Page 118 of Faking the Goal

"I know I passed out." I vaguely remember my knees giving way and hearing him shout my name before everything went black. "Why am I here?"

"You were barely conscious, you were burning up, and this was close. I wasn't going to leave you lying outside."

"You could've taken me to the school clinic."

"I could have."

"Would've saved you the trouble." I push myself farther upright and wince when every muscle in my body protests. "I'd hate for taking care of me to become another thing you can hold against me later."

He grimaces, and the guilt that crosses his face tells me the jab landed exactly where I wanted it to.

"I know I deserve that."

"Yeah. You do."

He lets out a quiet sigh and sets the glass of water on the nightstand.

"For what it's worth, bringing you here and taking care of you isn't an inconvenience. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't want to."

He reaches into the plastic bag and pulls out a bottle of Tylenol. "You're still burning up. Take this."

I don't want to, mostly because accepting anything from him right now feels like a betrayal of my own principles, but my head is splitting in two and spite apparently isn't an effective painkiller.

So I swallow my pride along with the Tylenol and take the water from him.

He takes the empty glass from me and sets it back on the nightstand before sitting on the edge of the bed.

"How long was I out?"

"About three hours."

"Three hours?" I glance toward the window and finally notice how dark it is outside.

I throw the blanket off and start to get up.

"What are you doing?"

"Going home."

"You're not driving."

I give him a look. "I wasn't asking permission."

"You're still running a fever, and you just took medicine." He gestures toward the window. "And it's pouring outside."

As if summoned purely to prove his point, rain beats steadily against the glass.

I glare at him, but even sitting upright has my head swimming again, and I know attempting to drive like this would be monumentally stupid.

"Fine," I grunt, pulling the blanket back over my legs. "But only because I'm currently too weak to argue with you properly."

Something almost resembling amusement touches his face, but it disappears just as quickly.

Silence settles between us after that, and for once, neither of us seems particularly eager to fill it.

Then Kentaro looks down at his hands.

"I'm sorry."