I woke up an hour or so later to hear Charlie talking to Shane as he brought the groceries inside. I had finally fallen into a somewhat comfortable sleep, but I was having nightmares brought on by my fever and the sound of a man’s voice in my house startled me enough to wake me up. The fact that it was a familiar man’s voice didn’t do much to calm me down; he hadn’t lived here with us for well over a decade, and at first I was incredibly confused until it all came rushing back to me. The events of the past week made my head spin, and with a quiet groan I let my head fall back on the pillow.

I was woozy and almost completely out of it, but I knew that I was thirsty, so I decided to chance getting up and walking to the kitchen. It was tough; I was really dizzy and could barely feel my feet touching the floor. Balance was another issue entirely. I took all of half a step before I had to sit back down on the bed.

I felt the tears sting the back of my eyes before I had a chance to process my anger over the inability to do such a simple task as walking to my own kitchen. The knowledge that I was ill and therefore not as strong or capable as I would usually have been did nothing to lessen the inadequacy I felt, and I couldn’t stop myself from beating my fists into the bed in frustration.

It took me a little while, but I was finally able to get my legs to obey and carry me, however slowly, to the kitchen. Charlie and Jenny were putting things into the fridge, and Shane was putting things into the cupboards. Because of this, she was the first one to see me as I halfway staggered into the kitchen.

“Hey, what are you doing out of bed?” she asked, a little bit more sharply than I was used to hearing from her. But a second later she was hugging me, so I knew she wasn’t mad. “You don’t need to be up walking around, Dane. You’re sick. You can always tell me if there’s anything you need.”