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Chapter 21
Stephanie rolled over and reached for her body pillow. When she didn’t feel it and she tried to drift back to sleep without it. She failed. Her inability to return to zzz-land had nothing to do with her lack of a feather stuffed sleep aid, it was because of the noise. There was a siren blaring.
Was she at the hospital?
Had she fallen asleep in an on-call room?
No. Those rooms were for residents and doctors. She wouldn’t be asleep there.
The siren continued blaring and she came to the conclusion it had to be her alarm. Her alarm was going off. She needed to change that. When she tried to open her eyes, she quickly realized she couldn’t. Her body felt weak, too weak to wake up. Sleep. She just needed more sleep.
Again, she willed herself to lose consciousness. To fall back into a peaceful slumber. Again, she failed. That alarm was too loud.
Knowing there was no getting around it she forced her heavy lids open and squinted at the red light displaying the time. It was five o’clock. She raised her hand and hit the snooze button. When she laid back down she realized that her arms and legs were achy. She ignored it, telling herself that she just needed more rest.
A second later her peace was interrupted when the alarm rang out again. She must not have hit snooze. Trying once more to silence the dreaded racket, she hit her hand where she estimated the sound was coming from and tried to disable it without opening her eyes. When the obnoxious noise continued she knew that she had no choice, she needed visual assistance to shut this sucker down. Her lids separated enough to let a tiny sliver of visibility in. She managed to locate the clock alarm and through half-closed eyes she saw the numbers that only a moment before had been a five and two zeros were now a six and two fives.
It couldn’t be 6:55 p.m.
Her eyes opened wider to verify the change. Yep. It was almost 7:00 p.m. Had she really fallen back to sleep for almost two hours? Her alarm was still going off and with much more effort than it should’ve taken she pushed up on her elbow and successfully shut it off. With the quiet seemingly restored she lowered her hand back to the bed. A loud pounding in her head replaced the shrill sound of the alarm. She closed her eyes and a chill rushed through her. She pulled the comforter up to her chin and snuggled into the warmth. A moment after the cool tremor, her body temperature swung like a pendulum in the opposite direction and she was so hot. As she worked to get out from under the covers the rhythmic thudding continued.
After tossing and turning and not being able to get comfortable she pushed to a sitting position and she glanced at her phone that was lit up on the night stand. It showed several texts from Ace and as she read them the reality of the situation came crashing down on her.
They were supposed to go to dinner tonight. She’d overslept. He was at the door.
She started to get out of bed and the entire room spun around her. When she lowered back down to the mattress another thing became clear. She was sick. Really sick. The virus that had been sweeping through Harper’s Crossing had finally taken her out.
The pounding, which she now knew was Ace at the door, continued. Picking up her phone she considered shooting him a text, but decided against it because the task seemed too daunting. Instead, she pressed the icon of the phone below his name.
She didn’t even hear one ring before his voice was in her ear. His tone was filled with concern. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m sick,” her voice sounded as weak as she felt.
“Where are you?”
“In bed. I was asleep. I just woke up,” she managed to explain.
“Can you open the door?”
Stephanie shook her head.
“Stephanie, can you open the door?” Ace repeated.
“Oh, sorry.” She had to use her words since he couldn’t hear her shaking her head no. “I don’t think I can go to dinner.”
“I know,” he spoke calmly. “I want you to open the door so I can come in. So I can take care of you.”
Oh, that’s sweet.
“I’m fine.” Stephanie gave her pat answer.
“I’m not. I’m not going to be fine until I see with my own eyes that you are.”
She didn’t have the energy to argue with him. “I don’t want to get you sick. I just need sleep.”
Another chill ran through her and her jaw trembled. She closed her eyes and laid back down on the bed.
“Do you have a hide-a-key?”
