Marianne by Elizabeth Hammer (best books to read in life TXT) 📕

bang, but when she got there she didn’t feel like it anymore. He was sleeping, after all.

Marianne knocked quietly, but there was no answer. She carefully twisted the handle and cracked the door a few inches. “Patrick?” she whispered.

No answer. She opened the door and crossed over to his bed. He was fast asleep, facing away from her. She gently shook his shoulder. “Hello? Patrick?”

Patrick jerked awake and squinted at her. “Hey you,” he croaked.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. “You were going to come meet me at school.”

Patrick blinked a few times as if the light hurt his eyes. If he had a hangover, she was going to kill him. He blinked again. “You need me to drive you?” he rasped out.

Uh-oh. Marianne felt his face; he had a fever.

Patrick closed his eyes and said, “I think I’m sick.”

“You’re very sick,” said Marianne. Who was the jackass, now? “Did you take anything?”

He nodded.

“When?”

He nodded again.

“What did you take?”

“What?”

Marianne almost laughed at him, but she patted his arm instead. “I’ll be right back.” She left his room in search of Advil and Danielle’s jugular. She found both in the kitchen by the fridge. Marianne grabbed the bottle and the thermometer and slammed the cupboard closed. “He’s sick, you moron.”

“Really?” Danielle grimaced. “Oops.”

Marianne grabbed a water bottle out of the pantry. “Has he been throwing up?”

Danielle shouldered her purse and pushed a few kids out of the room. “If I saw him throwing up, I would have known he was sick.”

“But would you have cared?” Marianne opened the bread bag and put two pieces in the toaster. “Does he like butter?”

“Of course I’d care. He and Wolverine are the only two in this house that never fake it.” Danielle walked out of the room and then came back. “Peanut butter.”

“Thanks.” Marianne grabbed it and unscrewed the lid.

“Bye.”

“See ya.” Marianne finished fixing the toast and grabbed his meds. She went back to Patrick’s room, and he was sitting up on the edge of the bed. He looked like he might fall over, though. “Lay down,” she said, putting the stuff on the nightstand.

“I should... get up.” Patrick looked around the room like he didn’t know where he would go if he did.

Marianne propped up his pillow and pushed him back onto it. She stood by the edge of the bed and handed him his pills and water. “Lay down,” she ordered.

“My throat hurts.”

“Okay.” Marianne nodded. “Do you want tea or coffee?”

“I’m cold.”

“You have a fever.” Marianne pushed his legs back up onto the bed and pulled up his blanket. “Here you go.”

“My head hurts.”

She took the water bottle from him. “You just took Advil.”

“I’m whining.”

“You have a man-cold.”

Patrick sat up higher on the bed, against the wall, and pulled the blanket up around him. “Can I have coffee?”

“Yes.” Marianne hopped up and ran to the kitchen. This was the best, most wonderful day ever. Finally, she got to be the one to do the rescuing. She was going to smother him with all her care. She came back a few minutes later with two cups of coffee. “Do you want more toast?”

Patrick shook his head and shivered into his blanket. “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll get sick, too.”

Marianne sat down in the office chair and rolled over near his head, handing him his coffee. “Patrick,” she said seriously. “I think it’s a little late to worry about that. I’m sure I caught all your cooties last night in the truck.” Ahem.

“Sorry,” said Patrick.

Marianne smiled. “You wanna watch a movie?”

He nodded pitifully. Marianne put on The Wrath of Khan, and Patrick fell asleep again immediately. He was shivering, though, so she put a heating pad under his feet.

Toward the end of the movie, Patrick woke up with an especially severe coughing attack. Marianne had to leave and go to the drugstore for cough drops. When she got back, he seemed better than he had all day. He was sitting up in bed doodling on his skateboard with a sharpie. There was even a new DVD going in the player.

Marianne pulled off her boots and crawled onto the bed, sitting back against the wall facing his knees. Patrick had drawn an ornate skull surrounded with roses on the bottom of his board. “Aw,” said Marianne. “Is that your girlfriend?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty, huh?”

Marianne stretched her leg out and caught the cord of the heating pad between her toes. Patrick wasn’t using it anymore, so she pulled it up under her own feet. “What are you watching? It’s disgusting.”

“A History of Britain,” said Patrick around his cough drop. It made a clinking sound against his teeth when he talked.

The documentary flashed images of medieval knights and clergymen, and spoke of some poor guy getting stabbed in the head and having his brains smeared on the floor of a cathedral. Marianne glanced over at Patrick to comment on his taste in TV, but he spoke first. “You can change it if you want.”

“What?” said Marianne, suddenly not wanting to seem too stupid for an academic show. “I like Plantagenets and Archbishops and...” Marianne glanced back at the TV and wrinkled her nose. “And goat hair shirts with lice crawling in them.”

“It is pretty gross,” mumbled Patrick. He wasn’t really watching; he was drawing a banner along the bottom of the skull.

“Why would that guy wear that under his clothes?” Marianne unwrapped a cough drop and stuck it in her mouth.

Patrick looked up at Marianne. “Does your throat hurt?”

“No. I’m just hungry and too lazy to get up.” Marianne balled up the little wrapper and stuck it in her pocket. “So was that guy, Thomas Beckett, into self-mutilation or what?”

Patrick squinted at the TV. “Uh... more like self-mortification. The rough fabric would rub the skin raw; a kind of perpetual penance for his sins.”

“How holy of him,” said Marianne. “Medieval people had the stupidest ideas.”

“It’s not a medieval idea,” said Patrick, doodling again. “People naturally do it to themselves all the time, they just don’t use hair shirts