"Here we go again. You put on that face because you want me to beg you, is that it?"

I looked at him.

He hadn't always been like this.

Freshman year, when my club rehearsed late into the night, he'd wait downstairs with his bike, a warm cup of coffee tucked in the basket.

He said I took everything too seriously, that if nobody kept an eye on me I'd run myself into the ground.

Sophomore year, when I had a fever, he carried me on his back to the campus clinic, cursing me the whole way for being an idiot.

Back then, "idiot" meant he ached for me.

Now, "idiot" just meant he was sick of me.

When Sebastian saw I wasn't moving, he pulled the door open himself.

"Suit yourself."

The door shut.

Katherine's soft voice drifted in from the hallway.

"Selma's not really upset, is she?"

Sebastian said,

"Don't worry about her."

The footsteps faded.

I leaned against the back of the door and slowly slid down to the floor.

The carpet was rough, scraping against my knees.

My head throbbed, and my stomach kept turning.

I dug out my phone to book an Uber to the hospital.

But every page was in a foreign language, and I couldn't make out the resort's address.

I tapped a few times and hit the wrong thing each time.

In the end I made it downstairs with a hand on the wall and reached the front desk.

The clerk on duty was a young woman, her badge reading Fox.

When she heard me ask for a nearby hospital in Chinese, her head came up at once.

"You're Chinese?"

I nodded.

She looked at my face, then at the red rash on my arm.

"You can't go by yourself like this."

"I can manage."

The words were barely out when my legs went weak under me.

She came around the desk and steadied me.

"I'll go with you."

I froze.

"You're still on shift."

She said a few words to a coworker and picked up her bag.

"Let them dock my pay. We're all a long way from home out here. People should help each other."

She said it lightly.

But it landed in my ears and left a small burn there.

A stranger's hand held me up, her palm warm.

She got us a cab, handled the registration, translated for me.

The doctor said it was an allergic infection from an insect bite, told me to stay off seafood and spicy food and to get on an IV.

I sat in the infusion area, the needle pushed into the back of my hand.

The fluid trickled into my vein, drop by drop.

Cold.

My phone buzzed.

I thought it was Sebastian.

The screen lit up. It was a notification from my social media feed.

Sebastian had posted an update.

In the photo, Katherine stood in a wetsuit at the edge of the glittering blue water, flashing a peace sign.

Sebastian's caption read,

"The scaredy-cat's first dive. Not bad at all."

I stared at that photo for a long time.

He'd taken it well.

The light, the angle, her expression—all of it, well done.

Katherine replied in the comments,

"Thank you, Sebastian, for looking out for me the whole time."

He answered with a smiley face.

The needle in the back of my hand suddenly stung.

A thin line of blood crept back up the tube.

Miss Fox pressed down on my hand at once.

"Don't move, it'll blow the vein."

I nodded and turned off the phone.

Outside the window, the sun was bright.

The hospital's disinfectant smell crept into my nose, sharp enough to make me want to cough.

I sat in a plastic chair in a hospital in a foreign country, swollen with rash, burning with fever.

And my boyfriend was on social media, recording another girl's first dive for her.

So this was what it was like when you weren't loved—even being sick felt like an imposition on other people.

By the third IV bag, I opened my phone and blocked both Sebastian and Katherine at the same time.

When my finger pressed down, it didn't shake.

My eyes stung instead.

While Miss Fox was out buying congee, I leaned back alone in the infusion chair, staring at the ceiling.

The hospital's fluorescent tubes hummed, like the last echo of that swarm of mosquitoes back on Honeymoon Island.

I thought of the first day of freshman year, when Sebastian carried my luggage up to the fifth floor.

He'd hoisted the heaviest box onto his shoulder and looked back at me. From now on, anything heavy, you give it to me.

I thought of the night he failed to get into grad school, sitting out on the field saying nothing, and how I stayed with him from dark until dawn.

The next day he ran a fever, and I skipped three days of classes to keep watch outside his dorm.

I thought of graduation day, his arm around my shoulders as he said, our story is just beginning.

Tears slid back into my hair.

I closed my eyes.

I don't know how long I slept.

When I woke, there was warmth clenched in my palm.

Sebastian was sitting beside me.

His fingers were laced through mine, holding on tight.

I blinked, thinking I was dreaming.

He saw that I was awake and reached out to feel my forehead.

“Looks like it's come down a little.”

His voice was hoarse.

His clothes carried the salt smell of sun and sea, and his hair was a little messy.

He bent down to tuck the blanket around me, still murmuring.

“Look at you, always trying to tough it out. You had a fever and didn't even say anything, had to carry it all by yourself.”

I looked at him.

He said again “Why block me? So petty. Katherine sent you a bunch of messages and you didn't reply to any of them. She's worried about you too.”

I looked away.

“Is a little thing like this really worth it?” He squeezed my hand. “I know you feel hurt, but you can't just block people over every little thing. Katherine and I grew up together. It's not like you don't know that.”

When he spoke, there was a soothing patience in his tone.

Just like countless times before.

First he blames me, then he moves closer, using his warmth to smother my anger down bit by bit.

I looked at our joined hands.

This used to work.

“Add me back first.”

He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine.

“Hm?”

I pulled my head a little farther away.

He sighed.

“Fine, you rest first. I'll go get you some hot water.”

He let go of my hand and stood up.

At the door he glanced back at me.

“Don't go wandering off.”

The door closed.

I waited ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Forty minutes.

The hot water dispenser was right at the end of the hall.

I pulled out the needle, pressed the cotton ball down, and walked slowly to the triage desk.

The nurse looked up at me.

I asked in the bit of Thai Eunice had taught me.

The nurse couldn't quite understand, and a volunteer who spoke Chinese came over to help translate.

“That boy you're asking about,” the volunteer thought for a moment, “about half an hour ago, a young girl came looking for him, and he left with her.”

I stood in the middle of the hallway.

The lights overhead were still buzzing.

An IV stand was wheeled past, its wheels squeaking against the floor.

I went back to the room and folded the blanket.

The porridge Eunice bought was still on the nightstand, gone cold.

I picked it up and took two sips.

Then I gathered my things and went to the payment window to settle the bill.

Outside the hospital, the noon sun came crashing down, blinding and white.

I stood at the curb and opened my phone to book an Uber to the airport.

It was only after I got in the car that I realized I hadn't cried, not once, from start to finish.

There was only an emptiness in my chest.

Like someone had taken something from me, but I couldn't even remember what that thing had looked like.

When the plane took off, Maui shrank smaller and smaller outside the window. The coastline became a thin line, the hotel a matchbox.

I leaned against the window and finally closed my eyes.

No more waiting.