Axel leaves long enough to grab me clean clothes and comes back with a soft t-shirt that smells faintly like him, and I don’t ask why he chose that one, because I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
The second wave hits harder.
My fever spikes, and the shaking turns violent enough that the bed rattles beneath me, and I curl in on myself because everything hurts and nothing helps, and I finally break down enough to cry, quiet at first and then ugly and breathless, because my body is betraying me and I’m exhausted in a way that feels bone-deep.
Axel sits on the edge of the bed and lets me grip his sleeve while Atticus cools my forehead with a cloth, and neither of them tells me to be strong or brave or patient, because they don’t need to, and maybe they understand that sometimes survivi
