I’m pacing my room again. It’s 7:00 p.m.—a time when families are having dinner together, talking about their days together, all the things they did and places they went together. A time when I’m reminded yet again that I haven’t left this hospital room, much less the hospital. That I haven’t done … anything, really.

My phone buzzes, and I have a text from Flora. Want to play Crazy 8s?

Crazy what? I write back.

“Please tell me you’ve heard of Crazy Eights,” Flora says, opening the curtain.

“I have now.”

She scowls at me. “I’ll deal.”

Flora hands me the cards, explains the super simple rules, and we play for two hours. She beats me every single time.

We don’t talk much during our games, but the silence feels so much different from the silence I have with Kelsey. It feels … comfortable.

At one point, I look up at her and she’s brushing her hair from her face, and I remember how I wanted to move a strand of hair off her face when she was sick. I remember how soft her hair is.

I know I have a girlfriend, but looking at Flora, I suddenly feel like it’s time to brush up on my girl handbook skills. And it’s dumb, but maybe hearing something nice about herself will help after that conversation with her dad.

I look at her as she lays down a two of hearts on my two of clubs.

“What is it?” she asks.

“What is what?”

“You’re looking at me funny again.”

“Your … your teeth are just so big!” I blurt out.

Flora looks at me so coldly I feel the blood drain out of my face. That didn’t come out right at all. “What did you just say to me?”

“I meant that—”

“I have buck teeth, right? That’s what you meant?”

“No, Flora, not at—”

“Thanks so much for reminding me what I dealt with all throughout elementary school, Oliver. Kids called me Bugs Bunny. But then I got braces in middle school and kids made fun of that, because kids make fun of everything.” She jabs at her eyes like she’s trying to push tears back in. “Then my mouth finally looked normal in high school, but it doesn’t matter because I still go to school with so many of those same stupid kids.” She takes a breath, looks at me with tears in her eyes. “And then other stupid kids who didn’t even know me have to remind me about it all over again—make me feel ugly all over again.”

“Flora, that’s not what I meant, I promise!” I spit it out as quickly as I can. “I just meant that your smile is so pretty, it makes your face look big.” I didn’t say that right either.

“So now my face looks fat too?” Her voice is shaking. “Wow, Oliver, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

Kelsey said the same thing to me. “Wait, I said that wrong!” I say quickly.

“I don’t think I want to know what you’d say if you had said it right.”

She’s got tears in her eyes, and they look like they’re about to spill over, and I’m panicking. I wanted to make her feel better, and I’ve made her feel worse. I’ve made everything worse. Like I always do.

I exhale loudly. “I meant to say that your smile is really pretty. So pretty that when you’re smiling it fills not just your entire face, but your entire body. The entire room, actually. Your smile fills the entire room. Especially when you smile at me.”

Flora’s mouth drops open.

Just then our door opens and a nurse comes in for a vitals check. She goes to Flora’s side of the room and calls for her.

But Flora is still looking at me.

The nurse walks over to my side of the room. “There you are.” She rolls her eyes. “Let me get your stats.”

She takes Flora’s temperature and blood pressure and pulse, and even though I know Flora is recovered I still don’t breathe properly while the thermometer is in her mouth. She doesn’t tell us the results, so I say, “Well, what was it?”

She rolls her eyes again. “It’s normal, just like it has been for the last six days.”

“Just making sure,” I say defensively.

“Well, thank you, Doctor,” she snaps. “Only a teenager and already a man is checking my work,” she mutters.

“He didn’t mean anything,” Flora says kindly. “Neither one of us could do your job. I’d been too sick to say it before, but thank you for taking care of me.”

The nurse studies her face, waiting for a punch line, but when there isn’t one, she says gruffly, “You’re welcome. Glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thank you,” Flora says.

The nurse takes my vitals. When she’s done, she starts to walk away, then turns and says, “Your temperature is normal too.”

She doesn’t wait for either of us to say anything else before she leaves.

“That was nice of you to say that,” I tell Flora.

She shrugs. “It’s true. I couldn’t do her job. A lot of people couldn’t do her job. A lot of doctors couldn’t do her job.”

“I guess I haven’t really thought what it must be like to be in her shoes. I’ve seen all these doctors and nurses, and sometimes I almost forget they have a life outside this hospital. Like they have an existence outside these halls. That sounds dumb.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Flora says. “I get it.”

“You do? You thanked her. That’s not even a thought that has crossed my mind. Then again, you are Flora.”

“What does that mean?” She tries to give me a dirty look, but she wrinkles her nose and looks adorable, and I laugh.

Just like before, she tries to give me an even meaner look, but her nose just wrinkles more, and she looks even more adorable, and I laugh even harder.

“Great, now he’s laughing at me,” Flora says, but she’s laughing too.

We laugh together like we’ve been laughing together forever. And in some ways, in all we’ve gone through together, it has been forever.

And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather go through this forever with.

It’s not until I go to bed that I realize that we didn’t mention anything about the hashtag, about the video we’re going to make, about Kelsey.

Not once.