I sit on my side of the room, hear gulping sounds from Flora’s side, and then of course my mom calls again.

I take a huge breath. “Yes, Mom,” I say sharply.

“Oliver, I hate that I can’t see you. I’m so worried you’re sick. You’re not sick. Are you? Please tell me you’re not sick. Your dad never seemed sick, he wasn’t sick, and he went to work and died at his desk and I never got to say good-bye to him.” She sniffles.

I want to remind my mom that she and my dad were divorced when he died, and neither one of us had spoken to him in years. But I don’t. And I want to remind Flora that she’s the reason we’re in the hospital, stuck in quarantine. But I don’t. Instead I wait for my mom to stop crying, like she always does, like I always do.

“I told the doctor to take the best care of you. I know how fragile you are.”

“Fragile? Thanks a lot, Mom.”

“Oh, honey, it’s okay to be fragile after everything we’ve gone through.”

What we’ve gone through is dealing with the death of someone we barely knew anymore. But I don’t feel like pointing that out to her. I don’t feel like pointing anything out to her. I just want to be done with the phone call.

“Hey, Mom, it’s probably good for me to get lots of rest, not exert myself on things like phone calls. You know, to stay healthy.” I’m proud of myself for how quickly I’ve found an excuse to get off the phone.

“Okay,” she says, unsure. “Call me as often as you can?”

“Yeah, okay,” I say.

“I love you, Oliver,” she says, and I hear her crying again. “I’ll be in Miami tomorrow!”

“I love you too, Mom,” I say.

I hang up and see I’ve gotten a text from Kelsey. Seeing her name on my phone makes me feel guilty. I wish the doctors hadn’t told my mom about Flora kissing me. Now that she knows, she’ll never unknow it, and I won’t be able to wish it away as much as I want to. At least … I think I want to. Of course I want to. I shake my head, read the text from Kelsey. Did u see what I put on Facebook?

I open Facebook for the first time since last night. The notifications start popping up, and I see that Kelsey has tagged me in a post. Prayers for Oliver in quarantine!!

At first I’m excited. I want to frame the moment somehow, put it in a scrapbook to look at later. I do the closest thing, actually, and take a screenshot. But then I look at all the comments, most from people I don’t know, some from people I sort of know.

I hope you feel better, from a girl in my English class.

How scary. Hope you’re okay! from a guy in my chemistry class.

Didn’t he switch schools last year? from Clayton Crowl, whose locker is two down from mine and who I see almost every day.

I scroll through, see some more get wells.

Then, Isn’t mono a kissing disease? Who’d kiss him? from Blaine Robert. We were friends in elementary school, used to play Star Wars together. We stopped being friends when he started being popular.

I open my texts, write to Kelsey, Thank you! Though I don’t know why I’m thanking her for making me feel like crud.