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It takes three days for the fever to hit, which Tyler knows is an obvious sign of infection, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time than when he’s jammed into the passenger seat of a truck, still with an hour’s worth of open road ahead of them. The drive isn’t really long, but it’s started to feel long already, and Lily and Boone won’t stop bickering in the backseat, which is only making it worse. Every now and then, Tyler will glance back to see how Kate is doing, and as she seems mostly amused and content and not in any pain, he refrains from telling the two of them to shut up so they can all drive in peace.
Their antics would be amusing if the circumstances were different. Tyler is all for good banter, a good laugh, but he’s not feeling up for it now. If it weren’t for the fever slowly creeping up on him and the soreness of his leg, he wouldn’t mind. He takes a breath, trying to breathe through it, wishing he could ignore it altogether. He’s had injuries like this before, some even worse than this one. He’s pulled through concussions and skull fractures like they were nothing, so this, a fairly small leg wound, shouldn’t be anything noteworthy.
Maybe it’s the last few days catching up to him. Maybe it’s slowing down, finally having the chance to rest, that’s not doing him any good. He finds himself shifting, uncomfortable, too warm, and chronically unable to sit still for longer than a few minutes. He grazes his fingers over his jeans, where a damp bandage is wrapped around his thigh. He’d tried, futilely, that night after El Reno, to stitch it up himself, but he should’ve known —
No, he did know. He knows open wounds need immediate medical attention. He knows the risk of infection if one isn’t treated properly. He knows, because he’s been through it, and now he’s here, still an hour away from Sapulpa, feverish and sore and nauseous, all because of his foolish decision. He sighs and leans back, because there’s nothing he can do about it now. Not until, at the very least, they arrive back at Kate’s house.
“You good?”
It’s Javi speaking to him. When Tyler opens his eyes and looks at them, then spares a quick glance around the car, he sees that all three passengers in the backseat have fallen asleep. Good. They all need to rest. Tyler clears his throat and looks back at Javi. “Sorry. Must’ve fallen asleep.”
“You did…then you started squeezing your leg and whimpering,” Javi says, eyes still on the road.
Tyler squints at the side of his face. “I don’t ever whimper.”
“What I heard sounded a lot like whimpering.”
Tyler doesn’t push it. Chances are, he’d roused himself into some sort of half-asleep/half-awake state, where he wasn’t awake enough to be aware of reality, but the internal pain was all too real. He can feel it now, pulsing and throbbing beneath the layers of his pants, the bandage, the messy stitches, a jagged series of lines tracing the surface of the scar, and he dreads the moment he’s alone and has to pull the bandage back to see the damage done.
“I just asked if you’re good?” Javi says after a moment, and Tyler thinks he’s trying to sound casual, trying not to sound concerned.
“All good, yeah,” Tyler nods. “You?”
Slowly, Javi nods in agreement. “Yeah, same here.”
When Tyler opens his eyes again, the first thing he sees is Cathy taking Kate’s bag from her, Javi and Lily approaching the front door to the house. Boone is behind him, apparently, which Tyler doesn’t know until Boone leans over the front seat and ruffles his hair. “Let’s go, Ty! Cathy’s got burgers for dinner.”
Somehow, Tyler makes eye contact with Cathy through the window, as if she had heard her name. She’s smiling as she talks to Kate, but it slips from her face almost immediately after their eyes meet. She waves at him, and Tyler feels a little bit confused and exposed. Cathy says something to Kate, who looks back at the car with a frown before making her way over. It’s then that Tyler puts the pieces together in his mind. They’re here, at their destination, which means he really shouldn’t be sitting in the car doing nothing still.
But he is, and he wonders if the fever is obvious on the outside, if it’s written all over his face. He wonders if the pain in his leg, and the persistent phantom pains around his skull from one too many head injuries, can be seen in his eyes. Maybe, if he doesn’t dwell on it, it’ll go away, or won’t hurt as badly until he can make it home to his aunt.
He gets himself together in the ten seconds he has to spare before Kate makes it to the car. He opens the door and steps out, and when he sees her face, when he sees her alive and safe and healthy, his own pain is an afterthought. No, it’s forgotten. Entirely. All he knows is that he’s grateful to be here, and to be with her.
“Hey,” she laughs, meeting him halfway. “I thought you were never gonna come out of the truck. Are you…alright?”
“All good, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” He looks around. His friends are alive. Kate is alive. They’re together and they’re safe. “I should be asking you, though. How’s your head?”
Kate brings a hand to her temple, where five stitches sit just below her hairline. She winces when she touches it, but she seems fine otherwise. “It’s good. So good I almost forgot all about it. Come on —” Kate grabs his wrist and guides him after her, towards the house, where Tyler can smell dinner before they’re even inside. “I’m starving. What about you? You must be hungry.”
He’s dragged into the small, homey kitchen, where Boone and Lily are already seated at the table and helping themselves. Tyler sits, reluctantly, and he can hear Javi’s voice coming from somewhere, Cathy’s following soon after. He studies the spread of food and drinks in front of him, and he knows he should be hungry (he can’t remember the last time he ate a proper meal), but he feels nothing at the moment. The sight of food doesn’t evoke any sort of reaction, aside from a very subtle discomfort in his stomach.
Kate sits down next to him and helps herself, and Tyler feels lost for a moment, like he’s forgotten how to serve himself food, or even eat. He follows her movements, trying to act as normally as he can, but as the evening goes on, keeping his head up starts to feel harder, following the conversation is nearly impossible. It’s all surprisingly wholesome, and everyone wisely chooses not to discuss the events of El Reno for the time being, but Tyler can feel himself zoning out for the majority of it.
He eats, somehow, without making himself sick. He walks around on his aching leg to clean up the table and then stands for twenty minutes to help Cathy with the dishes. She washes, he dries, and they do so in amicable silence as the sound of the shower, and the television, and light conversation drift into the room from other parts of the house.
Tyler is absentmindedly drying a plate when he starts to feel lightheaded, and at the same moment, Cathy chuckles and says, “You’ve dried that plate at least seven times now.”
“Sorry, Ms. Carter,” Tyler says, putting the plate into the cabinet.
She eyes him over her shoulder, giving him a look, and he raises an eyebrow at her. As she hands him three forks, she says, “I think all of you should go up and get some rest as soon as this is done.”
Tyler couldn’t agree more, even though it’s just after seven o’clock, and as much as he’s dreading it, he knows he needs to take a look at his leg. It’s not going to look good, because if it’s hurting this much, how could it? But he’s dreading what he’ll see, though he can imagine it, all too vividly. It makes him queasy just thinking about it. It makes him want to stay here and wash dishes with Cathy forever just so he doesn’t have to confront it.
“Tyler? Tyler?”
“Yeah?” Tyler pulls himself back to reality. There’s a knot in his throat, and now he does feel like he might be sick. “Sorry — you said something?”
Cathy frowns, taking a good, long look at him. “Honey, you don’t look too good,” she says, her voice uneasy. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Ms. Carter,” Tyler says, to reassure her, but she drops her sponge and the plate she was washing, anyway, and turns to him.
She puts her hand on his forehead and frowns. “You’re burning up,” she says. “That’s hardly nothing. Come sit down.”
Tyler does as he’s asked, and suddenly feels too heavy to move. He watches Cathy fill a glass with water from the sink. “Drink this.” She narrows her eyes at him, analyzing him. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you limping on that leg. What happened? Where are you hurt?”
Tyler drinks the water, ignores her last statement, then hands the glass back to her. “I just need some rest. I’ll be fine.” He looks up at her and sighs. “Really. It’s not a big deal, just…sore.”
Cathy shakes her head. “You’re not a good liar. And you’re lucky you’re not my kid, otherwise I wouldn’t let you off the hook so easily.”
Tyler smirks at her as she goes, but then the guilt from his dishonesty hits him forcefully and all at once. He puts his head in his hands, wishing he had a bed or a couch to lay on. Even if sleep doesn’t come tonight, and he’s doubtful that it will, he’s not sure he can handle being upright any longer. He wants — needs — to take the pressure off his leg. He needs to close his eyes and let his head and his unsettled stomach rest.
He hears footsteps echoing, louder than usual, like a hammer against his skull. He turns around just in time to see Kate coming in through the doorway, and he can’t help but wonder if Cathy sent her here. “So…we’re just trying to figure out sleeping arrangements, if you want to come…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, gesturing to the doorway.
Tyler nods, standing to go after her, but before he can really get anywhere, Kate stops him with a hand on his arm. “Tyler, your leg.” Her face seems to have fallen, her eyes wide with fear. “Your leg, Tyler, shit, I completely forgot — with everything else going on, I —”
“It’s alright, Kate,” Tyler lies, easily. “It’s really fine. It’s just sore.”
“No, you’re in pain,” she says, shaking her head. “And don’t even bother saying you’re not, I just saw it all over your face.”
Tyler takes a breath. The longer he stands, the more weak and unwell he starts to feel. The dizziness is coming in waves, the nausea growing subtly. He can feel a headache coming on as well, simmering behind his eyes. Overall, he feels like a mess. Hot, dirty, sweaty, feverish. And he knows he should tell her. There’s no reason not to, is the thing, but he doesn’t.
“I’ll get you some ice,” Kate says. “Can I take a look?”
“No,” Tyler says around a sigh.
“No?” Kate asks from where she’s rummaging around the freezer. “Why not?” A moment later, she returns with a bag of peas and a paper towel that she wraps around it. She frowns at him, but doesn’t argue. “You should elevate your leg and put this on it. If it’s just bruised, it should help with the pain a bit, alright?”
“Yeah, okay,” Tyler says, begrudgingly. He glances at the doorway, waiting for her.
“Fine,” Kate sighs. “As soon as you’re in bed, you need to put that on your leg.”
Tyler ends up downstairs on the couch, which is fine with him.
Everyone else is upstairs, anyway, so he has more space and privacy down here. It’s closer to eight o’clock once everyone is ready to call it a night, and Tyler feels a strong sense of relief as he watches everyone head upstairs, their voices and footsteps fading down the hall.
He leans back and forces his leg up onto the table. His hands are shaking. He knows he’s acting like he’s never seen a wound before, as though he’s never been injured or seen broken skin or blood a day in his life before this, but he’s never had an infected wound before. He’s never stitched his own wound before, only other people’s, and that night when he did it, hours after El Reno, his hands were uncontrollably shaky, his eyes were blurred with exhaustion and tears, and he was on the verge of passing out from the blood loss, so something was bound to go wrong, but he thought he’d done an okay job, given the circumstances.
Slowly, he takes off his jeans, and already, it’s a sickly sight. The bandage is days old, worn around the edges, not sticking to his skin properly. He can see the blood through it, a thick, dark layer of it. He closes his eyes, trying to calm his racing heart, but he can’t ignore the fact that part of him wants to cry, or scream, and he hasn’t even taken the bandage off yet to see the worst of it.
It takes him a few minutes to compose himself, but he does, and once he’s as ready as he can be, he takes the edge of the gauze between his fingers and peels it back. It stings as it comes off, revealing the wound. Definitely infected. Red, swollen. Some of the stitches have ripped out. There’s fresh blood surrounding it. It looks raw and inflamed. Definitely infected.
Tyler covers it back up, puts his jeans back on, not wanting to look at it any longer than necessary, and after tossing and turning for a while, he ends up falling asleep sitting up, with his head angled too far to the side, bound to make his neck sore when he wakes up in the morning.
Morning comes sooner than he thought it would, though the house is still and silent.
The clock says it’s 5:58 am. Tyler figures everyone else will be asleep for a few more hours, though he can imagine Cathy may get up sooner to get breakfast ready for everyone. He sits still for a while, accompanied by the pain in his thigh, the fever, chills, the sticky feeling of sweat gluing his shirt to his body. Staring out the window at the sun peaking over the horizon makes some time pass, though not as much as he’d like.
He gets himself to lay down finally, his bad leg stretched out on the couch, his good one dangling off the edge. It’s not comfortable, but it probably would be, he figures, if he wasn’t sore and sweaty all over his body. He’s able to drift off again, though his sleep is restless and fitful. At some point, not much later, he wakes to the sound of voices.
He turns his head back in the direction they’re coming from. It’s Kate, and if Tyler had the energy, he’d go to find her and make sure she’s okay, but he can’t make himself move. He hears Cathy’s voice next, then the sound of the front door opening, before she says, “What happened, honey?”
“Bad dream,” Kate says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you…”
Cathy shushes her, then says something else, but it’s muffled.
“Love you too,” Kate says after a few more minutes of hushed conversation, then, “I’m gonna check on Tyler.”
Tyler closes his eyes and lays still. He hears the floors creaking as Kate walks over them, and he can sense her when she’s close. He can feel when she sits down on the couch beside him, and then when she rests a hand on his shoulder. She’s silent, but Tyler can feel her unease when it comes over her, like a shift in the atmosphere, and he can only imagine that he must look terrible.
Her hand is on his forehead next, and then she’s shaking his shoulder, gently at first, then with more force. “Tyler? Tyler, wake up,” she says. “Wake up, Tyler, please —”
“I’m up,” Tyler sighs, his words heavy. His voice is wrecked as well, and everything in him aches.
“What happened? Why — why do you have a fever?” Kate asks, panicked. “Tyler?”
He soaks up the coolness of her skin when she touches his forehead again, his eyes threatening to close again. He’s heavy and exhausted, and all he wants is for this to pass.
“Tyler? Mom!”
There’s footsteps a second later. Cathy, of course. They have a brief, rushed conversation, then Kate has one hand on the back of his head and the other on his shoulder. “Come on, sit up,” she says. “We’re gonna take you to the hospital, okay?”
“I don’t need a hospital,” Tyler argues.
“You’re sick,” Kate lets him go then, sitting back to look at him. “You were fine yesterday. I don’t understand.”
Tyler knows he can’t hide his injury from her forever, but he hoped he would’ve had more time to get things under control. That’s a missed opportunity now, though. He knows an infection can’t go untreated like this for too long. He could get sepsis and die. He swallows, his shame and fear and embarrassment, and says, “My leg.”
Kate looks down, frowning. “Your leg was hurting you last night.” Then she looks to the side, at the table where the bag of peas wrapped in a paper towel sits. “Did you ice it?”
“It’s not just bruised,” Tyler admits. “It was…it was an open wound. I stitched it myself after El Reno, but I did a shit job with it, and the stitches ripped, and now it’s — it’s probably — it’s definitely infected.”
Kate takes a minute to process, then closes her eyes like she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “What the hell, Tyler? Are you joking? Please tell me you’re joking. An infection? You do know that’s, like, serious, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Tyler whispers, looking down.
Kate scoffs. “You’re an idiot. You’re an idiot,” she says. “Why didn’t you say something? Why would you not tell me you’re hurt?”
“There was a lot going on,” Tyler answers, though the truth is, he hadn’t really thought too much on it.
He hadn’t wanted anyone to worry, yes, and there was a lot going on too. They had stayed in El Reno a few days to help and clean up the damage, and that had taken up most of their time. Tyler couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help but put his own pain aside when he saw other people in need. They needed help more than he did, after all, and after he’d taken care of the wound himself in that dingy motel bathroom, he thought it would be fine, it would heal and he’d forget all about it once the pain and the limp subsided, so he never mentioned it.
“I didn’t know it would get infected,” Tyler adds. “I mean, I’ve stitched up wounds for other people before. I know how to do it. I guess I just didn’t do a good job this time.”
“We’re going to the hospital,” Kate says, and Tyler can’t argue with that, as much as he hates hospitals.
“He’s always been like this,” someone - it sounds like Boone - is saying. “Never telling anyone when he’s hurt until he literally can’t hide it anymore. Like…he’d rather almost die than tell us when something’s wrong, you know…”
Tyler opens his eyes to the blurry world around him to see Kate and Boone sitting side by side in two chairs. He turns his head, and Kate meets his eyes across the room.
“He’s awake,” she says, hurrying over to him.
Tyler can already feel himself drifting off again, though, before she’s even at his side.
“Tyler, no, stay awake,” she says.
From his other side, Boone speaks, but he sounds too far away. He hears Kate say his name once more before he falls asleep again.
He wakes later, alarmingly aware of, well, everything, and sore.
“Hey,” a soft, gentle voice says. “Are you awake for real this time?”
Tyler turns his head and blinks up at Kate, watching the way her bangs fall over her forehead, how her eyes become larger when she’s nervous. She’s biting her lip, holding his hand.
“Ty?”
“Yeah, I’m up,” he says, unable to make his voice go higher than a whisper.
“Here,” Kate disappears, then reappears with a cup. “Drink this slowly. Better?”
Tyler nods, though the water seems to sit uncomfortably in his stomach.
“Well…” Kate takes a deep breath and looks down at her hands. “You were right. About the infection. It’s infected. You’re lucky you got here when you did, ‘cause it could've gotten a lot worse.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tyler sighs.
“Yeah,” Kate says, sounding pissed off.
Tyler closes his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts, but it’s hard to think. He can’t remember much of the last few days. He doesn’t remember coming to the hospital. He doesn’t remember receiving any sort of treatment. All he knows is that it hurts, he is hurting basically everywhere, which doesn’t make sense because the only part of his body that got injured is his leg, and he’s tired.
“You know, everyone’s really worried about you. Lily’s been freaking out all day.”
“I’m sorry,” Tyler forces himself to look at Kate. “It was…selfish. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you guys.”
Kate shakes her head, then she seems to soften. “You were really out of it on the way here. Like…all disoriented and your fever spiked. You scared me,” she explains. “Just…” She stops and takes a shaky breath, and her eyes are suddenly glassy. “Don’t do that again. You know, I…I can’t…lose anyone else. I can’t lose you.”
Tyler smiles. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” Kate says.
He’s never been too good with words, not when it comes to being open and honest with people, or with himself. He’s not sure what the right thing to say is, and he’s not sure I’m sorry is good enough, or if that’s even what Kate really wants to hear. What he does know, however, is that he cares about her too much to take her for granted. “If you wanted to come and sit for a bit, I wouldn’t mind.”
“You mean…over there? On the bed?” she asks. “With you?”
Tyler nods, and after a brief hesitation, Kate climbs up onto the bed beside him. She’s careful of his injured leg, and lets him rest his head on her shoulder. The ache in his head eases somewhat when he puts his head down and closes his eyes. He’s only been awake for a few minutes now, but he didn’t realize how tired he really is.
“Just try to rest,” is the last thing he hears Kate say.