Comfort and Things

Pressing a fist to his lips, he forces himself to swallow against the rising feeling. It’s all so strange. He felt fine a few minutes ago. Right?

He tries to remember the morning and gets the sinking feeling that his love for Christmas has been cloaking a bone-deep exhaustion and lack of appetite all day. Maybe he’s reading into it too much, but his head has begun to throb. Or was it already? It’s all a bit much all of a sudden, and he finds himself retreating to his bedroom without a second thought.

He retrieves his phone from the bedside table and pulls up Aunt Jo’s contact.

When are you guys heading over?

He stares at his phone and waits for the delivered to change to read. The sudden urge to climb into bed and never come back out claws at him, but he knows that would never fly. His dad is right downstairs, and if Judah doesn’t come down before long, he’s sure he’ll notice. He doesn’t need things going downhill before they’ve even had dinner. It’s not like he doesn’t want to see his granddad or his aunt, the problem is just that he sort of feels like throwing up now, and he doesn’t really want an audience if he can help it.

With that in mind, he trails over to the bathroom and locks the door. Being in such close proximity to the toilet makes him feel even worse. He remembers the last time he got sick, and how long he’d spent draped over the murky water praying he’d just die.

He needs this one to be quick. With shaking hands, he braces himself on the tank of the toilet and forces a cough. His stomach presses upward uncomfortably, but nothing comes up. Another few coughs certainly takes him close to gagging, but apart from some watery spit, nothing makes it into the toilet.

He straightens up with a quiet, frustrated groan. How is it that his stomach was nearly flying out of him downstairs but won’t budge in front of a toilet?

His phone buzzes on the countertop beside him. He picks it up. It’s Aunt Jo.

Heading over in a minute, I’ll see you soon!

He’s simultaneously relieved and disappointed. If he just had a few more minutes, he might be able to get whatever wants out out. As it is, he’s screwed.

“Judah,” his father calls from the stairs. Double screwed.

He collects himself just enough to walk out and call out an answer. His head aches with the echo of his own voice.

“The hell are you doing up there?”

“Forgot my phone, Aunt Jo was texting me. They’ll be here any minute,” he answers, trying not to bristle at the tone of his dads voice. He should be used to it by now, really.

“That’s just great. Get your ass down here and finish up in the kitchen.”

“Yes sir,” he replies, wanting so desperately for things to calm down before they get here.

He only allows himself five more seconds of private misery before starting down the stairs. As he rounds the corner, the smell of the food he’d been cooking just earlier suddenly has him lingering close to the sink in case the nausea overwhelms him.

He finally takes the ham out of the oven and makes every effort to avoid looking at it. One spare glance at the mashed potatoes has his stomach churning badly. For a moment, he wants to just give up. He wants to throw up, go to his room, and sleep for the next few weeks.

Instead, he takes the iced tea he’d brewed earlier out of the fridge and sets the pitcher on the counter. The effort has his arm aching for no good reason. Thankfully, that’s the last of what he has to do.

“Care to explain why you’re just standing there instead of setting the table?” His fathers gritty, slightly slurred voice drawls behind him. So much for being done.

“I’ll do that now.”

His father just hums, low and dismissive. It’s clear from both the collection of bottles in the trash and his eyes that he’s already downed more than enough alcohol.

Judah gets that the holidays are hard when you’re missing someone—he gets that. He also gets that there’s a reason why Granddad stayed with Aunt Jo overnight after he flew instate instead of here. What he doesn’t get is getting piss-drunk every year and acting like you’re not. It’s certainly not convincing.

With a sigh, Judah ignores the way his head is starting to spin, gathers four plates, and places them on the table. He goes back for silverware and napkins, and then he dares to tell himself he’s done everything. Thankfully, before his dad can berate him about anything else, there’s a knock at the door. He instantly feels better.

His father beats him to answering the door, and Judah watches the painful exchange of his relatives pretending that they’d missed each other. In reality, Judah really has missed his grandad. After all, he’s the closest thing Judah has ever had to a father figure.

He almost feels well as his grandad hugs him. He can smell the same cologne he’s used for the last few decades. It reminds him of every last good year of his life. It’s almost hard not to start crying.

But instead, he pulls away, stepping toward his aunt and letting her wrap him up in her arms tightly. He really does almost cry then, tell her how awful he feels, but he somehow manages not to.

They say the same bullshit about how are you and what have you been up to and how are things in Colorado, but Judah starts to tune out. No matter how nice it is to see them again, he can no longer ignore the churning wake in his stomach.

His father gives him a look, and he knows immediately he has to go get the food. They settle in at the table while he goes to retrieve it. When he’s brought everything to the table, he’s more than happy to sink down into his own chair.

However, he’s much less happy about having to load up his plate with food he absolutely doesn’t want. Aunt Jo had brought some casserole and fruit, so he goes mainly for those. He pales at the mere idea of eating ham and buttery mashed potatoes.

“So, how was school this semester, Jay? Are you excited to graduate next year?” His aunt asks.

He manages to swallow a mouthful of casserole and wash it down with some tea so it’ll hopefully stay down. He wracks his brain to try and think of anything positive to say. In reality, he’d barely scraped by in calculus and avoided almost everyone he could. The idea of graduation is exciting, but the idea of college applications makes his stomach churn a little harder.

“Yeah, for sure, um. Well, my history teacher took us to that museum downtown, it was pretty cool.” He clears his throat. It’s thick with nausea. “I had some classes with Arlo, so that was good too.”

He prays he won’t have to say anything else. With so much food in front of him and his dad’s eyes burning into the side of his head, he’s so dizzy he can hardly stand it. Another wave of nausea passes through him then, worse than the last.

“Is that the same boy I met last time?” Granddad asks before taking a big bite of ham. Judah’s stomach gives a violent turn, so he only dares to nod. “Mm. He seems like a good kid. There’s not too many of those anymore.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. An uneasy chill breaks out across his skin. He wishes Arlo was here.

The fireplace crackles in the silence that follows. Judah chokes down a few more forkfuls of his dinner. Mom would’ve known how to keep things light.

“You know, I was thinking maybe you could come see me in the mountains soon, kid. I bet you’d really like it.”

Judah feels a pang of guilt for not having visited in so long, but then again, he hasn’t really been allowed to do much at all. His dad nods, says it’s a great idea, but Judah knows that’s a load of horse shit. The second Judah brings it up later, it’ll be shot down in a fiery blaze.

“That would be amazing, Granddad, thank you. I’d love to.”

Thankfully that sparks some stories about Colorado, and his guests’ attention is mercifully directed away from him. He’s finished over half his plate now, and it’s sitting like jagged rocks in his stomach.

If his head weren’t aching so badly, he might have a chance of listening to their conversation, but as it is, he’s barely lucid. What shreds of energy he has left are focused on keeping his dinner where it belongs. He breaks out in a cold sweat.

When he’s mostly cleared his plate, the ache in his stomach has almost tripled. He’s taking small sips of tea to keep things flowing in the right direction. The gesture’s effectiveness is dwindling exponentially.

For a couple minutes, his father disappears from the table with the excuse that he’d left a candle burning in the other room. Judah knows that means he’s going to go chug another couple of warm beers, but he’s smart enough even now to know better than to hint at that.

He tries desperately during that time to look even slightly engaged in the conversation. Nausea pools in the pit of his stomach, blooming toward his throat. He’s freezing, though he can feel the heat radiating from his palm where it’s resting on his leg.

His father returns, and Judah doesn’t miss the way he has to grip the table while he’s sitting down to keep from swaying. Embarrassment flames hot up the skin of his neck. He takes another sip of tea.

Only this time, he can’t seem to swallow it. He sits there, stone-still, willing his body to obey. It takes several long seconds, and the tea is warmed from saliva when he finally gets it down.

His stomach churns dangerously in response, his body suddenly flushing hot. He feels the blood drain from is face in an instant. He gets the awful sensation of his dinner sloshing up thick toward his throat, and he has to go—now.

“Excuse me,” he interrupts, pushing away from the table.

“Judah,” his father says. He ignores it. He knows he’ll pay for it later, as if he’s not already paying for his own existence now.

By the time he’s halfway up the stairs, he’s stifling gags against his sleeve. A wash of watery spit flows over his tongue, and he heaves his way through the hallway. His stomach lurches with finality as he passes the threshold of the bathroom. He’s only just made it through the doorway when a good portion of his dinner comes splattering out onto the tile and bathmat.

He locks himself inside the bathroom and prays no one heard him get sick on the floor. His dad would kill him. If this doesn’t kill him, that is.

The second his knees hit the cold tile, he’s vomiting again, blushing the clear water below an ugly shade of beige. He’s doing his best to be quiet, but being violently ill isn’t exactly what you’d consider a peaceful activity—especially when the food coming back up hasn’t even had time to digest.

There’s a brief moment where he stops, thick spit hanging from his mouth. He gets a few seconds to breathe, but then his stomach is churning all over again, and he knows the worsened aching means it’s working hard to bring everything else up he’s eaten today, too.

He’s begging the universe please not again, but all it sends back a resounding yes—again.

Some air comes up with a sudden retch, and then he sprays the back of the toilet with the beginnings of round two. He’s sort of surprised no one has come to see what he’d hurried away for, but he’s more grateful for that than anything. At least his father is maybe distracted.

As he continues to heave uncontrollably, it becomes evident that, yes, he’s already throwing up the sandwich and leftover pizza he’d eaten for lunch. The nausea ticks back up a few notches at the idea of something sitting so long inside of him and now coming back up with no chance of stopping it.

By the time his stomach ebbs to a gentle churn, he’s trembling wildly and so dizzy he could faint, but he has bigger problems. Half of his dinner is still splayed out thick across the floor to his left. He dares to look at the damage and has to whip his head back around to the toilet to be sick again.

He makes sure he’s done, and though he doesn’t feel all that much better, it’s a comfort to know he’s not at risk of emptying his full stomach at the dinner table. The throbbing in his temples has also dulled a little, which he’s certainly not complaining about.

He tries to make quick work of mopping up his vomit with toilet paper and spraying the bathroom with his cologne to hopefully mask the sour, sick smell should anyone walk by. He washes his mouth out at the sink and sees that his skin has gone an unnatural yellow-grey. He’s covered in sweat. There’s no way he can play this off, but he’s going to have to try.

His legs shake as he leaves the bathroom, and he attempts to steady them while he goes down the stairs. His stomach gives a hollow moan. The lingering nausea has him swallowing repeatedly as he approaches the table again.

There are three pairs of eyes on him, each laced with varying levels of concern. His father mostly just looks annoyed. Judah tries to pretend like it doesn’t affect him.

He clears his throat. “Sorry, I uh…,” he rasps, raw and sore. “I really needed to make a call.”

“Jude, you look awful, hon. Are you okay?”

Judah tries to perk up a little at that. He’s sure it’s not working.

“Oh, yeah, it’s just Arlo. His, um, his cat passed away earlier today, and I promised I’d call him before it got too late. He was pretty upset, so…that was hard.”

Judah prays his aunt doesn’t remember that Arlo’s cat died over a year ago. Thankfully, if she does remember, it doesn’t show.

“Oh no, on Christmas morning? That’s really tough. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” Judah breathes, hoping they’ll just drop it and move onto something else. Death tends to do that.

And it does. Their attention drifts away from him again, and he can relax a little. He spends a few minutes just collecting himself. His eyes are aching along with his stomach and head, longing to shut and stay shut.

He lets them drop for just a few seconds, and when he opens them again, he finds himself looking at the remnants on his plate, which is just about the worst place his eyes could’ve landed. The smell suddenly hits him again, and the memory of being sick along with the sight of everyone still eating what he’d just had to violently throw up brings on a nausea he can’t ride out. Suddenly, heat is exploding in the back of his throat, and bitter vomit fills his mouth with a muted gush.

He doesn’t bother excusing himself this time, and he’s not going to make it to the bathroom, so he settles for the kitchen sink. He spits it all out, a string of curses repeating over and over in his head. He’s not done.

In hopes of covering the sound and washing out the sink at the same time, he turns on the faucet full blast. His bile-tinged breakfast makes a reappearance all over the stainless steel. His legs are barely holding him up as he curls over the edge of the sink with another heave.

“Oh, Jude…,” he hears behind him. It’s Aunt Jo. His heart drops. He’d tried so hard. “I knew you weren’t feeling good.”

Her hand runs across his back, and he vomits again. His stomach is already so sore, his head spinning. If he doesn’t stop puking soon, he’s going to faint.

“Alright, now what the fuck is this,” his father bites.

“He’s sick, Chris, give him a break,” Aunt Josie retorts. She never backs down when it comes to him, thank God.

“Probably just wasted. Little piece of shit stole my liquor not even two weeks ago.”

“Oh yeah? Well being drunk doesn’t give you a raging fever like his—you would know.”

At that, Judah retches more violently than he has all night. He’s scared for his aunt, and this argument has his nerves sharp, his insides knotting tighter. He remembers the beating he’d received upon his father’s discovery. He vomits from the very pit of his stomach.

Aunt Jo is still rubbing his back, so his father hadn’t lunged at her immediately. That makes him feel marginally better. He hears footsteps and then a door slam, and the relief of his father being gone is tangible. Still, his vision is blacking out around the edges, and he’s feeling so weak that he could collapse.

With one final, choking retch, he’s left panting over the drain. Aunt Jo uses the pull-away faucet to wash everything down, and then she brushes back some of the sweat-matted hair from his forehead. He could start sobbing if he weren’t so dehydrated.

“He okay?” He hears a deeper voice say. His grandad is standing in the doorway of the kitchen when Judah dares to straighten up. His father really is gone. He hopes he isn’t driving that drunk.

“Got sick to his stomach. I think he has a pretty bad fever,” she replies.

“M’okay. Really sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Jay. Throwing up is not something you have control over.”

“Should’ve just stayed in the bathroom,” he murmurs, whole body aching.

“Jude, how many times have you thrown up today?”

He hums. “Once earlier. I tried to make it through dinner, but I just started feeling so sick, I didn’t mean to waste all that food,” he murmurs, the tears that wouldn’t come earlier beginning to well up. “I’m sorry.”

“Judah, it’s okay,” she insists, pulling him in for a hug. Her hand draws over his back.

Granddad comes a little closer. “I’m sorry you’re feeling so awful, Judah. Your father has no right treating you the way he does.”

Judah stays silent at that. The less he talks about it all, the better. Talking about it hasn’t done him any good in twelve years.

“I think I need to lay down,” he finally murmurs, aching and exhausted.

Wordlessly, Aunt Jo begins to lead him upstairs. His fever comes back with a vengeance, swelling into a thick fog in his head. His body pulses with pain and fatigue. Tears keep slipping down his cheeks without permission.

His mouth feels fuzzy, his limbs full of static. Consciousness leaves him like draining blood. An angry ocean of darkness curls around him.

Whoever came up with the phrase “fever dream” certainly made it sound too pleasant. It’s more of gut-wrenching nightmares, terrors unimaginable in wakefulness. He’s drowning. He’s drowning, he’s drowning, he’s—

He’s looking at Arlo. Chest heaving, hot tears collecting under his chin, he stares at the boy beside him. He must still be dreaming.

“It’s okay, Judah, you’re alright. It’s just me,” he reassures quietly.

“You’re…,” Judah starts, unable to form any other words. His heart meets his stomach in his throat.

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

He’s shaking, drenched in sweat. He can barely remember a thing. Arlo flicks on the lamp beside them and sits carefully on the edge of the bed.

“Are you, um. Do you feel any better?”

Judah brings a trembling hand up to wipe the tears off his face. The question wakes him up a little. Memories start to trickle back in, hazy and uncomfortable to remember.

All of a sudden, he’s feeling every bit as miserable as before—probably worse. With a groan, he rests his head in his hands, the room swaying dangerously under him. His stomach wrenches tightly.

“Arlo…,” he starts. I don’t feel good. Get me a trash can. Move so I don’t puke on you.

He can’t get the words out.

“Yeah?”

His stomach pitches, floods full. Spit gathers warm under his tongue. He shuts his eyes tightly and feels a drawn-out rush of liquid pass his lips and cascade down his shirt into his lap.

“Oh shit,” Arlo blurts, and Judah’s pretty sure that’s the first time he’s ever heard him curse. He’ll tease him about it later. As of now, he’s a little occupied with violently emptying his stomach.

Thankfully, Arlo retrieves the trash can and gets it back to him before he has to be sick again. The smell and the feeling of puke soaking through to his legs sends his stomach reeling worse. He’s buried in the trash can, splattering his insides all over it, over and over.

If he’s not imagining it, Arlo’s hand is carefully brushing across his back. If this is a dream, it’s much less awful than the ones he was having before. He’d take puking over drowning any day.

As the fog begins to clear from his mind and his stomach stops lurching, he begins to think maybe it’s not a dream at all. He ignores his embarrassment for now and wipes a sleeve across his mouth. It’s going to have to be washed, anyway.

“What,” he barely manages, swallowing. “What are you doing here?”

Arlo shifts his weight, blinks. “Your aunt called me. Um. She said you were getting really upset and sick and kept asking for me.”

Judah frowns. He searches for the memory, even a trace, but he can’t remember that at all. Then again, he barely remembers the walk to his room, let alone anything after.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And uh, she said she’s sorry to hear my cat died?”

That he does remember. His cheeks flush hot. There isn’t really a solid, logical explanation for that one.

“I needed an excuse for bailing from the table to go puke, so…I just couldn’t think of anything else to say. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I figured maybe it was a fever thing.”

Judah shakes his head. Silence grows thick. He’s heavy with illness.

“I’m really sorry you’re so sick, Jude.”

“It’s okay, I feel a little better…,” he replies, unsure if he’s really telling the truth or not. “Thank you for coming. I wanted to see you, but not exactly like this.”

“I knew I couldn’t just stay home knowing you were feeling so bad. Besides, I still owe you for that night at my house,” Arlo replies, his own face growing crimson.

“Well…thank you,” he quietly repeats.

“You’re welcome. Um. Let me help you with this.”

Judah goes to refuse, but then he realizes just how much of a mess he made and how little energy he has to do something about it. So, silently, he allows Arlo to take the trash can, pull back the blankets, and carefully take his shirt off.

“I should shower…,” he murmurs, feeling much too exhausted to even think about moving.

“Yeah. Do you need help getting there, or like, clean clothes or something?”

Judah nods, eyes falling shut. He lets them linger there for a long moment. He feels Arlo’s tentative hand on his bare back, and he opens them.

“Here,” he encourages, slowly helping Judah out of bed.

They cross the room just as slow, finally making it to the bathroom. Judah sits on the toilet lid with a groan. Arlo turns the water on.

“What clothes do you want?”

Judah shrugs just barely. “Anything.”

“Okay. You’re not gonna pass out or anything right?”

“Probably not.”

It’s not a super comforting answer, but Arlo only lingers a bit before retreating to the bedroom. He returns with a t-shirt, some boxers, and some sweatpants. Judah thanks him, and he leaves again.

Judah is alone in the bathroom then, steam beginning to fill the air. He can’t find it in himself to get up for several minutes. When he does, his vision turns to static, and he grips the countertop beside him. The room spins.

He turns quickly toward the toilet, lifting the lid and gagging up a few streams of bile and stomach acid. When he feels finished, he undresses and steps into the shower, immediately sinking to sit in the tub. He hugs his stomach, letting the water just fall on him.

It feels really nice. He’s not freezing for the first time in a long time, and his headache almost retreats entirely. There, under the steady water, he suddenly remembers his father.

Surely he isn’t back home or Arlo wouldn’t be here so late. The thought of him still being out there makes his stomach twist with anxiety, and yet, he feels like he can finally breathe. It’s a feeling he’s never quite been able to shake when his dad is out somewhere drunk with no contact.

He leans forward and throws up a little. He’s too sore to really retch, so whatever watery nothing comes up is weak and comes out all on its own. He wonders briefly if he’ll ever stop puking.

He stays in the shower until the water starts to run cold and make him dizzy again. It takes more effort than he’s willing to admit to climb out of the shower and dry off. He dresses slowly and realizes he’d forgotten to flush the toilet.

He does, then washes his mouth out. The last thing he needs is to wake up with his mouth tasting like puke again. With the reminder that Arlo is probably still out there, he musters up the energy to leave the room.

His bed has been stripped, and Arlo is sitting in the chair by the window, looking down at a book Judah has never picked up from his own bookshelf. When he walks in, Arlo looks up.

“Hey. How do you feel?”

Judah shrugs. “Little better. Threw up a couple more times.”

“Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

Arlo closes the book and sets it down. Judah stands there, wet hair clinging to his forehead. He shivers.

“So um. I told your aunt what happened and she went to wash everything. She brought you some medicine and stuff.”

Judah looks at the beside table and sees a fresh trash can, water, pills, and some crackers. His stomach rolls uncertainly.

“Oh. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep them down.”

“Yeah, I told her you probably wouldn’t be up for it, but it’s there if you want.”

Judah nods, then promptly heads for his empty mattress and collapses down on top of it. He curls onto his side with a sigh. Arlo is looking at him quietly. Judah finds it in him to smile.

The room has gone dark now, only illuminated by the orange light of his small lamp. Arlo smiles back at him.

“You don’t have to stay. You’ve seen your fair share of me puking.”

“I know I don’t have to stay.”

Judah hums, exhaustion overtaking him. He feels safe. It’s the first night in weeks that he’s not afraid to shut his eyes.

“Arlo.”

“Yeah, do you feel sick?”

“M’okay…tell me about your Christmas,” he murmurs.

As Arlo laughs a little and begins to talk, the world around Judah warms. He hums again, tries to listen. Something inside him gives a gentle pull, and sleep takes him before the minute is up.

————————————

Author’s note:

“Oh. I mean, you don’t have to drink any. We can just—“

“No, no it’s not like that...I think I want to. But that’s why I was, um, making that face,” he explained awkwardly, trying desperately to dissolve the tension he’d created.

“Alright, cool. But you really don’t have to, you know.”

“I know,” he replied, feeling his nervous energy slowly morph into something more electric. “I’m gonna go get some cups, okay? And um, should I find like something to mix with it or...?”

“If you want to. I use soda usually.”

Arlo nodded, getting up from the bed feeling like he’d been set on some sort of secret mission. As he quietly went down the hall, his heart pounded, and a sneaking, private smile painted itself on his face.

Having mostly been a “good kid” and never stepping much out of line, this felt like something big. He knew his parents were upstairs somewhere, and here he was about to get drunk. It felt weird in the best sort of way. He deserved to feel like a normal teenager for one night.

He retrieved everything he needed from the kitchen, carefully balancing it all as he returned to his room. He found Judah already on the floor with an Xbox controller in his hand. He looked up and grinned, following Arlo with his eyes as he came to sit down on the patch of carpet next to him.

The nerves curled and sparked over his skin, fizzling out into a mixture of anticipation and fear of the unknown. He surely didn’t want his parents walking in on them, so he excused himself briefly to go lock the door.

When he returned to his spot, Judah had begun to pour himself a drink, and Arlo watched on. It seemed like a lot, but he figured he didn’t know enough about alcohol to make an argument. He picked up his own cup and the bottle from Judah’s hands, hesitantly pouring in about the same amount.

He topped it off with the Sprite and stared at it for a moment, unsure of how fast he should go. He spared a look over at Judah, who was drinking it like a glass of orange juice at breakfast.

Alright, yeah, I can do this, Arlo thought brightly, finally looking away and bringing the cup to his lips.

It was sour and burned in a choking sort of way. He winced but held back the cough that twitched in his throat, not wanting to seem too fazed. He caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye and saw that Judah was watching him.

When he turned, though, Judah’s gaze quickly steeled, and he looked back at the TV. Arlo felt a creeping warmth seep into his cheeks at that, and it prompted him to take a bigger sip.

It hurt just as much, making his nose sting and prickling down his esophagus. He couldn’t tell if it was the carbonation, alcohol, or both, but he couldn’t say he was enjoying it. Still, he figured there had to be a reason why so many people liked this shit.

Three more cups and a few games of Mortal Kombat later, he discovered that reason.

He felt great, like—insanely free. Warmth blossomed from his chest and radiated throughout his whole body, making his eyelids heavy and limbs loose. It sloshed in his empty belly when he moved, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable. It made him laugh until he couldn’t breathe, and he felt like he could say anything in the world and there would be absolutely no consequences.

That was very dangerous when he was sitting so close to Judah, and he knew it.

He tried to push those thoughts as far back as he could, because he was determined to have a good night. It was going pretty well so far, and he wasn’t planning for that to change any time soon.

The only drawback he found was that he had to pee—a lot. Probably every ten minutes, they had to pause the game so one of them could venture down the hallway to the bathroom. It all seemed inexplicably fun, though, and Arlo often found himself stuck staring at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

His cheeks looked flushed, and he smiled at himself lazily, bracing his weight against the counter top. Everything was just the right amount of fuzzy, and above all, he felt safe.

He flickered his eyes between his own gaze one last time and turned off the light, leaving to stumble his way back to the room. The hallway was a bit of a difficult stretch by that point, but he didn’t mind.

One of the biggest perks, he found, was that the more he drank, the less it burned. So, when he got back to his spot, he poured himself another drink. It might have been a little stronger, but he couldn’t really tell anymore. He frankly couldn’t have given less of a damn, either.

After a few sips, Judah’s hand landed on his shoulder. “I’m hungry, Lo. Please say you know something we can eat,” he breathed out, words colliding a little messily. His hand felt so warm and real in that moment that it took Arlo an extra second to think.

“Frozen pizza,” he finally responded, eyes going wide. Judah’s eyes grew too, and before they knew it, they were sneaking their way to the kitchen. Not falling down the stairs was quite a task, but they both managed to make it to the refrigerator alive.

“Preheat to 400° please,” Arlo whispered, trying his best to laugh softly. He didn’t even know what he was laughing about, but it didn’t seem to matter, because Judah was laughing too.

They did everything in their power not to stir up too much noise, so they ended up just sitting on the counter top, snacking on chips in relative silence. There was another burst of random laughter, but that time, it tapered off slowly, and they found themselves a lot closer than usual.

The laughter faded to smiles, and eventually those faded too, leaving both boys staring at each other, ears ringing. Arlo’s fingertips buzzed and his heart very nearly seized to function, but it felt too dangerously good. Judah’s eyes looked like pools of molten gold, swirling and glowing in the warm light of the kitchen. A curl hung loosely on against his forehead, and Arlo fought with everything not to brush it back or give it a soft tug.

The oven timer made them both jump.

Arlo blinked a good few times before embarrassment flooded through his veins like boiling water, and he hopped off the counter top unsteadily. His stomach sloshed again with the movement, but that time, it made him feel a little seasick. He caught himself on the island counter, but just barely. His own breathing sounded too loud in his head, and it was making him want to panic, so he focused on his task.

He put the pizza on the pan and opened the oven, surprised at how the heat there mirrored the warmth already brushing his cheeks. It took extra effort not to fall forwards as he pushed the pan in, closing the door behind it.

It was silent, then, and he couldn’t bear another close call like the one they’d just had. He needed a drink.

“I’ll um, I’ll be back,” he started, his own voice sounding a bit foreign. Judah looked at him from his spot on the counter, face terrifyingly unreadable.

Did I make it too obvious? I did, didn’t I? Fuck, I am so fucked. Arlo’s brain was no friend to him as he stumbled back up the stairs, gripping the wall so he wouldn’t come tumbling back down. Everything was swimming in front of him, and he no longer felt loose and happy. He felt ill, but he blamed that on not having any food to stop the swirling feeling in his tummy. He also somehow felt like Judah read his mind back there, and even though that’s impossible, he couldn’t help but get the feeling that he’d ruined something.

When he finally reached the room, he was desperate to go back to being carefree. He grabbed his fresh drink from where they’d hidden them and took a breath. He hesitated for only a second before bringing the cup to his lips and finishing the entire thing in one go.

Panting, he shoved the cup back into where it was. His stomach whirled audibly, but the warmth reignited, melting away most of the worry from his chest. At that, he considered his mission a success, so he turned around to leave.

When he did, the world became his enemy. It dipped and tilted under his feet, but he found himself laughing about it again. It felt like some sort of video game. He hiccuped and burped into his fist, feeling some of the pressure inside him give way. It felt nice, but everything did at that point. 

As he stumbled his way down the hallway, he felt more carefree than he’d ever been since he was a kid. He even scooted down the stairs in a sitting position like he was three, but it was all part of the game in his mind. He giggled all the way down, peeling himself from the floor with some difficulty when he finally made it to the bottom. He just couldn’t wait to see Judah again.

When he turned the corner into the kitchen, he tried to regain a little composure, but he couldn’t stop smiling. Everything was dizzy and made him happy in a childhood sort of way. He wanted a hug.

He suddenly realized that whole monologue had happened while he stood slumped against the kitchen island, staring unashamedly at Judah. He was staring back with his mouth pulled into knowing smirk.

“You drank more, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and all it did was set off another fit of laughter from Arlo. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he chuckled, burying his face into his hands. “I’ve created a monster, God help me.”

“Heeey,” Arlo drew out in false offense, coming closer to give Judah a weak punch in the arm.

“Don’t make me file for divorce,” he murmured back, smile evident in his muffled words.

“I take back th’punch. M’sorry. Forgive me,” he begged, taking Judah’s hand in his.

The universe must have been looking out for him, because the timer beeped once again, and Judah jumped from the counter with renewed enthusiasm. He didn’t even wait for Arlo, he just took the pizza out himself, going straight to the drawer he knew held the pizza cutter. That house was more his home than where he actually slept at night, and they both knew that.

Arlo figured that Judah taking the lead was probably a good idea, because things were getting a little too spinny. All he could seem to manage at that moment was bracing himself against the cabinets and breathing. He watched on as Judah started to slice the food, but his eyes traveled possibly too much.

The fabric of Judah’s t-shirt looked extra soft where it was stretched over his back, and Arlo wished he could brush his hands there. His eyes flitted up to his hair then, and fuck, did he want to touch it. He wanted to run his fingers through the curls over and over and forget about everything else.

These thoughts that he usually didn’t let roam were now stuck on repeat, twisting and weaving like his vision. He blinked hard and tried to come back to his body, but it wasn’t listening. He told himself that he just needed some food, and that maybe it would would give him his land legs and his sense back.

Stepping forward just as Judah finished cutting, he grabbed a slice and took a big bite. It tasted like nothing he’d ever tasted before—it was exactly what he needed. They dug in, hardly acknowledging each other as they finished the entire pizza in record time. Arlo could feel the food lining every inch of his stomach  once he’d finished, pushing possibly a little too tight for comfort. He burped unexpectedly, covering his mouth as the tail of it rumbled out. It was a lot and definitely made him feel better, but color burned up his neck when he remembered who he was with.

“Sorry,” he breathed out, “ate way too fast.”

“Don’t be, that was pretty impressive,” Judah laughed, even reaching to grab the bowl of chips and continuing to eat. Arlo, whose stomach was definitely not in a state to handle any more food, had a different plan.

“Wanna take these upstairs so I c’n whoop your ass in Mortal Kombat?” he managed to say, beginnings and ends of his words running together. Judah’s eyes lit back up with the challenge.

“I think you’ve got that backwards, Arrie.” With that, he started towards the stairs, entirely too fast for Arlo’s body.

He laughed as he bumped along the walls, following as closely behind as he could. Somewhere along the line, he realized he couldn’t feel his legs, but it was kind of nice. Crawling up the stairs, he thanked the powers that be that his parents didn’t emerge; he wouldn’t have had any explanation.

He somehow made it to his room without breaking any bones, but as soon as he sat down, he realized there was another problem. Judah was already pouring him another drink. His full stomach suddenly rolled in protest, and he knew immediately that he shouldn’t have moved so fast after eating so much. His belly ached a little, straining against the amount of food and booze he’d just stuffed it with.

Still, he didn’t want to seem like he couldn’t handle himself, so he forced himself to take a couple of sips just as the first match started. He set the cup down and started to fight, his fingers fumbling to remember the attack combos. Failing miserably, he quickly got trapped in the corner, taking hit after hit.

He somehow remembered how to teleport to the other side, but when the screen shifted, something uneasy settled over him. Suddenly, the movement of the screen was making his vision swim even more, and the heavy mass of food in his stomach felt like it had instantly curdled. He resisted the urge to rub it in favor of staying in the game.

His efforts were useless, though, because he’d already lost the first round anyway. His character’s death was graphic and gory, abruptly bringing on an unexpected wave of nausea. Usually that kind of stuff didn’t bother him too much, but when his stomach was already so upset, he couldn’t help it.

He hiccuped just as round two began, and it started a chain reaction of movement inside of him. It was a churning, muggy sort of feeling, making his palms sweat against the controller. He started to surprisingly get the upper hand, but only because he was desperate to focus on anything apart from the turmoil in his stomach.

A burp traveled up his chest and he let it out, wincing at how strongly it burned with alcohol and carbonation. It brought no relief, and a general feeling of unease washed over him again. It felt like another burp was going to come up, but he quickly realized that it was going to be much more than air. He panicked just as he won the second round, which triggered another gory scene of someone’s head being split open across the screen.  

Arlo’s stomach turned violently, and he brought a trembling hand to his mouth. The only solution that his brain provided was that needed to get out, and fast. The last round started just as he began to flee, trying to push himself from the ground with unsteady arms. The small movement made his stomach rise, muscles rippling as they prepared to heave. He realized that he couldn’t get up; he was past the point of no return.

A wet burst of air came up, and he couldn’t stop it before it brought up a bit of frothy vomit. He choked it back down, but the urge to heave ticked at the back of his throat. The world tilted around him queasily, dramatically increasing the bubbling in his insides. He abandoned his controller in favor of protectively holding the overfilled stomach. Closing his eyes, he begged for some control over his own body.

“What are you doing? This is the last round!” Judah protested, quickly pausing the game. Arlo stayed quiet, putting all his efforts into holding off the inevitable. “Are you okay?”

Arlo eventually felt the warmth settle back into his stomach, giving him a moment to decide if it was actually a false alarm. The nausea still weighed on him, but less, so he figured he might be okay. Maybe Judah knew of a way to help.

“I don’ like the way this feels anymore, Jude. How d’you make everything stop spinning?” He asked, voice unnaturally tight.

“Oh, no,” Judah drew out immediately, looking a lot more sober all of a sudden. It made Arlo nervous—it was hardly the reassurance he was looking for. He felt himself pale.

A fresh wave of crippling nausea stirred his stomach, and he brought his hand back over his mouth. In an instant, the dam broke, and a rush of thick warmth burst from between his fingers, coating his legs in secondhand pizza. He pitched forward with the next heave, and a larger wave splattered onto the carpet.

“Fuck,” Judah cursed, taking his nearly empty chip bowl and shoving it under Arlo’s dripping chin.

His stomach writhed again, sending a torrent of orange, burning vomit splashing against the plastic. He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look at it, but that only made him dizzier, and he had to throw up again. The only thing grounding him to reality was Judah’s steady, warm hand on his back.

He burped, choking up another wave of his disturbingly undigested dinner. It was revolting, but it made him feel so much better to get it out of his stomach. He retched again.

It went on like that for another minute or so before the realization of what just happened hit him abruptly. He finally peeled his eyes open to see the absolute mess he’d made, and no words could begin to describe how mortified he felt. Tears pinched at the back of his eyes, but crying would just be the cherry on top of the humiliation sundae he’s just made himself.

He cried anyway.

As the first few tears finally spilled over, Judah scooted closer. “Please don’t cry, Lo, I’m so sorry. I really shouldn’t have let you drink that much.” Just the mention of drinking made Arlo’s stomach clench, and something like the mixture of a hiccup and a gag hitched in his throat. He audibly swallowed back the impending rush of round two. “Oh—okay, Arlo...I think we might need to go camp out in the bathroom for a little while. Um, can you stand?”

Arlo truly didn’t know, but anything would beat crying in a puddle of his own sick, so he figured trying couldn’t hurt. Judah hooked an arm around his waist and helped lift, and although they definitely swayed at first, they didn’t topple over. It was a miracle.

Another miracle was that they made it to the bathroom in one piece, just in time for Arlo’s stomach to start really gearing up for an encore. It felt like whatever was left inside of him was sticking to his throat, and it took a good few heaves to finally get the next load up.

It landed unceremoniously into the toilet, splashing a bit of water back into his face. That made him retch again, and the cycle continued. The streams gradually became more bile and less burning alcohol, but he didn’t know which one was less torturous.

The crying definitely didn’t help either, especially when he inhaled sharply with a sob and was left choking on aspirated vomit. The coughing brought up several more watery streams until he was squeezed dry, hanging lifelessly over the swirling, sour water.

It was then that the fuzz in his ears cleared and the spots in his vision began to fade, and the first thing he noticed was Judah’s proximity. He was curled at Arlo’s side, and Arlo hadn’t even noticed that he’d been rubbing his back the whole time.

Still dizzy and fairly impaired, he found himself overwhelmed with feeling. The fact that he somehow hadn’t run Judah off already felt too big, and he didn’t know where to place that amount of sheer feeling. He just ended up shuddering out another sob and releasing a string of curses that echoed back to him from the porcelain.

Judah flushed the toilet for him and his hand stilled on his back, still radiating the warmth that he so desperately needed. “You didn’t deserve all that, A. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that...I’m the one who...fuck,” he panted, words becoming impossible as another wave of nausea wracked his body. A relatively small wash of acid came up with an involuntary burp, but it somehow finally made him feel much better. “I’m th’one who overdid it. Made a fool of myself, look at me,” he finally managed, heart swooping low at the thought of how widely he’d fucked up.

“And I’m the one who dragged you into my stupid tantrum tonight. You’ve never even had the chance to learn your limits, I’m sorry.”

“Learned them now. Wearing the proof.” His poor attempt at a joke fell flat, but it did effectively remind him of the layer of filth sticking his clothes to his skin. He tried hard not to throw up again.

“Right. Let me just—I should get you some clothes. Um, give me a second.”

While he was gone, Arlo put all of his effort towards not thinking about how much he already missed him. It felt pathetic. He shut his eyes and the room tilted; he was definitely still drunk. He didn’t know how all of that worked, so he just sat there and sniffled quietly, trying to ground himself.

When Judah returned with the clothes, he turned on the shower and made sure Arlo would be okay before leaving him to it. The most he could do was undress and sit on the tub floor, letting the lukewarm water fall on him. His head had begun to pound, too, and the fact that it was still spinning made him incapable of doing anything but sitting with his eyes closed.

The stayed there until the water ran cold. It started to make him feel worse, so he shut off the water, climbed out, and dressed himself like he’d just freshly come out of a coma. The bathroom still smelled like sick, and he prayed that his parents wouldn’t come in before he could burn the evidence in the morning. He wished he could burn the evidence from his mind.

Without his permission, the events started to replay, and tears rushed back to his already raw, red eyes. He was exhausted, drunk, embarrassed, and so, so fucking in love. He knew that now more than ever. He was torn between begging Judah to never leave and hiding out in the bathroom forever. As unrealistic as it seemed, he actually tried the latter.

Inevitably, though, a knock came at the door. He had finished washing his mouth out a while ago, but he’d been leaning against the counter in a state of catatonia ever since. His body throbbed.

“Arlo? You okay in there?” His words came out gentle, but Arlo still flinched. He hated himself. Instead of responding, he bit the bullet and opened the door. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been crying the whole time until he watched Judah’s face fall. He looked like he didn’t know what to say. Arlo didn’t either.

Judah led him wordlessly to his bed, and Arlo noticed that the room was nearly spotless. All that remained of his shit-show was the shadow of a stain on the carpet in front of his TV. He imagined Judah there, scrubbing and scrubbing all because Arlo couldn’t control himself. He let himself break then, coughing out a loud sob. Judah startled a bit, pausing before he brought the blankets to cover Arlo’s collapsing chest.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” he soothed, a line forming between his brows as his frown deepened.

“No, it—it’s not alright, I’m an idiot.” Arlo’s voice broke and cracked, raw from heaving.

“You’re not an idiot, Lo, I promise.”

Arlo looked up at him, absolutely floored. “Why are you being so nice to me? You’re...”

“An asshole for not watching out for you, that’s what,” he huffs, closing his eyes and letting out a measured breath. “I’m serious...don’t settle for people who treat you like that.”

His voice was just above a whisper then, and it made something icy curl beneath Arlo’s sternum. The guilt radiated off of him almost visibly.

“Don’t let people treat me like this? People who clean my room when I drink too much and puke everywhere? Don’t let them comfort me while I get sick and then put me to bed when I’m finished?” He was on a roll, and he even managed to tone down the remorse on Judah’s face. His words were still a bit fuzzy around the edges and the room still spun, but not too much. Sleep pulled heavily at his aching eyelids, but he never wanted to stop looking at Judah. All of a sudden, everything seemed so right, and he couldn’t stop himself. “No one would ever do this for me. You’re—you’re so good to me, for what, Judah? S’making it really fucking hard not to love you.”

And as soon as it’s out, he wanted it back in. His eyes shot open, and he froze, gaze fixed on the wall behind Judah. More words came up but died in his throat before he could get them out. His whole body ached with searing regret, and time stood still. Another fragmented apology came and went, refusing to fall past his chapped lips. He swore that silence lasted so long that he figured it must be his punishment to live out the rest of his life trapped right there.

Mercifully, Judah’s voice finally broke through the torturous stillness. “I...” he swallowed. “Later, okay? Get some sleep,” he murmured, voice achingly soft. His lips pressed together in the ghost of a gentle smile, and then he was retreating to the padded corner of the floor he’d claimed years ago.

The heaviness that he’d previously thought was fear was actually the sludge of last night’s dinner pressing up against his esophagus. It tossed and lurched, coating the back of his throat with a sour taste. He groaned lowly, wrapping his arms protectively around the rebelling organ.

There was nothing he wanted more than to just crawl back under his sheets and evaporate, but he was unfortunately on a timer. His father was already pissed, so he didn’t need to stir anything else up; Judah was in absolutely no mood to fight, especially with the way his stomach was threatening to spill over.

He felt the seconds ticking away, so he pulled himself out of bed, feeling the cold hardwood creak under his bare feet. Despite it being the middle of August, his usually stifling room felt much too frigid. He felt trapped in his own skin, getting goosebumps on the outside but frying alive on the inside.

He tried his best to ignore the feeling as he trudged over to his dresser and pulled out the very first t-shirt he landed eyes on. He didn’t have any time nor energy to fuss about his outfit, so he chose his jeans the exact same way. Hating the pressure they put on his already bloated stomach, he sighed, unable to mentally prepare himself for the day ahead.

Don’t cry. Do not cry, he thought desperately, looking at his sullen reflection in the dirty mirror above his dresser. He didn’t have time to sulk; he had to put on some socks. Once he retrieved them, it took everything in his power not to heave when he bent over and pulled them on.

He remained on the edge of the bed for as long as he dared, rubbing gently up and down his tummy as it continued to whirl. He felt sweat gather on his forehead as a cramp tied a tighter knot in his insides, and it suddenly became painfully obvious that he just shouldn’t go to school. The moment he stood from his bed to go downstairs, he actually felt all of the blood drain from his face.

There was too much saliva in his mouth, so he swallowed it down. He swiftly realized that was a bad choice when it stopped halfway down his throat and began to rise instead. A rush of warmth followed closely behind, and he clamped a hand tightly over his mouth, double-timing it to the bathroom down the hall.

His legs felt like jelly as he stumbled to the door, flinging it open and then locking it behind himself quickly. The last thing he needed was his dad walking in to see him trembling in front of the toilet.

He tossed himself to the ground, lifting the seat half a second before his dinner came back on him, splashing into the water and turning it murky. Almost immediately, he puked again, ducking his head farther into the toilet and releasing a thick stream of filth. The taste and smell were so horrible that he couldn’t stop himself from retching a third time, partially missing the toilet on accident. When he got a break from the nausea, he used their thin toilet paper and shaking hands to mop it all up.

God, what did I even eat last night, he silently wondered, having to turn back to the bowl, because he managed to make himself sick again with just the thought of food.

He reached up with a trembling hand after that and flushed the toilet, hoping that would make him less queasy. It helped marginally, but his stomach still wasn’t empty, so he apparently wasn’t in the clear. He burped from the pit of his stomach and it echoed against the porcelain along with the moan that followed.

He felt nearly dead, but after one more good heave, his nausea began to mercifully fade. He laid his head against the rim, not giving a single fuck about how dirty it might have been; it felt good against his fever-blotched skin, and that was all that mattered.

He flushed the toilet again, scraping himself off of the floor to avoid being yelled at. Getting up was a task in itself, and once he was standing, he felt like he could honestly pass out. The only thing keeping him from doing so and never getting back up again was the fact that his stomach felt a whole lot better now that it was empty.

He washed his mouth out in the sink and looked at himself again, cringing at the paleness of his cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes. Apparently sleep paralysis didn’t count as actual rest—go figure. He sighed and left the bathroom, flicking the light off as he walked away.

His legs shook as he brought himself down the stairs, hoping against hope that he hadn’t overstayed his fifteen minutes while he was vomiting his guts out. The resulting argument wouldn’t be pretty, so he held his breath as he turned the corner and entered the kitchen. His father turned around, a frown still etched in his features. Judah almost wondered if he noticed the illness written on his face, but then:

“Where’s your shoes? We don’t have time for you to just stand there, Judah,” he sighed, turning his attention back to his laptop.

“Um...I threw up just a minute ago,” he quietly admitted. It was worth a try.

“Sure you did. Shoes, now,” was his father’s stone cold reply. Judah’s heart gave a pathetic throb, but then there was the thought that at least he hadn’t been yelled at.

He slowly went around the corner and found his sneakers, dreading the fact that he would have to fold over to put them on. The only comfort he had was that his stomach was empty now, so he probably wouldn’t be sick all over the floor. Probably.

He successfully got them on, so he picked up his backpack, which was light from lack of use. Not only was it the beginning of the school year, but he had no real supplies apart from an extra notebook that a classmate had offered him after the first week. He also had a few pens and pencils that he had saved from other years or collected from the floor, but that was pretty much it.

He sniffed in feigned indifference, ignoring the white-hot embarrassment that filled his chest whenever he thought of how much he’d been missing out on. He never thought he’d wish for the simple pleasure of going shopping for school supplies, but here he was. He floated, half lucid, until he somehow found himself in the passenger’s seat of his dad’s Toyota.

He thought absently that his fever must be pretty bad to not remember getting there, but he just couldn’t focus long enough to care. He could only hope that his stomach would be kind and avoid emptying itself on the floorboards.

So far, so good, he thought as they passed the halfway mark, which was the drooping corner store on Briar. He’d spent most of his childhood wealth on candy there, but he hadn’t gone in years.

He tried to keep himself distracted by reading license plates and looking at the same trees he looked at every day. Somehow, it must have worked, because it seemed like only a few minutes had passed before they pulled up to the school. Although, it could’ve been several hours and he wouldn’t have known it, because his brain seemed to be wading through a thick fog. He did not feel good, not at all.

The sound of the doors unlocking brought him back into his body, and he blinked a few times, feeling a little dizzy. He pushed the door open and got out, fighting against vertigo as he reached for his backpack to put it on. He chewed his lip and stood awkwardly, trying to find some way to say goodbye.

“Um, thank you,” is all he managed to come up with. His father gave a short nod and put the car back into drive, which Judah took as his cue to go away. He nodded too before shutting the door and watching the gold paint of the car fade from view.

Other kids were being dropped off, too, but they walked around him as he stayed frozen on the sidewalk. He took one more minute to stand outside and make sure he wasn’t going to throw up again. If he did, he’d much rather do it in a bush than on the classroom floor.

Once he deemed himself safe for the time being, he started on his journey to homeroom, fighting off tears. It seemed like that was too common of an occurrence, and he was tired of it. He was tired in a lot of ways that day.

The second he made it to Mrs. Hayward’s room, he slumped into the first open seat, feeling utterly spent. The first bell hadn’t even rung, and he already felt like falling asleep on the desk. Nothing was really stopping him, so he crossed his arms and buried his face there, closing his eyes in a brief moment of peace.

He hadn’t noticed that he actually drifted off until there was someone gently shaking his shoulder. His head felt like it weighed two tons as he lifted it from his arms, squinting against the assaulting fluorescent lights. He was met by Mrs. Heyward’s concerned face, and it was unfortunately a familiar scene.

“Mr. Hayes, I’m sorry, but the bell has already rung. I don’t want you being late for first block,” she explained, looking him over. He nodded, inhaling deeply and letting it out in a chest-rattling sigh. “Are you alright?” She tacked on the end after watching him struggle to stabilize himself as he stood.

“Yes, ma’am, just didn’t sleep all that well last night,” he half-lied, readjusting the straps of his backpack on his shoulders. He hadn’t slept well for quite a few nights. “Thanks for waking me, I’ll try not to do this so often.”

“My homeroom can always serve as a place to rest if you really need it, you know. I’m always here to help.” And thank God for this woman, because Judah hadn’t realized how much he needed to feel cared for. He didn’t much trust his voice at that point, so he just offered a wobbly smile and nodded, turning to leave before he became unable to stop himself from crying.

As he and a few other students who were bound to be late traversed the halls, he began to feel another cramp gather in his belly. He brought a hand up to rest gingerly against it, wondering if he should just go straight to the bathroom—he was going to be late anyway, after all.

However, as he continued to walk, the cramp passed and was replaced with only slight nausea, so he decided to push forward. He shivered as a chill spread across his skin and ran down his spine, but there was little he could do about the obvious fever he was sporting. The bell rang just before he reached the classroom.

His teacher turned towards him when he entered, and Judah was almost completely prepared to turn right back around and retrieve a late pass. Instead, Mr. Mollohan’s eyes traveled across his face, and whatever words he was going to say faded from his lips. Judah wasn’t about to question it, though, so he just avoided his classmates’ gazes and found his seat.

He was very tempted to just give a repeat performance of homeroom, but a voice next to him caught his attention. He looked over and immediately felt himself relax. How could he have almost forgotten that he shared his history class with Arlo?

“Hey, Jude,” he whispered, eyes flitting between Judah’s. Something like worry settled across his gaze then, and his eyebrows came together in a furrow. “You okay?”

He nodded, suddenly wishing he had brought a jacket. He curled in on himself slightly, his stomach once again becoming the epicenter of his discomfort. The stirring feeling intensified as he gave it attention, sending up an abrupt burst of air that he had to muffle against his fist. The taste reminded him of the lovely chat he had with his toilet earlier that morning, and he fought the rising urge to reenact the scene.

“Are you sure?” Arlo pressed gently, looking quite unconvinced. Judah couldn’t blame him. He shook his head. “Yeah, I really didn’t think so. What’s the matter?”

Judah let the wave of nausea roll over him and pass, finally letting himself breathe once it was gone. “Just kind of sick to my stomach today,” he admitted, hating the way that heat began to creep up onto his cheeks. Arlo’s face softened, and he opened his mouth to say more, but Mr. Mollohan beat him to it.

“Mr. Hayes, do you have something you’d like to share, or can I keep teaching?” He asked, making several heads turn in Judah’s direction. His face was undoubtedly scarlet by that point, and he couldn’t respond with anything but silence. He wished he was as actually as invisible as he usually felt. “Alright, thank you,” he spoke up again, continuing to teach.

The stares faded thankfully, but he could still feel one. He looked over to see Arlo mouth, ‘My fault, I’m sorry.’ Judah just looked down and fumbled with the hem of his shirt under the desk, feeling sufficiently mortified. That day was quickly falling into that special category which he’d like to physically erase from everyone’s mind.

He let himself fall into that limbo state of half-awake-half-dead to pass the time, and he only came to when his stomach started to hurt so much that he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He pressed a fist against his abdomen and suppressed a groan, curling further into himself. The sloshing had returned, and he didn’t know how his stomach had managed to find something to toss around.

The sweating returned too, which made no sense, because he knew he was visibly shivering. The sickness was crashing over him in waves, bringing back unsettling memories of his nightmare. He suddenly realized that maybe this bug was the whole reason that his brain had put him out at sea in the first place.

He quickly came to the conclusion that he would hurl all over his lap if he didn’t stop thinking about being on a boat, so he actually put forth the effort to listen to the lecture. He could hear blood rushing in his ears as he watched his teacher scribble something on the whiteboard with a neon green marker, and the combination of sensory input was dizzying to say the least.

He was getting a bit upset, because the weight of malaise and pointlessness was seeping into his bones. Why was he even at school? Why hadn’t he just taken an emotional or physical beating and stayed home? He finally gave in to the heaviness, letting his thoughts drag his head to lay down with a quiet moan.

He didn’t sleep, but when he did crack his eyes open, there were only twenty minutes left of that class. He knew he could make it, he just had to be very careful. There was a limited amount of things he could think about that wouldn’t increase his nausea, and he was doing his best to stay within those limits.

Inevitably, after about five minutes of counting how many tiles were on the floor, intrusive thoughts started to creep in. He thought about how he still had three entire classes after this one, and lunch in between.

No, no, no. Not lunch. Fuck.

His heart began to thud unnaturally, so he quickly transitioned to grounding himself, looking around the room and listing several items as he saw them. His insides were still trembling once he felt relatively calm, but at least he wasn’t going to have a panic attack in the middle of the classroom. Not again.

He sighed and looked at the clock, realizing only about ten minutes had passed. What torture. But, that also meant that he would only have to endure another segment of what he had already just endured, and he figured he could do it.

The grounding exercise even helped his stomach settle a bit too, so he could relax just a little. Every now and then, he could feel the weight of Arlo’s gaze on him, but he lacked the energy to look over and verify the attention. He was also sort of embarrassed that Arlo had to see him like that, but it unfortunately wasn’t the first time; Judah’s stomach didn’t exactly have the best track record.

He buried those memories as far back as he could in order to survive the remaining minutes of class. He sat in a daze, staring at the grooves in the wall until his vision went fuzzy and he had to blink. He felt sort of like his personality had poured out into the toilet with last night’s dinner and left him hollow. Either that, or he’d been filled with something so stifling that he simply didn’t have room to be himself anymore.

Neither of the possibilities were particularly cheerful, so he tried his best to just focus on the fact that despite his dullness, someone still cared. He let his eyes wander to Arlo and watched as he copied something off of the board. He looked up again, tilting his head, as if that would help him listen more carefully. It was more than a little endearing, and it provided the perfect distraction from the state of his day.

He continued to watch him, making little mental notes of the way he carded pale fingers through his jet black hair every so often or how he sometimes flicked his tongue over his bottom lip. They were all images that he wanted to keep locked away in a secret little box in his mind—ones for when he forgot what the world could look like.

His green eyes eventually flicked over to meet Judah’s gaze, and Judah was brought straight back to reality. He let his eyes flicker away for a second before returning to Arlo’s, and it almost felt like his thoughts were being stolen right from his brain. He felt too vulnerable all of a sudden, but he was saved, because the bell rang that very second to dismiss them.

He let out a breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding and looked down at his hands for the millionth time. His distraction was gone now, and he was all too aware of the fever blazing in his skin. A feeling of chilling dread swept over his whole body when he realized he wasn’t anywhere near being done with his day; the torture was just getting started.

Suppressing another low groan, he started to pack up. Then, he realized that he hadn’t actually brought out his notebook to begin with, so he didn’t have anything to pack. He stood up, placing his bag back on his shoulders and steadying himself with the desk. A static darkness crept into the corners of his vision, and he had to give himself a second so he wouldn’t pass out.

When he opened his eyes, most of the students had vacated the classroom, but not Arlo. He was still standing right next to his desk and probably had been watching the whole time. Judah’s body gave a feeble attempt at blushing. He cursed his hands for trembling as he readjusted the straps of his bag.

“You’re really feeling bad, aren’t you, Jay?” He asked quietly, eyes flickering down to Judah’s hands and back up to his eyes.

“I’ll be alright,” he answered, unsure of who he was trying to convince. It sure didn’t look like Arlo was convinced. He stepped around his desk then, coming close enough to reach out and touch his forehead.

“I think you should probably go home, Judah. You’re definitely running a fever,” he announced, but Judah already knew that. The word home always made him feel funny, too, like he might be missing out on an inside joke. He just shrugged.

“Wouldn’t have a way to my house even if I wanted to go,” he admitted. Arlo quieted, and it looked like he was thinking. He cast his gaze to the floor and shifted his weight.

“Just promise me you’ll let me know if you get worse, okay?” He finally said.

“I promise.”

Arlo nodded and gave him a small smile before turning around and leaving. Judah still felt a little on fire from being cared for, and he had to remind himself to start going to his next class before he was late again.

The entire walk to second period was a fever dream. His vision was swimming a bit, and what were usually normal conversations in the hallway sounded like a foreign language. His legs were heavy, like he was wading knee-deep in syrup.

By the time he got to the classroom, he was asleep on his feet. At least he wasn’t late.

The desks had been pushed together, signaling that they’d be working in groups. He fought against the urge to cry out of pure frustration, because of course the day he feels like evaporating is the day he has to deal with ‘team building’. This was absolutely turning out to be the day from hell.

He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead and sat down at one of the groups, hoping he could fly under the radar. No one looked up from their phone, so he figured he was in the clear. He laid his head on his desk for the third time that day, planning on sleeping as much of his group work away as possible. Unfortunately, the bell rang and his teacher tapped his shoulder as she walked by, which was her usual way of saying ‘head up before I make you’. He didn’t particularly want to feel her wrath, so he propped an arm under his chin and tried his best to listen.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he couldn’t help but look. It wasn’t too surprising that it was already Arlo.

Seriously, let me know if you need to leave. I can always drive you.

He felt a stirring in his chest, but it might’ve just been his nausea returning. After all, he’d had a few too many consecutive moments of peace. He rubbed at his eye and typed out his response.

Okay mom

It was his best attempt at dissolving the situation with humor, but it came off a little half-hearted. He locked his phone and sighed when he saw himself staring back in the darkness of the screen. He slipped his phone back in his pocket, finally looking at the paper that had been placed on his desk. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed that the other people at his table were already beginning to work.

“Um,” he said to no one in particular, looking over the paper before he realized that he kind of had no idea what he was supposed to do. He thought about asking a question, but then the familiar sensation of nausea wavering in his throat kept his words locked away.

Eventually, he just began to pick up on what everyone else was doing, listening in on their conversations and copying their answers—it was team work, after all, so he wasn’t cheating exactly. He tried not to feel too guilty about it. Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, his mind was occupied with other things, like aborting the gags that threatened to tug at his throat.

Suddenly, when he was nearing the end of the assignment, his teacher spoke up again. “Alright, clear your desks and arrange them back into lines.” And, what?

All the students around him seemed unfazed, putting away their textbooks and binders immediately. Judah felt frozen for a moment, unsure of why they were changing lanes so abruptly. As soon as he could get his limbs back into working order, he decided to just go along with it. He hoped he would at least have time to finish the last couple of questions on the sheet.

Once their desks were back in their usual arrangement, everyone around him settled in and took out a pencil. He looked back down to complete the sentence he’d been interrupted on and caught a glimpse of the title he’d ignored.

Exam Review.

What in the fuck?

“Phones away in bags, I don’t even want them in your pockets, alright?” No, no, no no no. Please be a joke. “You have the rest of the class to complete the exam. Please bring it up to me and quietly return to your seat in the event that you finish early. Any questions before we begin?”

No, no, this is not happening. We aren’t supposed to have a test until...fuck, it is Thursday, isn’t it?

He suddenly felt impossibly ill. The emotion in his body didn’t know where to go, so it ricocheted wildly off of his skull and much-too-warm skin. His stomach audibly complained, and he begged for it to just give him a little more time before it clawed its way up his throat.

He received his exam packet and numbly passed the others behind him, refusing to look just yet. His teacher’s voice was distant and tinny as she announced that they could start. He took another moment and then finally looked down.

From the very first question, he could tell that he was going to fail miserably. The words began to swirl and mix together on the page, and he was sure that if anyone looked at him, they’d see his brain leaking from his ears. His heart thudded heavily as the suffocating frustration of the day began to compound.

It was inevitable; fat tears began to well up in his eyes, and he didn’t even have to blink for them to splatter onto the page. He tried not to sniffle or call any attention to himself, because he was embarrassed enough without anyone knowing that he was crying all over his paper.

A hiccup hitched in his chest, and he couldn’t tell if it was from illness or holding back tears. He rubbed at his eyes and just tried to remember how to breathe, because it was no use trying to do the test at that point. He wasn’t prepared, not in the slightest. He reckoned that was his own fault as usual.

While he sat slumped in defeat, his stomach began to rebel more than ever. The ache was constant, wrenching every now and then with the threat of expelling its pathetic contents. It was never enough to make him move from his seat, but he figured after a while that he might as well finish the test so he could leave if he really needed to.

He removed his hands from his tear-stained face and picked his pencil back up, beginning to circle random answers. He circled and circled without thinking, because frankly, he was spending all of his available energy on not redecorating the classroom. By the time he was done, his face was red and raw with tears from imagining his father’s reaction to what his grade would be like.

He got up from his seat and turned in his test face down, keeping his gaze averted at all costs. He silently returned to his desk as instructed and buried his face in the crook of his elbow. He desperately wanted to text Arlo, but the last thing he needed was to get caught with his phone and get his grade deducted further.

Each second of silence gnawed at his chest, and he had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep quiet as fresh waves of emotion rolled over him. His belly hurt, and he predicted that he probably had less than an hour before he would be seeing his dinner again. That thought made the chains around his lungs tighten, and his breath hitched with a quiet sob.

The rest of the test went similarly, and the sound of the bell brought Judah such great relief that he actually stopped crying. He gathered his things and pulled out his phone, trying to blindly select Arlo’s contact as he left the room as fast as possible. His stomach was sitting high in his throat, and each time a sob pulled at his sternum, he thought he might be sick.

His body was on autopilot as he pulled up his messages and started typing out his SOS to Arlo, and so he ended up in the overwhelming bustle of the cafeteria. Sensory overload was about to make him panic. He could smell the pizza and nearly imagine the taste from where he stood. Something dangerously vile gurgled low in his stomach. He was absolutely going to vomit.

Suddenly, he was jolted from the terrible sensation when he spotted Arlo standing up from their usual table. Seeing his face made everything so much better and so much worse simultaneously, and when he approached, Judah couldn’t help but crumble.

“Oh, Jude, please don’t cry...what’s going on? Is it your tummy?” He asked, turning him towards he wall to shield him from the glares of onlookers. He couldn’t help but cry harder at the question, because everything was going on; it was everything. Arlo didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around him and bring him close.

“It’s—I just totally bombed an econ test that I didn’t even know I h-had,” he cried, turning so that his face was pressed against Arlo’s chest. He hiccuped again, wheezing when he tried to recover.

“Hey, hey, breathe for me. We can something out with your teacher, alright? It’ll be okay.”

“She—she’ll call my dad, she said she would next time I failed. Fuck, Arlo, I’m—I’m so fucked,” he panted. He felt his stomach turn in the chaos, and mid-panic, he choked up some bile.

He swallowed it back down by reflex, but his stomach certainly didn’t appreciate the action. He could feel a retch swelling up against his ribs, but he did his best to hold it back. It felt like the corners of the room were folding in, and the roar of the cafeteria had become a distant hum. Arlo was talking to him, but he couldn’t make out the words anymore. He predicted that he had about sixty seconds before he’d be yacking in front of everyone.

“I...I’m going to get sick,” he managed to warn, pulling back from Arlo’s embrace.

Not even a second later, he found himself being pulled away from the cafeteria. It took him extra effort not to trip over his own feet as he barreled down the hallway, one hand clamped over his mouth. His stomach clenched, and he retched dryly into his palm.

“Wait just a second, J, we’re literally almost there,” Arlo begged, turning them around one last corner. Judah’s eyes were filled with unshed tears of exertion by the time they finally got to the boys’ bathroom.

As soon as they passed the threshold, a burp forced its way up from the pit of his stomach, bringing with it a pale stream of vomit to splatter onto the tiles. Arlo let out a quiet string of curses from beside him and led him the rest of the way until he was collapsed in front of the toilet.

“I really don’ feel good, Lo,” he whimpered, clutching at his middle.

“I’m sorry,” he replied, but an apology wasn’t going to help Judah. He felt a tidal wave of nausea hit his chest, and he had to pitch forward with another dry heave.

It caused a cork to come loose somewhere in his body then, and streams of hot stomach acid began to splash repeatedly into the bowl. It was a pathetic amount, simply because he was already running on empty. He was so achingly dizzy that the world tilted around him even though he knew he was gripping onto a stationary toilet. With each heave, the pressure compounded, and he was just that much closer to passing out. He could feel Arlo rubbing circles on his back, but nothing mattered in that moment except the purge of whatever demons had entered his body while he slept.

“It’s gonna be okay, Judah, just get it all up,” he encouraged, and that was when Judah realized he had begun to cry again. Apart from the few thin streams of bile and acid that came up at first, he had nothing left to offer. It became a horrible, tearing feeling every time he needed to retch, and he almost wished he had gotten the chance to eat lunch before he had to puke.

Mercifully, his stomach stopped contracting a couple minutes later, leaving him a drooling mess over the tainted water. He started to slowly recover his senses one by one, and mortification seeped in through the cracks of his mind. It flooded through his body in waves of heat, leaving him shivering wildly in between.

After a few minutes, he became unable to distinguish if they were actually waves of heat or just simply breaks between the chills that spread over his skin. He didn’t have the energy to think about it anymore, so he let himself fall back against the only thing there: Arlo.

“I’m sorry, Jay, that was awful. I swear I didn’t know you were this sick or I would’ve taken you home earlier,” he lamented, still rubbing soothingly across his back. Judah curled up in the small space and unashamedly placed his head in Arlo’s lap.

He’s gonna take me home? Can’t go home, Judah’s brain supplied, but then he realized after a moment of waiting that he hadn’t even said it out loud.

“Can’t go home,” he tried again, successful this time.

“Why not? You’ve just turned yourself inside out in a school bathroom, you can’t just stay.”

“Dad,” is all he could manage to say. He didn’t want to cry anymore.

Arlo went quiet with understanding then, hand stilling on Judah’s back. “I could take you to my place and let you rest until you have to go. I’ll make sure you’re back by the time you usually get home,” he offered quietly. Judah’s fever was spiking, and he couldn’t quite tell if the offer was sincere. “I mean, we could stay in the bathroom and skip class, but we’re skipping class either way.” We? He was going to stay with him even if he remained plastered on the floor until the very last bell? Judah would cry if he wasn’t so dehydrated.

He just shook his head by way of answering, hoping that Arlo got the point. It seemed like he did, because he reached up to flush the toilet.

“Wait, are you sure you’re finished? Not much came up.”

“S’cause I already threw up this morning,” he admitted, voice raw.

“What? When?”

“My house,” he managed, trying not to fall asleep right there against the warmth coming from Arlo’s hoodie.

“Alright, that’s it. I’m taking you to my place right now, no arguments.”