Fever Dreams

writing through a fog

I tucked myself into bed at five-thirty or so, just a few minutes after finishing my tea. And it was lovely, in that strange way, to fold myself under the covers. To reach that point of no return: I’d been able to function throughout the day, if clumsily, cold and stumbling through life. But now that I was curled up in bed, soft and cozy, getting out was almost unthinkable. A fever has always been my very favourite kind of sickness for that reason. Almost no pain or nausea, not like with a stomach flu or headache. Just a tiredness, a weakness. And I was weak and tired anyway, all the time. This way, at least, I could indulge in my weakness without much guilt. Stay where I felt safe.

And go where my thoughts drifted, of their own accord. To Anthony, to J.

Anthony, I needed sweetness from him. Needed him so badly, but I couldn’t tell him so. Couldn’t call him. He was not the type who would drop everything to come and attend to sick little me, out here in my little pueblo. Oh, he wouldn’t be cruel about it. No, worse. He would be polite, almost professional. Of course I would like to, but it’s really quite far, and you know, I still have quite a lot of work to finish here… and blah blah blah. Anyway he wouldn’t come, that was for certain.

For some reason, the image of him chatting up that pretty girl in February flashed through my mind. I don’t even know why, not really. It wasn’t like I’d ever even seen her again. It hadn’t meant anything, surely. And yet, an image of her kept flashing through my mind. Her beautiful, heavily made-up face. She’d been even younger than me, almost certainly. Maybe that was why her picture kept repeating, on a loop.

Anthony’s potentially-wandering eyes frustrated me, worse, hurt me. The thought of it. And yet so did J.’s sweetness, his devotion, frustrate me. I’d felt smothered by him touching my face with his fingertips, gazing at me so adoringly. Putting me up on his pedestal. I just hadn’t been able to handle it. He was looking at somebody else, I felt. Somebody who was not me.

Everything had the potential to hurt. That thought suddenly became so clear to me, crystallized in my mind. I could understand now the painful ways I’d tried to protect myself when I’d been very young, that soft area within me snapping shut, a Venus flytrap. How Eric must have hated it. It was unforgivable to him, at least in that moment. How was it that I had loved such a cruel person so recklessly?

I grew quite sad quite quickly after these thoughts. Sad, but also too tired, too ill, to really take much of an interest in my own sadness.

It was worse the next morning. I woke up with chills, a headache, a cough. Probably a fever, though I didn’t have a thermometer and couldn’t check. I couldn’t take a proper deep breath without suddenly feeling like I needed to hack out a lung, nor could I stop shivering. Needless to say, I called in sick to work again.

Left alone with my thoughts, I had nothing to do but read the few books I had in my room and had already read countless times, or lie in bed and scroll on my phone. Even the thought of calling people to complain wasn’t very appealing. I couldn’t call my mother or anybody who might have relayed back to her that I was sick, because she would get worried, I knew.

Strangely enough, the person I really wanted to talk to was J. I wanted someone to take care of me as though I were a child, to tuck me into bed and be sweet to me. It was strange: sick, I wanted to be adored. Held, studied. Allowed to lie in bed, eyes closed, and know I wasn’t missing out on anything. He would have done that for me, I felt. Had I not chosen Anthony over him.

It was all so odd. Really who I wanted to talk to was my mother (who I couldn’t) or J, who I probably could have, except for I probably would have cried, and that would have been so humiliating. I could not cry on the phone to him. He had to think that I was having the time of my life, no regrets.

I thought, a tad desperately, about calling Anthony, but I rejected that idea almost as quickly as it had come to me. He would have spoken to me, I knew, and he would have felt bad, but I didn’t want to get weepy with him. I was supposed to be pretty, perky, fun. Not in quarantine. He’d be looking for an excuse to get off the phone with me after twenty minutes.

It was odd, that feeling. The sensation of being completely alone, and knowing that you had only yourself to blame.