I don’t eat. I don’t drink. I don’t even get up to pee.

The day spins past until I open my eyes to the yellowy-gold light of sunset glaring off my bedroom window, and when I blink, it’s changed to a deep periwinkle, and there’s a pounding in my head so real it makes a thumping sound that sends shock waves through my body.

I roll over, pull a pillow over my face, but that doesn’t stop it.

It’s getting louder. It starts to sound like my name, the way that sounds sometimes transform into music when you’re so tired you’re half dreaming.

Poppy! Poppy! Poppy, are you home?

My phone clatters on the bedside table, vibrating. I ignore it, let it ring out. It starts again, and after that, a third time, so I roll over and try to read the screen despite the way the world seems to be melting, like a swirl of duo-toned ice creams twirling around each other.

There are dozens of messages from ALEXANDER THE GREATEST, but the last one reads, I’m here! Let me in!

The words have no meaning. I’m too confused to build a context for them, too cold to care. He’s calling me again, but I’m not sure I can speak. My throat feels too tight.

The pounding starts again, the voice calling my name, and the fog lifts just enough for all the pieces to snap together into perfect clarity.

“Alex,” I mumble.

“Poppy! Are you in there?” he’s shouting on the other side of the door.

I’m dreaming again, which is the only reason I think I can make it to the door. I’m dreaming again, which means that probably, when I do get to the door and pull it open, that huge black cat will be there waiting, Sarah Torval riding it like a horse.

But maybe not. Maybe it will just be Alex, and I can pull him inside and—

“Poppy, please let me know you’re okay!” he says on the other side of the door, and I slide off the bed, taking the linen-covered duvet with me. I sweep it around my shoulders and drag myself to the door on legs that feel weak and watery.

I fumble over the lock, finally get it switched, and the door swings open as if by magic, because that’s how dreams work.

Only when I see him standing on the other side of the door, hand still resting on its knob, beat-up suitcase behind him, I’m not so sure it’s a dream anymore.

“Oh, god, Poppy,” he says, stepping in and examining me, the cool back of his hand pressing to my clammy forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“You’re in Norway,” I manage in a raspy whisper.

“I’m definitely not.” He drags his bag inside and closes the door. “When was the last time you took ibuprofen?”

I shake my head.

“Nothing?” he says. “Shit, Poppy, you were supposed to go to the doctor.”

“I didn’t know how to.” It sounds so pathetic. I’m twenty-six years old with a full-time job and health insurance, and an apartment and student loan bills, and I live alone in New York City, but there are just some things you don’t want to have to do on your own.

“It’s okay,” Alex says, pulling me gently into him. “Let’s get you back in bed and see if we can get rid of the fever.”

“I have to pee,” I say tearfully, then admit, “I may have already peed myself.”

“Okay,” he says. “Go pee. I’ll find you some clean clothes.”

“Should I shower?” I ask, because apparently I’m helpless. I need someone to tell me exactly what to do like my mom used to do when I stayed home from middle school watching Cartoon Network all day long, doing nothing for myself until she told me to.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “I’ll Google it. For now just pee.”

It takes way too much effort to get into the bathroom. I drop the blankets just outside it and pee with the door open, shivering the whole time but comforted by the sound of Alex moving around in my apartment. Quietly opening drawers. Clicking on the gas stove top, moving the teakettle onto it.

He comes to check on me when he’s finished with whatever he’s doing, and I’m still sitting on the toilet with my sleep shorts around my ankles.

“I think you’re okay to shower if you want to,” he says, and starts the water up. “Maybe don’t wash your hair. I don’t know if that’s a real thing, but Grandma Betty swears that wet hair makes you sick. Are you sure you won’t fall down or anything?”

“If it’s fast I’ll be okay,” I say, suddenly aware of how sticky I feel. I am almost positive I wet myself. Later this will probably be humiliating, but right now I don’t think anything could embarrass me. I’m just so relieved to have him here.

He looks uncertain for a second. “Just go ahead and get in. I’ll stay close by, and if you feel like it’s getting to be too much, just tell me, okay?” He turns away from me while I force myself onto my feet and strip out of my pajamas. I climb into the hot water and pull the curtain closed, shuddering as the water hits me.

“You okay?” he asks immediately.

“Mm-hm.”

“I’m going to stay here, okay?” he says. “If you need anything, just tell me.”

“Mm-hm.”

After only a couple minutes, I’ve had enough. I turn off the water and Alex passes me a towel. I’m colder than ever now that I’m all wet, and I step out with teeth chattering.

“Here.” He wraps another towel around my shoulders like a cape, tries to rub heat into them. “Come sit in the room while I change your bedding, okay?”

I nod, and he leads me to the antique rattan peacock chair in the corner of my bedroom. “Spare bedding?” he asks.

I point to the closet. “Top shelf.”

He gets it out, and hands me a folded pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. Since I don’t have a habit of folding my clothes, he must’ve instinctively folded them when he got them out of the dresser. When I take them from him, he turns pointedly away from me to work on making the bed and I drop the towels onto the floor and dress.

When he’s finished making the bed, Alex pulls back a corner of the bedding and I slide in, letting him tuck me in. In the kitchen, the kettle starts whistling. He turns to go for it, but I grab on to his arm, half-drunk on the feeling of being warm and clean. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll be right back, Poppy,” he says. “I need to get you some medicine.”

I nod, release him. When he comes back, he’s carrying a glass of water and his laptop bag. He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls out pill bottles and boxes of Mucinex, lining them up on the side table. “I wasn’t sure what your symptoms were,” he says.

I touch my chest, trying to explain how tight and awful it feels. “Got it,” he says, and he chooses a box, peels two pills out, and hands them to me with the glass of water.

“Have you eaten?” he asks when I’ve taken them.

“I don’t think so.”

He gives a faint smile. “I grabbed some stuff on the way here so I wouldn’t have to go back out. Does soup sound okay?”

“Why are you so nice?” I whisper.

He studies me for a moment, then bends and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Think the tea will be ready by now.”

Alex brings me chicken noodle soup and water and tea. He sets timers for when I’m able to take more medicine, checks my temperature every couple hours throughout the night.

When I sleep, it’s dreamless, and every time I stir awake, he’s there, half snoozing on the bed beside me. He yawns himself awake, looks over at me. “How you doing?”

“Better,” I answer, and I’m not sure if it’s true in a physical sense, but at least mentally, emotionally, I do feel better having him here, and I can only manage a word or two at a time, so there’s no use explaining that.

In the morning, he helps me down the stairs to a cab and we go to the doctor.

Pneumonia. I have pneumonia. Not the kind, though, that’s so bad I need to be in the hospital.

“As long as you keep an eye on her and she sticks to the antibiotics, she should be fine,” the doctor tells Alex, more than me, I guess because I don’t really look like the kind of person who can make sense of words right now.

When Alex gets me home afterward, he tells me he has to go back out, and I want so badly to beg him to stay, but I’m just too tired. Besides, I’m sure he needs a break from my apartment and me after a whole night of playing nurse.

He comes back half an hour later with Jell-O and ice cream and eggs and more soup, and all kinds of vitamins and spices I’ve never even considered keeping in my apartment before now.

“Betty swears by zinc,” he tells me when he brings me a handful of vitamins with a cup of red Jell-O and another glass of water. “She also told me to put cinnamon in your soup, so if it tasted bad, blame her.”

“How are you here?” I struggle to get out.

“The first leg of my flight to Norway was through New York,” he says.

“So, what,” I say. “You panicked and left the airport instead of boarding the next plane?”

“No, Poppy,” he says. “I came here to be with you.”

Immediately, tears spring into my eyes. “I was going to take you to a hotel made of ice.”

A quick smile flits across his mouth. “I honestly don’t know if that’s the fever talking.”

“No.” I scrunch my eyes shut, feeling the tears cutting trails down my cheeks. “It’s real. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey.” He brushes the hair out of my face. “You know I don’t care about that, right? I only care about getting to spend time with you.” His thumb lightly traces the wet streak making its way down the side of my nose, heading it off just before it reaches my top lip. “I’m sorry you don’t feel well, and that you’re missing the ice hotel, but I’m okay right here.”

Every ounce of dignity obliterated by having had this man change my pee-drenched bedding, I reach up for his neck and pull him toward me, and he shifts onto the bed beside me, maneuvering close at the beckoning of my hands. He wraps an arm around my back and draws me into his chest and I slip an arm around his waist too, and we lie there tangled together.

“I can feel your heartbeat,” I tell him.

“I can feel yours,” he says.

“I’m sorry I peed the bed.”