After Frankie left, Rachel reached out to touch Justin’s forehead, then flinched when she felt the heat. The paramedics from earlier had tried to bring his temperature down with external cooling, but Rachel was still worried about him. She had come close to getting meningitis once when she was a child, and it started with a high fever as well.
She paced around the house anxiously and finally decided to head outside with a small bowl that was filled with snow from outside. When she returned, she tried looking for a bag to hold the snow she had collected, but to no avail.
She sauntered over to the bed, and her gaze fell upon the damp towel folded and laid over Justin’s forehead.
A sudden wicked thought crossed her mind. She began to shape the snow in the bowl into a mini snowman, and once it took form, she set it on Justin’s forehead.
At the sight of the snowman gingerly balanced there, Rachel couldn’t help sputtering aloud, and her shoulders shook as she tried to hold back her laughter.
Just then, Justin’s brows furrowed, and the movement caused the mini snowman to tremble precariously. Rachel’s eyes widened as her hand darted out to grab the snowman, but her fingertips had barely brushed it when it fell forward and landed with a soft splat over his nose, breaking and covering half his face in the snow.
He shivered at the sudden icy sensation and woke up. At that moment, their eyes met, and Rachel wished a hole would open up in the ground and swallow her.
They cleared up the snowy mess in awkward silence, and a minute later, Justin was propped up against the headboard while sipping the hot chamomile tea Rachel had made for him. He was still pale, but he looked a little better than he had when the IV was first administered.
Presently, Rachel flushed guiltily as she stammered, “I… Uh, I’m sorry about just now. I was just trying to help you cool down.”
“With a mini snowman?” he asked with a raised brow, clearly amused. She gaped at him. “How did you know it was a snowman?”
“If I’m not mistaken, it was the snowman’s head that landed on my left cheek. If you hadn’t used green peas for its eyes, I would have thought it. was a frozen powdered donut.”
She turned a bright shade of red, and she was so flustered she almost choked on air. He laughed at how distressed she seemed, and she snapped, “What’s so funny?”
“I never quite figured out where Charlotte got her mischievous side from until now,” he explained with a chuckle. Glaring at him, she asked, “You think she got it from me?”
“Obviously.” “It could just be something she picked up along the way instead of an inherited trait,” she argued. “Ah, so you admit that you have the trait, then?”
Rachel opened her mouth to protest, but she found herself at a loss for words. She wished she could dissect his mind and see just what went on in there and how he could come up with all these clever, witty responses that caught her off guard all the time.
Presently, he added placatingly, “Hey, don’t be mad. I was only joking. Also, how long was I out for?” He peered outside the window, but all he saw was darkness.
“Not too long,” she answered. “The paramedics left moments before you woke up, and I only just put you on the second bottle of IV”
“I’m sorry to put you through the trouble” “It’s not that big of a deal, really,” she said with a shrug. “I’m fine with it. The question is, how are you going to go back to Riverdale in this state?! don’t think you can travel for the time being.”
Justin almost told her he could make the trip, but when he saw the look on her face, he changed his mind and asked instead, ‘I don’t know. What if I can’t? Will you go without me?”
She frowned and pointed out matter-of-factly, “And leave you here on your own? As if. We can push the trip back by a day and leave when your feel better. It won’t make much of a difference, will it?” “But it’s so run-down here,” he remarked.
“It’s not too bad. Besides, I lived in a small town just like this one when I was a kid, remember? Look at the woods outside the door; don’t they look just like the ones outside my childhood home?” It was only after she said this that she realized she was bringing up her childhood. Up until now, she still couldn’t be sure if the last words she had uttered the other day had not been part of some fever dream.
However, Justin did not look the slightest bit. fazed as he nodded and replied, “They do.”
Rachel froze when she heard this. So I wasn’t dreaming or delirious when I said all those things while lying under the rubble. I really did tell Justin about my childhood.
“How about we go for a stroll in the woods tomorrow if the weather permits?” he suggested, pulling her out of her thoughts as his voice cut through the tension in the room.
“Sure,” she replied, caught in the remnants of her daze. They chatted for a while longer, and at some point, Rachel let out a yawn, prompting Justin to check the time. When he saw that it was the early hours of the morning, he said, “It’s late. You should go back and get some sleep.”
She glanced at the bottle of IV fluid. “But you’re not done with the IV yet.” The paramedic had emphasized that she must detach the IV needle and catheter when the bottle emptied. Justin gave her a dismissive wave. “I can do it myself.”
Frowning, she countered, “I’d rather you didn’t strain yourself. I’ll stay until you finish the drip. Besides, how are you going to press a cotton ball down on your forearm while detaching the catheter?” Even if he could manage such an impressive feat, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t fall asleep before the IV fluid ran out.
She didn’t want air embolism to happen, and her careful nature meant she had to stay here and keep an eye on him. Besides, she knew she would be so worried about leaving him to his own devices that sleep would become a virtual impossibility.
Upon seeing how stubborn she was, Justin let her be and did not try to get her to leave again. It was getting really late into the night. Rachel yawned for what felt like the fiftieth time and sighed at the boredom. The house was so quiet that the only sound that filled the space was the soft, rhythmic dripping of the IV fluids.
Neither she nor Justin said a word, and for a moment, it was like they were transported back in time to six years ago. Justin had always been stoic, and Rachel was by no means a conversationalist at the time. As such, silence enfolded them whenever they were alone.
However, he got used to having her around the Burton family home after she had moved in with them for a while. Much like a glass of water, she started out plain and forgettable, but one could only go so long without water, and she eventually became an important part of his life:
As Justin reminisced about the past, there was a period of time when Arthur had kept Rachel at the summer villa. For some reason, her absence had caused him to lose sleep at night, and he secretly traveled to and fro the countryside just so he could get some sleep at the summer villa. He hadn’t felt tired then; the restful slumber more than made up for the distance.
He wondered if he had already fallen in love with Rachel then, only without realizing it. Or maybe I’ve loved her for longer, he thought. The next morning, the winter sun filtered through the window and coaxed Rachel out from dreamland.
She turned so that she lay flat on her back and opened her eyes groggily. It was then that she registered the unfamiliar sensation under, and she bolted upright while drawing the covers up to her torso.
Did I fall asleep here? She couldn’t believe she had slept through the night at Justin’s place, nor could she remember how. The IV bottle hooked up next to the bed was empty, and dangling from it was the catheter, which swayed when her movements sent a breeze in its direction. The needle glimmered under the morning sun, as though reminding her that. there was supposed to be a person attached to it.
At once, realization dawned upon Rachel. She didn’t recall pulling the needle out of Justin’s arm last night. So who did? Could we both have fallen asleep while the IV kept on dripping? Did no one pull the needle out after the IV course was finished? Oh, no. The air! The embolism! Justin!
Panic flooded through her at the thought of this. She quickly threw the covers off, and she was half-running, half-pulling on her boots to get out of the house.
The first thing she saw when she went out into the yard was Harry fetching a pail of water. “Harry!” she called out frantically. “Have your seen Justin?”
Harry was astonished to see her coming out of Justin’s house. Baffled, he asked, “I thought Mr. Burton was running a high fever last night. Isn’t he sleeping in the house?”
Rachel blanched. “No, he isn’t!”
