Page 63 of The Marriage Mistake

Those days were tough.

My father always treated me like a burden, and he never let me forget it when I was most in need of care. I tried my best to stay in my room and suffer in silence, but it was never enough. If I dared go to the bathroom, he’d tell me how inconvenienced he’d been by having to pick me up and stay home from work. He’d still expect me to cook dinner for him and do my normal chores. If I was puking, he’d make me clean everything up in between bouts of vomit. It was isolating, humiliating, and miserable.

As I shivered in my little attic room, my body remembered. Tears leaked out of my eyes as I mouth-breathed through my pain.

At least Jack and Darby would be at Etta’s house most of the day. I could suffer alone, the way I liked it.

But then the stairs creaked, and the door opened.

I cracked an eyelid and lifted my pounding head to see Jack heading for me with a tray in his hands. Steam wafted out of a mug.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice small and weak.

“Here,” was all he said, and placed two little pills in my hand. Tylenol. I frowned at them, then at him, noticing the glass of water he extended toward me.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“Take the meds, Ember.”

I didn’t have the energy to fight. I swallowed the pills and collapsed back onto my pillows. There was a clink of the glass, and I cracked my eyes open to see Jack putting a mug of tea on my nightstand beside the glass of water. I squinted. He’d used the herbal tea I’d been drinking like it was my job since our horrible run. He’d noticed. I shifted my gaze to look at him, feeling way too emotional about a mug of herbal tea. He gave me a worried look, then left.

I sighed, relieved. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I didn’t want to be in his debt.

But Jack didn’t go away. What felt like seconds later, the door opened again and he strode in. Under one arm, he had a box, and under the other was a bundle of blankets. He set the box down and then unfurled the blankets over me as I shivered.

“Jack,” I croaked. “I’ll get you sick.”

“I’ll deserve it,” he grumbled, then turned to the box and took out a small appliance. In a few seconds, he had a humidifier puffing out mist into the air. A box of tissues appeared on the nightstand beside the water and tea, and then his warm hand was on my forehead. He raked through my hair with his fingers as I whimpered in weak protest, touched my neck, and rearranged the blankets.

“Tell your grandma I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” I said, eyes closing against the too-bright light streaming in through the windows. “You and Darby have fun.”

“My brother’s picking Darby up to take her,” he said. “I’m staying right here.”

That got my eyes open again. I frowned at him. “What?”

“You need looking after,” he grumbled, adjusting the settings on the humidifier before standing up and glaring at it with his hands on his hips. “This thing is still leaking. I thought I’d fixed it.”

“You should go. I don’t need you.”

“You don’t know what you need,” he replied, which—if I’d had the energy—would have been infuriating. Instead, I just sighed and gave up, nestling into the extra blankets that finally seemed to be chasing away some of the chill in my bones.

“I’m never going jogging with you again. And I’m definitely never going swimming.”

He grunted, and the bed dipped as he sat by my side. “That’s fair,” he rumbled. His hand slid over my arm, and he began to stroke up and down on top of the blankets. It felt so good I began to slip closer to sleep.

But not before complaining, “All because you wanted to fake it in front of a bunch of old people.”

Jack’s sigh was soft, and right before I drifted off to sleep, I heard him mutter, “That wasn’t the reason I kissed you, Ember,” but illness and exhaustion dragged me into uneasy sleep before I could ask him what he meant.

I was in bed for five awful days. Five days of fever, chills, exhaustion, and Jack. Jack, who came into my room several times a day with water, medication, blankets, wet washcloths for my forehead, and mugs of broth and tea he coaxed me to ingest. I nibbled on crackers under his watchful eye and tried to sip as many fluids as possible. I went through an incredible number of tissues. A trip to the bathroom felt like an expedition to the uncharted heart of Antarctica: I was ill-equipped and likely to die on the way.

But Jack was there, his strong arms circling around me, his voice patient, his expression soft. I wondered what he’d want in return for this—or why he was doing it at all—but I was too exhausted to puzzle it out.

Then, on the sixth day, I woke up with my stomach feeling like an empty void that needed to be filled with enough eggs, toast, waffles, and bacon to feed an NFL team. I rolled over with a groan and spotted a plate with a piece of buttered toast on my nightstand. Jack had been in here while I was asleep. He was an angel.

I swung my legs off the side of the bed and gripped the edge of the mattress while my head spun. Then I ate the best-tasting piece of cold toast I’d ever had in my life, followed by the most refreshing glass of water I’d ever ingested.

Fortified, I made it to my feet, wavered, and smelled the godawful stink of a sick, wallowing body. Grimacing, I grabbed a change of clothes and a fresh towel, and I made my way to the bathroom.