15
NOELLE
Igasp softly, jerking my hand back. “You’re awake,” I whisper. “You’re alive—”
“How?” His voice is barely a croak, weak and rasping. “I tried—”
“I know.” I reach out without thinking, pressing my hand against his chest, and I feel him flinch at my touch. “It was pretty obvious what you tried to do.”
“I—why—” He tries to swallow convulsively, his eyes flickering closed again, and I scramble off of the bed. He needs water, and although I’m worried about leaving him alone for even a moment, I go to get it anyway.
“We’ll talk in a second,” I tell him firmly, backing towards the door. “You need water. I’ll be right back.”
“No—” He starts to try to speak again, but I’m already gone, heading down the hallway.
I get a mug of water and, on second thought, a washcloth too from the bathroom. When I step back into the bedroom and approach the bed, though, I can see from the slack-jawed way he’s laying back on the pillow that he’s slipped back into unconsciousness. At first, I’m not even sure that he’s still alive, a bolt of fear jolting through me as I check his pulse again and see that he is.
I try to drip a little of the water into his mouth, not enough to choke him, but just to give himsomething.Hesitating, I crawl back into the bed for a little while, waiting to see if he’ll wake up again so I can give him more to drink, before dozing off once more.
When I wake up the second time, it’s afternoon. I haven’t slept in this long in—I can’t even remember, and it feels like a hedonistic luxury when I realize it’s past noon. Alexandre is still asleep or unconscious, and I drip a little more water on his tongue, rubbing some on his dry lips before my stomach rumbles, and I remember that I’ve missed breakfast.
It feels strange to be in his house while he’s unconscious in bed. There’s no one bringing me a plate or telling me to kneel down to eat it until he leaves. I move about the apartment as if it’s my own, making myself a quick brunch out of eggs, sausage links, and baguette and eating it quickly at the table with a cup of tea before returning to the bedroom to check on Alexandre.
This time, when I check for his pulse, I can feel his skin starting to heat up. I wince, knowing that’s not a good sign.
What do I do?I’m not a doctor. I don’t know anything about medicine, besides patching up my brother’s scrapes and what the doctors told me about in reference to my father’s health, which has nothing to do with what’s wrong with Alexandre.
It’s not surprising he would run a fever. The half-healed wound in his shoulder looked more than a little suspicious, as if it might be on the verge of infection, and he’s lost a lot of blood. I think back to my first impression of him when I woke up here that morning—that he looked handsome but thin, tired, with shadows under his eyes.
He wasn’t in good health then. Now his body is too weak to fight it off.
I bite my lower lip, considering. Part of me thinks it would be kinder to let him slip away in his sleep. I might keep him alive, suffering, in pain, and feverish, only for him to not make it anyway. But once again, that leaves me in the position of being alone, without a way to get home, and potentially in danger if Kaito looks into what happened. I could go to the police, as I’d planned to if I ever was allowed to visit home, but with Alexandre dead, that puts me in the position of being a suspect.
“None of that matters anyway,” I murmur aloud to myself, dipping the washcloth in the mug of water and pressing it against his forehead. “I can’t just let him die.”
I’d woken up and found him before it was too late. For better or worse, it feels to me as if that makes him my responsibility now. I have to do what I can.
The rest of the day passes by in a hazy blur. I find things around the apartment to keep me busy in between tending to Alexandre and checking on him—making meals, cleaning the kitchen, and the rest of the house. I go up to the library and pick out a few books to bring downstairs, and when I return to the bedroom, Alexandre’s eyes are open again.
I flick on the light on the opposite side of the bed, leaving the curtains open as twilight falls. The snow is starting to come down again, and I think he might like to see what he can of it from where he’s laying, though his eyes haven’t left me since I walked into the room.
“You should have—let me die.” His voice is still hoarse and thin.
I glance sideways at him. “You should have made quicker work of it, then.”
Alexandre visibly winces. “W—why?”
I swallow hard, sliding onto the bed. I leave space between us, plenty of it, not touching him the way I did last night. I can see pink tinging the bandages around his forearms, and I know they’ll need to be changed soon.
“A noise woke me up,” I say simply, not quite meeting his eyes. “I guess it must have been you falling down. I went to the kitchen, and I—” I bite my lip. “I don’t know,” I say finally, looking up to meet his gaze. “I saw you bleeding, and I couldn’t let you die, so I did my best to stop it and dragged you in here. I can’t explain more than that.”
Alexandre’s eyes flutter closed for a moment. “Should have—”
“Well, I didn’t,” I tell him firmly. “And I’m not one to leave something that I’ve started unfinished, so I guess I’m nursing you the rest of the way back to health, and then we’ll talk about what happens next.”
He’s reticent, and I think he might have fallen asleep again. I reach out to touch his forehead and wince. “You’re burning up.”
Rummaging in the first-aid kit, I find some acetaminophen. “Here.” I stand up, reaching for the fresh cup of water I’d brought. “You need to take this, and then I’m going to try to clean and treat that wound in your shoulder. It’s clearly not healing correctly.”