The third morning in the hospital starts the same as the day before: me not knowing where I am when I first wake up, then quickly remembering, then doing the breathing exercises I found online. And then, of course, checking my phone. First I check my texts, then my email, then Kelsey’s Facebook, then Instagram. It makes a nice little circle in my head, and the routine comforts me.

My first check reveals a new text from Kelsey, just an emoji of a stack of pancakes. We’ve been texting about what we like to eat when we’re sick, and I told her waffles, especially Eggos. I don’t understand the emoji, but then think she must know the difference between waffles and pancakes and is trying to joke with me. Or maybe she was trying to tell me she thought pancakes were better and was just teasing me? Or maybe there isn’t an emoji for waffles, but there is one for pancakes? Sometimes I hate emojis. I wish girls had instruction manuals.

My email, Kelsey’s Facebook, and Kelsey’s Instagram don’t reveal anything very exciting or new, so with my morning lap done, I put my phone down. The curtain between my bed and Flora’s is closed. Which is fine; I still don’t want to talk to her, and I know I can hold out.

My parents once went thirty-three days without speaking to each other. I was eight, and I marked each day on a calendar. I’d drawn cake and balloons next to the twelfth day, my birthday. The only present I wanted that year was for them to talk to each other. But when that wish finally came true, I regretted my birthday wish. Thirty-three days of no talking erupted into one of their worst arguments and ended with my mom ripping pages out of her wedding album and trying to put them in the paper shredder. I hid in my closet until it was over.

I stretch in bed, look over at the closed curtain again, wonder what Flora’s doing on the other side, wonder if she’s still asleep. Not because I care about her. I just wonder if I should be getting all the sleep I can, just in case. Just in case … what, I’m not sure, because she’s not really sick, and I’m not really sick, and this whole quarantine thing is her fault, and I know that she knows I know that she’s not really sick. But I can’t bring myself to tell on her. Especially when Kelsey keeps texting me.

I grab my phone again and text Kelsey. Good morning. I add an emoji of a sun too.

She writes back, I’m just about to have some waffles. And she adds the picture of the pancakes again.

Ha-ha, I write back.

Waffles r funny?

Now I really can’t tell if she’s messing with me about messing with me, and my head hurts.

I think I hear Flora moving around on the other side of the curtain. I remind myself I don’t care and go back to my text with Kelsey. I send an emoji of a doughnut, and I guess I pass whatever test I somehow have accidentally agreed to take, because she writes back with lol.

I exhale, just as I hear someone walk in our room.