I’m still in a daze as I’m wheeled through the hospital. I don’t much like hospitals. But then again, who does?

The ambulance ride was sort of exciting, especially with Joey sitting next to me. He told me the hospital we were going to was one of the best in the country. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “I’m not sick!” But I didn’t. He didn’t bring up Oliver’s name once, and neither did I.

As we are brought in, we are greeted by at least a dozen members of the medical staff, all in full-blown hazmat suits. Just like the workers in the warehouse, the medical staff are surprisingly calm, and I’m kind of disappointed things aren’t more chaotic, more exciting.

We finally stop in a hallway. There is a room on the right side and a room on the left side. I can see into both rooms because the walls are made of clear glass. The rooms look like a movie set.

My stretcher is turned toward the room on the right side of the hallway, and then I’m wheeled through a plastic antechamber, then we’re in the room. The curtain between the beds is open. I hear the workers pushing another stretcher into the room. I’m wheeled over to a bed, then turned, and I see Oliver in his stretcher, getting wheeled over to his bed, looking just as bug-eyed as before. There’s a lot of to-do getting us off the stretchers, and it’s clear one of the workers in particular wants nothing to do with us, keeps hanging back but getting beckoned forward by the other doctors. I see his nose wrinkled behind his hazmat suit. I don’t like the way he looks at me.

The staff are all speaking in medical jargon, and it sounds like a different language to me. I watch them all like I really am watching a movie. Oliver is watching them too, and somehow I notice his side of the room has a window, and off in the distance I see an airplane. I wonder where it’s going, wonder if the passengers have heard about tropical mono, wonder if they’re worried yet. I think how anxious Oliver was, how hard that panic attack was on him. I think about Randy, how hard it is when he gets worried, anxious. It hits me like a slap in the face how little I’ve thought about this plan, how many people I might affect. Somehow, though, all I want to do is laugh, and I feel like I did on the plane, almost hysterical, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud.

The workers lift me onto a bed with a thin mattress, then start to shuffle away. None of them have said anything to me, even Joey. “Wait!” I yelp.

One of them turns to look at me, like she’s surprised that I know how to speak.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

She looks at the other doctors and nurses, and a few of them shrug. “Um, you’re looking at it?” she says, gesturing around the room.

One of the nurses chuckles, and I force a smile onto my face and say, “Super, thanks,” as sweetly as I can. Joey gives me another sympathetic look, and I feel like a patient at a hospital, remind myself that I am a patient at a hospital.

They exit through the plastic antechamber, where I watch them take off their hazmat suits. They throw the suits in something that looks like a big trash can, just in regular scrubs now. I watch them through the window as they walk down the hall, and for some reason I feel disappointed again. I still feel like things should be more exciting somehow. Like some kind of fast-paced punk song should be playing somewhere. But everything seems so quiet.

I fluff my pillows a bit harder than I need to. When I’m done, I get up, get out of bed. Oliver is staring blankly at the TV on his side of the room. It’s bolted into the ceiling, just like mine, and I wonder if TV theft from hospitals is really a thing. It occurs to me it’s our first time alone. Though it’s hard to really be “alone” when one of our walls is made up entirely of glass and doctors and nurses and other medical personnel are constantly walking by.

As I look at him, our kiss flashes into my mind again. I couldn’t help but notice that his lips were softer than I was expecting. He seemed so anxious, so prickly, so full of edges, and I was surprised at the softness of his lips. Then I think about how he immediately pulled away like I was poisonous. Soon he’ll tell someone what happened, that I faked the fever. I fluff my pillows again.

Oliver rips his eyes away from the TV, which I realize isn’t even turned on. “Do you have to do that?”

“Sorry, I’ve seen kitchen sponges thicker than these pillows.”

“Well, we are in a hospital. In quarantine in a hospital, in case you for—”

“Oliver, I’m sorry.” I say it almost automatically. I’ve spent my life being an apologizer, saying “I’m sorry” for things. But I don’t even know what I’m apologizing for this time, where to begin. So he missed some party back in Brooklyn and didn’t see some girl. Big deal. The world will keep spinning. There is a part of me that wonders if this girl even knows that Oliver exists. A mean part. I wonder who the girl is. Someone from school? His rich neighborhood? The daughter of family friends?

Then I wonder why I care.

He shakes his head, breathing hard, and I fear he’ll have another panic attack. I want to help calm him down, like I did on the plane, think about holding his hand again, but he looks at me with such disgust, such anger.

“Look,” he spits out acidly, “I’m sorry your life is so hard, that your dad married some bimbo. But you know what? I like my life okay, and you just ruined it.”

I feel my blood boil. He doesn’t know anything about me. Goldy is the least of my problems. “How dare you,” I say coldly.

He looks taken aback for a second, and I see concern flash across his face, but it quickly disappears again.

I want to punch a wall; I want to slam a door. I want to do something that makes a lot of noise. I want to blast the punk song that I think should be playing. I look around the room desperately. The only door is the door to the bathroom, and it’s closer to Oliver’s side of the room, and I don’t want to get any closer to him. I snap the plastic curtain between our beds shut. It barely makes a sound. I feel even angrier.