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Spencer woke up to the sound of harsh knocking. He groaned and curled up further, pulling the bedsheets over his head. College was great, but one of the worst parts was the other people in the halls. Most of them were nice, if not a little confused as to why he was there, and the others didn’t care enough to make themselves a problem. The issue was the regular college activities. Loud parties, socialising at three in the morning between bedrooms and pranks. He assumed the knocking was someone playing knock-a-door run. Terrible timing. His head pounded with each knock and he could feel it pulsing behind his eyes. He must’ve hit the books too hard last night to feel this awful now. Hopefully, they’d get bored by his lack of reaction.
The knocking persisted.
“Spencer? Please answer the door.”
It was his RA. She introduced herself on the first day: Evelyn, but everyone called her Eve. She explained that with his age, the administration wanted her to keep a close eye on him so she’d be popping her head in every so often. She’d already mithered him about staying up late to get ahead on his studies. She sounded terrified.
Despite how bad he felt, he dragged himself out of bed and shuddered as a chill went straight through him. The movement made him nauseous but he forced himself to press on and stumble over to the door. His vision swam for a moment and he swallowed thickly when his stomach rolled dangerously.
He opened the door to find Eva with her fist up, poised for another round of deafening knocking. She looked as scared as she’d sounded and that fear didn’t seem to ease when she saw him.
“Hey bud, you feeling okay?” she asked.
“No,” he croaked.
“Thought so. You never miss class.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked back at the alarm clock sitting on his bedside table. How was it almost midday and he’d only just woken up? He always woke up early. Transitions were particularly difficult, so he made sure to wake up early so he’d have enough time to complete his routine and settle before he had to go to class. By now, he should be sitting with one of his professors for a one-to-one. It immediately set him on edge, his heart leaping to his throat. He didn’t like being late. Hell, he did everything he could to make sure he was never late and apologised profusely when inevitably something unexpected happened.
He was already scratching at himself before he realised he was even doing it. The sickly feeling he’d woken up with amplified to a much bigger monster than what he knew what to do with. Eva gently tugged on the cuff of his pyjama shirt to get him to stop, making him look back at her. She smiled softly.
“Can I feel for a temperature, Spencer?” He shook his head. “Ah, science man, you’ll be wanting something more accurate, right?” He nodded despite the issue being her hands. People didn’t like it when he implied their hands were dirty, even though they were. It was just a fact, but he didn’t want to upset her. “You sit tight here; I’ll go grab one of the nursing students. Lisa should be heading back from clinic right about now.”
“Will you send me home?” he asked.
“Not unless you want to or if this is something serious. To be honest, I think you might’ve caught the freshman flu, but better to check. Keep your door unlocked, alright? I’ll be right back.” He nodded and made his way back to bed, far too exhausted for the minimal effort he’d put in.
Freshman flu. Usually contracted in the first weeks of college, hence the name. It made sense. People from all over were suddenly cramped together, sharing bedrooms, kitchens, washrooms and classrooms. Freshers flu in the UK. All the same symptoms of the common cold with varying degrees of severity due to the mixed-up strains of the virus but nothing lethal, much to Spencer’s discontent. He’d take death over his nose running like a tap and the feeling of his brain trying to break out of the confines of his skull. He thought he’d be able to skip it, but alas, he wasn’t so lucky.
The general nausea irritated him more than anything. He didn’t particularly enjoy throwing up, but it might tone it down if he did. What was worse was the hunger mixed in with it all. Everything sounded awful, but his stomach continued to grumble. He tried to think of all the meals he’d made for his mother when she was queasy, though thinking of her somehow added another level to it. Homesickness. He hadn’t really felt it in his short time in college, although he knew it was inevitable. He couldn’t help wishing she were closer or at least able to conquer the plane trip to visit. Not that they had the money for it.
“I’m back!” Eve announced too happily as she let herself and Lisa into his room. He was glad that he kept it tidy; otherwise, he’d feel even more embarrassed at the intrusion. He’d met Lisa briefly when he did a late-night run to the coffee machine in the shared kitchen. She’d taken one look at him, then back to her mug and walked out muttering about too many late nights.
“Oh, he’s actually a kid,” Lisa commented. She had a small bag slung over her shoulder that she set down on his desk, careful not to displace any of his chicken-scratch notes. He was grateful for that.
“I did say he was.”
“I thought you meant he was acting like one. I didn’t think they let kids in here.”
“He’s one of those geniuses.” His cheeks went red, and he dove further under the covers to hide it. He was no stranger to praise; you didn’t become a child protege without a heaping load of compliments on how smart you are, but he still found it hard to accept. “Oh shoot, I probably should’ve asked if you wanted an actual doctor.”
“Lisa’s fine,” he muttered. His voice barely registered above a whisper, and his throat felt like he’d gargled nails.
“We’ll go to a qualified,” she paused to send Eve a glare, “doctor if there’s a problem.”
She opened her bag and pulled out an ear thermometer and a stethoscope then asked him to sit up. With great effort, he did as he was told and she pressed the thermometer against his ear. He should’ve asked if it was clean but he couldn’t get his brain to catch up that fast until it was too late to bother. There was a click, a few seconds of silence, then she pulled the device away.
“Not too bad.”
“What is it?”
“100.5.” Just out of the low-grade fever range but not entering the severe level. Not too bad. Not great either. “You should probably check it every other hour. Have you got a thermometer?” He nodded and pointed to his bedside cabinet. She nodded and turned to Eve with an unimpressed look.
“Okay, well next time you get put in charge of a random kid, you can ask if they have a damn thermometer. He looked like death!”
“Let’s have a listen to your lungs. You got a stethoscope too hiding around here?” He shook his head, her joking tone going straight over his head. “I’m gonna lift up your shirt, is that okay?” He nodded. There were a few jabs of cold on his back as she listened for anything untoward, but she eventually let his shirt go, giving it a brush to get out the creases in some capacity.
“Yep, definitely not dying. You’re just gonna feel like it for the next few days.”
“Should I like- I dunno, move in here?”
“I can look after myself,” he grumbled. There was no way she was staying in here any longer than she needed to.
“It’s a bad cold. Maybe drop off food and check his temperature, but he should be fine. He’s a teenager, for God’s sake. It’s not like he’s eight,” Lisa agreed. He was starting to like Lisa. “Do you have any painkillers?” she asked as she turned back to face him. He nodded, pointing to his desk. He’d had enough caffeine-induced headaches to keep it close to hand. Eve threw it over and grabbed the plastic bottle of water on the side. His mum had sent him a few cases for reasons he chose not to ask about. “Two every four hours, don’t exceed six. Sleep every chance you get.”
Lisa got up and gathered her things, Eve watching her anxiously.
“You sure he’s fine? Because if they find out he’s got some like, super disease-”
“Eve, he’s fine. Just tell them it’s a cold and he’ll use the weekend to recover. Get him some soup from the dining hall if you’re that bothered about it.”
“Do you want soup, Spencer?”
“I don’t eat group food.” He knew it would come across as spoilt or picky, but he’d rather be honest than waste food. Surprisingly, she didn’t chastise him.
“Huh, I guess that’s how you escaped it for so long. Have you got stuff for soup?”
“There’s a can in the wardrobe.”
“You keep food in the wardrobe?”
“They steal my things in the kitchen.”
“Drunk college kids will eat anything not nailed down,” Lisa muttered. “Soup, then leave the poor kid alone until at least 4. They wouldn’t let him move here if they didn’t think he could look after himself. Dead kids equal lawsuits.”
There comes a point where you’ve slept all you can sleep. Glancing over to the alarm clock, he’d hit that limit an hour ago. It was good going really, considering he was on day two of freshman flu. He’d been asleep for the majority of the first day but left groggy by the second. Not quite sick enough to be tired but sick enough for the thought of moving any further than shifting from his right side to his left and vice versa sounded horrific, almost akin to torture.
He could think of a million things he should do. There were some papers he’d wanted to review, one of which he had a mighty good argument to disprove their theory, some personal experiments he did for fun, and, of course, there were chores. None of which had him up and moving. The most he’d done was use the bathroom and splash water on his face when the fever got too much.
He’d already counted all the cracks in the ceiling, studied the small holes in the walls from thumb tacks, and explored any and all tangential thoughts that came from those observations. Everything he’d read sat behind his eyes and yet, not a single piece of information entertained him.
The street lights outside his room gave him a few slithers of amber light, but for the most part, he was sitting in complete darkness. Not unexpected for being awake in the small hours of the morning. He needed to do something. He felt useless lying there. Reading was too difficult when he was struggling to concentrate.
He rolled onto his side with a long, bored sigh. Eve had poked her head in here and there, chucking him a bottle of water and leaving a bowl of soup, but for the most part he’d been left to his own devices. He preferred it that way. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. In the peace of his room, in the confines of his own mind, he could admit that he wanted his mother there more than anything.
Spencer chewed his bottom lip. He should probably see if she was okay. They’d slowly been losing contact, though it couldn’t entirely be blamed on him. The time zone difference mixed with his fixation on work and her hypersomnia from the current round of medication. Should she know about this? She might think they were poisoning her and start threatening the school. She might worry herself sick. She’s his mum, he thought bitterly. She’s allowed to worry and overreact. Just last week he overheard Eve dealing with an angry mother demanding to know why she wasn’t doing her son’s laundry.
It was just a matter of who picked up. He was bored. He did have the time.
“Spencer?” his mum greeted, her voice already laced with worry. It was probably from calling so late, but she’d argue it was her motherly intuition to know there was something wrong. She did always know when there was a problem, though his poker face always failed under her watchful gaze at the best of times. She taught him how to play in the first place.
“Hi Mum, how are you feeling?” He moved away to clear the phlegm from his throat as his words cracked and popped around it.
“I think the better question is how you’re feeling. Did you catch something?”
“Freshman flu,” he explained with a sigh.
“College kids. They’re just walking, talking germs.” He smirked at her disdain. “Are you looking after yourself? It’s three in the morning where you are; you should be sleeping.”
“I got bored.”
“You wouldn’t be bored if you took a nap,” she chastised. He rolled his eyes.
“I’ve slept plenty.” She hummed sceptically, which he couldn’t blame her for. He was a night owl through and through. There were plenty of times when she’d popped her head into his bedroom and found him with a book light perched on the top of a thick novel or scribbling some napkin math for fun. “I missed class because I slept in.” He felt a spike of anxiety when he mentioned it before settling himself down. It was one class, it was an accident, and he’d do his best to prevent it from happening again.
“One missed class won’t kill your scholarship,” she assured him. He breathed a little better after that. “Is there someone looking after you?”
“I don’t need to be looked after.” A horrible bit of him wanted to add ‘you made sure of that,’ though he’d never say it aloud. He’d noticed in his teen years he’d become weirdly bitter about it all. Bitter enough to think it, but never bitter enough not to feel like the worst son on earth for thinking it. He shook his head as if to send the thoughts tumbling out of his ear.
“But is there?”
“Eve,” he mumbled.
“Eve?”
“Evelyn. My RA. You spoke to her on the phone once when you asked about the accommodations they’d provide. You went on a tangent about Evelyn Waugh.”
“Oh yes, so I did,” she hummed. “I’ll sleep better knowing there’s someone you can turn to. I do worry about you.”
“I know, Mum.”
Suddenly, his eyes began to well, and the soup he’d eaten hours prior felt heavy in his stomach. He wanted her here. He wanted her to run her fingers through his hair, telling him it would pass over and over, sitting with him as she read. His room changed from his private space to a cell, cutting him off from the rest of the world. He could hear the distant shouts of drunk students and the echoes of laughter from the rooms surrounding him. He would’ve despised having a roommate, mostly because he couldn’t police himself 24/7 and even in the small doses of social interactions where he did, he left them feeling unbelievably drained. He’d lose his mind trying to script a conversation with someone constantly in his space. Still, he felt incredibly lonely.
“I wish you were here,” he found himself saying. She made a pained sound. “I’m sorry. I know you’d like to be.”
“You’re my baby; you’re allowed to want my company as much as you damn well please. I’d be more upset if you never wanted me there,” she replied easily. “Are you comfortable?”
“In some aspect. It’s hard when I’m sick.”
“Can you make yourself more comfortable?” He shifted slightly, but it must’ve been loud enough for her to hear. “I was missing you, so I went to your room to read something from your collection. I hope that’s alright. Teenagers and their rooms.”
“It’s fine.”
“Good, because I don’t intend to stop doing it.” He tutted lovingly at her. “I chose Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Classic, really, though I do wonder if I introduced you to it a little young, what with the beheading game and all. Anyway, I always did enjoy reading it aloud. Middle English always is. It’s phonetic in some way. If you wanted, since I was already intending on it, you could listen to me read it.”
He regretted not calling her sooner, but he supposed it was just luck of the draw. Today he got his mum, and thankfully, he did.
“Yeah Mum, that’d be great.”