My face hurts from laughing. It feels good to stretch out the muscles in my face. But as my laughter dies down in my chest, I snap out of my hysteria and quickly remember where I am, why I’m here. Flora is just laughing so easily. Seeing her so happy makes me mad all over again.
I think Flora notices my anger, because she suddenly stops laughing and we both look at each other for a moment in silence.
“I messed up,” she says plainly, unemotionally. “I know you wanted to get home, I know there’s a girl, and I’m sorry.”
Her frankness—her genuineness—isn’t something I’m used to, and it’s throwing me off. I’m waiting for the catch, waiting for her to pull something on me, but her expression is so totally open. There wouldn’t be any of this weird waffle/pancake confusion with her.
“I need to know … I need to know why …” I trail off.
“Why I did it? Faked the fever?” She says it so I don’t have to.
“Yes. Please tell me you have some amazing reason.”
She shrugs. “It was so cozy before. I know I said my stepmom is terrible, but my real mom isn’t always easy, and taking care of my cousin is never easy. I guess I wasn’t ready to go home yet. And maybe I don’t always feel very interesting. I don’t know.”
“I think you’re interesting,” I say before I can stop myself.
I want to ask her about the kiss, but I’m embarrassed and I can’t make my mouth form the words.
Flora is still looking me in the eye, and I’m reminded of her calmness on the flight, the way she helped me, a stranger, get through a panic attack. I think of the way she defended the sick passenger, the way she stood up to the other guy on our flight. Of the goofy seal video she showed me.
“Well, that’s nice of you to say.” She waves her hand. “But, I was thinking, we still have twenty-eight days here. I still feel like I owe you.”
“Owe me?” Say something about the kiss, Oliver.
“Yeah. For all of this.” She waves her hand again, this time gesturing at the hospital room.
My first kiss.
I shake my head, trying to focus on something that isn’t her lips on mine. I look around us. Now that the curtain is open, I can see her side of the room. Her bed is neatly made, her clothes are folded on a chair, and even her tray of food looks tidy. I look around at my messy side of the room, my tray of picked-at food, my rumpled sheets, the socks that seem to have multiplied and are peeking at me from every corner of the room. I kick at one with my foot, shove it under a chair, but Flora isn’t paying attention to what I’m doing.
She’s got her phone out; she’s mumbling to herself. “Quarantime? Quarantining?” Then, after a moment, “Oh, quaranteen! That’s it!” She looks up at me, beaming.
“What are you doing?” I ask slowly.
“Making our hashtag.”
“Our what?”
“Hashtag!”
“Right, sorry, I know what a hashtag is, but what is our hashtag? Why is our hashtag, err …” I trail off.
“Have you ever seen pictures from inside a quarantine?”
“I mean, everyone has seen pictures of some kind of quarantine, right? They’re pretty depressing. And awful.”
Flora doesn’t seem to hear me. “I bring you the world’s first hashtag for quarantined teenagers. Or should I say … quaranteens!”
I’m still confused. “Why are we doing this? Or why are you doing this?”
“What’s her name?”
“Kelsey,” I say without thinking. How did I know who Flora was even asking about?
“Kelsey will think it’s pretty cool to see her name in the first hashtag-quaranteens picture, won’t she?”
“Flora, what are you talking about?”
She finally looks up from her phone. “Making the girl fall for you, of course. And becoming your own personal girl assistant/girl handbook author.”
She’s so riled up, so excited, and we’re talking after not talking at all for two days, and I’m still confused about the kiss, so I don’t know what to say. I suppose “thank you” is a place to start.
“You can say thank you,” Flora says.
“Wait, did you just read—”
“Yeah, I’m a hashtag creator and mind reader.” She shrugs. “Consider it part of my double X chromosome.”
She’s pointing her phone at me. She puts it down and comes over to my side of the room. She ruffles my hair, and I resist the odd temptation to grab her hand. She backs away and looks at me, proud of her work. “Perfect bedhead,” she says, pleased.
She points her phone at me again and shows me the picture. My hair is sticking up, my mouth is hanging open. It’s a terrible picture.
“What’s your number? I’ll text it to you and you can say something about Kelsey and use our hashtag. She’s going to fall for you so hard.”
I don’t say anything, so she looks up at me again, expectantly. “Your number?”
“Oh, right.” I give her my number.
A second later my phone dings, and the terrible picture of me shows up on my screen.
“Okay, get to work.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do again?”
“Make Kelsey fall for you,” she says, like it’s as easy as ordering a pizza.
“And how am I supposed to do that, again?”
“By charming her. And by being the perfect boyfriend in quarantine.”
“Wait, boyfriend?”
“Remember that thing I said about being the author of the girl handbook?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m the author of the sequel too.”
I wonder if Flora really does have a fever that is causing some kind of dementia. Then I fiddle with the picture on my phone, waiting for further instruction from Flora. But she just keeps watching me.
“I just don’t get how a picture is going to make Kelsey fall for me,” I finally say.
Flora rolls her eyes. “Give me that.” She snatches the phone from my hand, taps a few things on the screen, and hands it back to me.
Whatever filter she used has washed me out, so my doofusy face isn’t so brightly lit, and she’s added the hashtag she was talking about: #quaranteen. She’s also added #hikelsey. “Hike l-l-l.” I stop, unable to parse out what the second word is.
Flora rolls her eyes again. “Hi Kelsey?”
“Right,” I say softly. “Why am I doing this again? To show Kelsey that I can still be a dweeb even when I’m in quarantine?”
Flora jabs my arm lightly with her shoulder. “You’re not a dweeb. Just please trust me? She’ll totally dig this. Girls love when guys think about them from far away. Especially to call attention to it on social media, when so many people have already heard about the quarantined teenagers on the news. You’ll have a date for spring formal by the time we’re out of here.”
“How did you know I wanted to ask—”
“Kelsey to spring formal?” Flora taps her head again and winks.
“You’re a little creepy,” I say before I can stop myself.
Flora grins evilly. “You’ll thank me later.”
I swallow hesitantly and hit SHARE for all Instagram to see.