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The first sign something was wrong wasn't the missed calls or the radio silence—it was Steven's text at 7:43 AM, all caps and multiple question marks.
DUDE WHERE IS CONRAD??? HE'S NOT AT THE RESTAURANT???
Belly stared at her phone, still half-asleep in her dorm bed. Conrad had been pulling double shifts at the seafood place near campus all month, saving up for their summer plans. He showed up even when he had a splitting headache from studying for his MCAT prep courses. He showed up when it was pouring rain and his ancient Honda was making that grinding noise again. Conrad Fisher did not miss work.
Her phone buzzed again. Steven, still in crisis mode: He's not answering his phone. Manager says he called in sick but like... CONRAD doesn't get sick. What if he's dead? What if he had a breakdown? What if—
She was already pulling on jeans before Steven could spiral further into his catastrophizing. Twenty minutes later, she was standing outside Conrad's off-campus apartment with a CVS bag full of supplies and her stomach doing nervous flips.
The key he'd given her last month felt heavier than usual as she turned it in the lock. "Con? It's me."
The apartment was dim, curtains still drawn against the late morning sun. She found him on his bathroom floor, slumped against the tub with his knees drawn up, wearing the same t-shirt and boxers he'd probably slept in. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, and there were dark circles under his eyes that made him look younger and more vulnerable than she'd seen him in months.
"Hey," he mumbled without opening his eyes. His voice was rough, like he'd been throwing up. "You didn't have to come."
"Steven was convinced you were dead in a ditch somewhere." She knelt beside him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. No fever, but his skin was clammy. "When's the last time you ate something?"
"Don't." He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing. "Don't talk about food right now."
She'd seen Conrad sick before—summer colds, hangovers, that time he got food poisoning from Laurel's experimental tofu scramble—but he usually powered through with stubborn determination. This was different. This was Conrad finally hitting a wall.
"Stomach bug?"
He nodded miserably. "Started around midnight. I kept thinking it would pass, but..." He gestured vaguely toward the toilet. "Called out around six. First time ever."
"I know." She smoothed his hair back from his forehead, and he leaned into the touch like a cat. "Steven nearly had an aneurysm."
That got a weak smile. "Dramatic."
"Pot, meet kettle." She stood, surveying the disaster zone that was his bathroom. Towels on the floor, toothbrush abandoned on the counter, that particular smell that meant he'd been here a while. "Come on, let's get you somewhere more comfortable."
"I can't really... move much." His voice was smaller now, embarrassed. Conrad hated being seen as anything less than completely capable.
"That's fine. We'll go slow."
It took ten minutes to get him the twenty feet to his bedroom, with two stops for him to breathe through waves of nausea. She settled him against the pillows and went to work, opening windows to air out the stuffiness, gathering the scattered clothes from his floor, changing his water glass for a fresh one.
"You don't have to—" he started.
"Shh." She sat on the edge of the bed, pulling items from her CVS bag. "Ginger ale, saltines, those gross electrolyte drinks that taste like fake fruit. And..." She produced the last item with a flourish. "Your favorite hoodie that you left at my place."
It was navy blue, worn soft from years of wear, with 'Cousins Beach' faded across the chest. She'd stolen it so many times he'd basically given up trying to get it back.
"You brought my hoodie?"
"I figured if you were dying, you'd want to be comfortable." She tossed it to him, then pulled out an identical one in gray. "And I brought mine too, because solidarity."
Conrad managed to pull the hoodie over his head, though the effort left him slightly green around the gills. The familiar weight of it seemed to settle something in him, shoulders relaxing just a fraction.
Belly changed into her own hoodie and cracked open the ginger ale. "Small sips," she instructed, holding the glass while he managed a few tentative swallows.
"This is not how I planned to spend my Saturday," he mumbled, sinking back into the pillows.
"I had a paper to write anyway. Due Monday." She settled beside him, careful not to jostle the mattress too much. "This is a much better use of my time."
They fell into comfortable quiet, Conrad dozing fitfully while Belly answered the increasingly frantic texts from Steven and Jeremiah. By noon, he was keeping down small sips of ginger ale. By one, he'd managed half a saltine without immediately throwing it up.
"Progress," Belly declared, though Conrad still looked like he'd been hit by a truck.
Around two, he started getting restless, shifting uncomfortably against the pillows. "I feel gross," he announced. "Like, really gross. I should shower."
"You can barely sit up."
"I've been wearing the same shirt for fourteen hours."
"So change shirts. Shower later when you won't pass out and crack your head open."
He was quiet for a long moment, then: "Will you stay? Even if I'm disgusting?"
The question was so soft, so uncertain, that it made her chest ache. This was the thing about Conrad—he'd learned early to be self-sufficient, to not need anyone. Asking for help, admitting weakness, it went against every instinct he'd carefully cultivated.
"You're not disgusting," she said firmly. "You're sick. There's a difference."
Another hour passed. Conrad managed a full saltine and three more sips of ginger ale without incident. The afternoon light was slanting long across his bedroom floor, and Belly found herself getting drowsy from the warmth and quiet.
"Floor," Conrad announced suddenly.
"What?"
"I want to lie on the floor. Bed's too soft. Makes everything worse."
It was such a Conrad thing to say—overthinking his own comfort—that she couldn't help but smile. "Okay. Floor it is."
They made a nest on his bedroom floor with pillows and the throw blanket from his couch. Conrad curled up on his side, still wearing the navy hoodie, and Belly mirrored his position a careful distance away. Close enough to reach if he needed her, far enough that she wouldn't crowd him.
"Better?"
"Yeah." He looked more relaxed than he had all day, some of the tension finally leaving his face. "Thanks. For coming. For staying."
"Steven would never forgive me if I let you die on my watch."
"Just Steven?"
She nudged his foot with hers. "I'd miss you too, I guess."
They lay there as the afternoon light faded, not talking much, just existing in the same space. Conrad dozed intermittently, and Belly found herself watching the rise and fall of his breathing, the way his hair curled against the collar of his hoodie, the gradual return of color to his cheeks.
Around five, her phone buzzed with a text from Steven: Update: still alive?
She showed Conrad the message, and he managed a weak laugh. "Tell him I'm not dead. Just temporarily defeated by bacteria."
He's alive, she typed back. Stomach bug. Will live to fight another day.
Steven's response was immediate: Thank god. I was already planning his funeral. Very touching eulogy about his terrible driving.
"Steven's planning your funeral," she reported. "Apparently your driving was going to feature prominently."
"My driving is fine."
"Your driving is terrifying."
"I've never had an accident."
"Because other people have good reflexes."
It was such a normal conversation, the kind of easy banter they'd been having for years, that it felt like progress. Like maybe the worst of it was over.
As the sun set, Conrad managed another cracker and a few more sips of ginger ale. The color was slowly returning to his face, and he hadn't had a wave of nausea in over an hour.
"I think I might live," he announced, still lying on his side but looking more human than he had all day.
"Tragic. Steven was really looking forward to that eulogy."
"He can save it for next time."
"Next time you get a stomach bug?"
"Next time I try to work through being sick like an idiot." Conrad was quiet for a moment, then: "I kept thinking if I just pushed through it, it would go away. Like I could outwork being sick."
"Very you."
"Very stupid."
"Also very you."
He smiled at that, the first real smile she'd seen from him all day. "Thanks for taking care of me. I know I'm not the easiest patient."
"You're better than Jeremiah. Remember when he had that cold last summer and acted like he was dying of consumption?"
"He made Laurel take his temperature every hour."
"And demanded homemade soup."
"Which he didn't even eat."
"Because it wasn't the right kind of noodles."
They were both laughing now, quiet giggles that felt good after the worry and tension of the day. Conrad's laugh turned into a slight wince, hand going to his stomach, but he was still smiling.
"I should probably try to eat something real," he said eventually.
"Toast?"
"Toast sounds manageable."
She made him toast with a thin layer of butter, nothing fancy, and he ate it slowly, chewing carefully like he was expecting his stomach to rebel. But it stayed down, and some of the last tension left his shoulders.
"Success," Belly declared, settling back down on the floor beside him.
"Success," he agreed.
They stayed on the floor until well past dark, talking quietly about nothing important—classes, work, Steven's latest dating drama, whether they should try to get tickets for that concert in Boston. Normal things, comfortable things, the kind of conversation that felt like coming home.
Eventually, Conrad's eyelids started drooping, and his words came slower and softer. The crisis had passed. The worst of it was over. Tomorrow he'd probably be back to his usual self, insisting he was fine, ready to take on the world again.
But for now, he was content to lie on his bedroom floor in a borrowed hoodie, letting himself be taken care of, letting himself be vulnerable. And Belly was content to stay there with him, guardian against stomach bugs and stubborn pride and the particular loneliness of being sick and far from home.
"Stay tonight?" he asked, voice thick with approaching sleep.
"On the floor?"
"Bed's big enough for two. If you want."
She did want. Had wanted all day, if she was honest, to curl up beside him and make sure he was really okay. "Only if you promise not to throw up on me."
"I make no such promises."
But he was smiling when he said it, and his color was good, and he managed to stand up without swaying. Progress, in all the ways that mattered.
They brushed their teeth side by side at his bathroom sink, both still wearing their matching hoodies, and it felt domestic and comfortable and right. Later, settled in his bed with careful distance between them, Belly listened to Conrad's breathing even out into sleep and felt that particular satisfaction that came from a crisis weathered, a person helped, a quiet kind of love expressed in ginger ale and saltines and the simple act of staying.
Her phone buzzed one last time—Steven, predictably: Tell me he's not dead and I can stop planning the funeral.
He's fine, she typed back. Sleeping. Alive. Annoying as ever.
Good. I wasn't finished with the eulogy anyway. Needed more material about his weird obsession with cleaning his car.
She smiled and tucked her phone away. Beside her, Conrad stirred slightly in his sleep, unconsciously moving closer to her warmth. Tomorrow they'd probably both be embarrassed about the intimacy of it all—her taking care of him, him letting her. But tonight, it just felt right.
Sometimes the best medicine wasn't anything you could buy at CVS. Sometimes it was just showing up, staying put, and lying on the floor together until the worst of it passed.