“You’re amazing,” Amber sighs, head tipped against Alysa’s shoulder. The angle is terrible but she’ll endure for the sake of closeness. “You had Ellie’s mom make soup?”
“I was on a bit of a time crunch,” Alysa says. “And that woman loves you. I mean, I think she wants you to be her daughter in law.”
It hurts her recovering muscles but Amber laughs.
“Unfortunately, I’m kinda committed to someone else,” she murmurs.
Alysa’s fingers slide into her damp hair and gently tug until Amber relents and lifts her head. When Alysa’s mouth finds hers, it’s slow and warm and sweet.
“Must be feeling better because that didn’t make me cry,” Amber jokes weakly when they break apart.
“Soup fixes everything,” Alysa teases. She pulls a pillow into her lap and pats it expectantly. “Lay down.”
There’s some quip on the tip of her tongue about not being a dog for Alysa to command but she’s very tired and her neck is already sore from her brief stint against Alysa’s shoulder, so she shifts to obey, settling with her head in Alysa’s lap. The other girl’s fingers stroke through her hair and Amber’s eyes fall shut automatically.
“Holy shit,” Alysa laughs quietly.
“Mm?”
“Totally forgot GP assignments were this morning.”
Amber stiffens slightly, the reminder of life outside this moment setting her strangely on edge.
“Still months away,” Alysa reminds her, hand shifting to rub the back of Amber’s neck and the thread is there again because Alysa sees her like it’s second nature, and it’s as comforting as it is terrifying. “We have Skate America together. Hell yeah.”
She rambles about the other assignments and Amber knows it’s just for the sake of talking, of keeping Amber out of her head. Because Alysa knows her, but she knows Alysa too.
At some point, Amber falls asleep again, Alysa’s voice and the methodical brush of her fingers lulling her.
In the wake of all her vulnerable uncertainty, Amber feels only peace.