(Lena)
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night.
The room was dark. Cole was beside me, his arm over my waist, and I could tell he was awake.
"You're up," I said quietly.
"I've been up," he said. "Watching you."
"That's not creepy at all."
"I never said it wasn't."
I shifted onto my back and looked at the ceiling. My stomach felt settled now, the worst of it already behind me, though my body still felt wrung out in the particular way it always did after being sick.
So I told him when it started.
He turned his head toward me, giving me his full attention the way he always did when something mattered.
"Today," I said. "At the hospital. Twice. Everyone noticed the first time. Mom even asked if I was getting sick."
"What did you tell her?" he said.
"That I was fine," I said. "
