Heart's Done Time (Aerosmith Fanfiction)

Chapter thirteen

Chapter thirteen
Steven's POV
From the moment we left for school some hours later that Tuesday morning, the day grew steadily worse and was filled with plenty of snide comments about my visible injuries and sickly pallor (accompanied by the usual hair and weight jibes), and that wasn't even to mention the worst of it, for all the while I started to feel more and more unwell, praying in class that this was the withdrawal symptoms peaking and that I'd feel better sooner rather than later. After all, I had a date tomorrow.
By the time I was entering the cafeteria come lunch time, though, I was seriously considering a visit to the nurse's office, feeling now much less withdrawals-sick and much more sick-sick since my headache had changed from its usual hangover-esque pounding to a dull pain between and behind my eyes. Sesame was waiting for me at our table, though, and she looked so lovely and hopeful and just downright perfect that I didn't want to skip a chance to be with her, and so I endured the headache and the rawness of my throat in favor of staying put. She grinned when I sat down beside her.
"Hey, sweetie," she said with empathetic eyes, almost as though she could feel my pain herself. Even when she smiled, she looked concerned about me, and I realized suddenly that this was the girl I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, and that thought alone sent my heart cowering and my stomach rolling.
"Hey," I said, swallowing down the bile in my throat and offering a smile, feeling lightheaded. If I was honest, I was surprised I'd managed that much.
"Are you okay?" she asked because damn, she knew me too well. "You look really pale."
"I'm fine," I lied, clearing my throat and watching her unpack the lunch she brought me. "Just this withdrawals thing is killing me. No big deal."
"I'm sorry," she said, giving me that "it's for your own good" look. "But hey, tomorrow is Wednesday."
"Oh? And what's the significance of Wednesday?" asked Joe, taking a seat across from me and looking between the two of us.
"Oh, nothing at all," said Sesame, unwrapping the plastic covering on my sandwich. "Just gonna give this dating thing a try is all. Certainly nothing you'd know about," she threw at him with a smirk. "If you ask real nicely, though, I might make you a sex tape."
My mouth went dry, and a laugh escaped me before I could do anything about it because yeah fucking right. Still, I couldn't get over how badly she'd won that one, her statement having left both Joe and the recently-entered Tom with their mouths agape.
They didn't tease anymore that lunch day, and it was painfully obvious how hard they had to try to act normal by bringing up things like band practice and our gig schedule this weekend. I talked with them, but I still felt ill.
In fact, by the time lunch had ended I'd hardly eaten a bite of my peanut butter sandwich, even with Sesame cheering me on and shooting me award-winning puppy dog eyes. I could hardly focus enough to acknowledge her, and the rest of the school day was pretty much the same; little more than a blank space in my memory.
Sesame took me home after the final bell rang, and we kissed goodbye though all that was on my mind was my bed at the end of the hall and the promise of a nap.
When she'd finally departed some minutes later, I made my way into my house and to my room, climbing into bed immediately after shutting the door.
From there, I was asleep before I even pulled off my chucks, and I remained this way for the rest of the night.
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Wednesday night arrived before I was ready for it, despite having been mentally steeling myself for this since I'd first asked Sesame to join me. I'd been excited; thrilled that she'd said yes, nervous that I'd screw it up, and so very excited. I hadn't, however, expected to feel so incredibly ill.
It had begun Tuesday, sure, but that, apparently, had hardly been the beginning of it, for this morning I had awoken not only with a headache and a throat like sandpaper, but with my nose too stuffed to breathe and my body aching entirely, both in addition to a newly-acquired fever and the nausea that seemed to have plagued me all week. But I couldn't bring myself to cancel when I was so damn close.
So I'd endured school with little ease and somehow managed to make it home again with no incident and no trip to see the nurse, and I had just begun to feel good about myself when the vomiting started, leaving me home alone and collapsed on the bathroom floor with absolutely nothing left in my stomach and no strength to get up. But even still I refused to cancel my first date with the girl I loved.
The tile flooring was cold and hard beneath my skin, and I was shivering like a chihuahua, eyes shut hard and one hand pressed against my forehead as I attempted to get the room to quit spinning and the phone to stop ringing. Not that I didn't wonder who was calling, but I was sure if it was important they would call back once I'd managed to pull myself together and off of the ground. Thankfully, this happened sooner rather than later.
I got to my feet and moved to take a shower, just wanting to feel clean and well and somewhat human again. The phone had stopped ringing, and the person didn't call again.
I undressed slowly and painfully--still unable to move quite right thanks to the extensive bruising in various areas on my body--and showered quickly and efficiently, feeling just well enough when I'd finished to find myself a nice t-shirt and pair of jeans to wear beneath my new black blazer.
From there I took a rest, my legs feeling weaker than toothpicks beneath my own weight and my vision blurring a bit around the edges. The phone on my bedside table was ringing and I answered it, but not before lying back against my pillows.
"Hello?" I said into the receiver, voice raspier than usual.
"Hey, sweetie, it's me," came Sesame's voice from the other line, sounding kind of frazzled. "I just wanted to ask how formal I should dress. I figured you wouldn't take me someplace too fancy, but I wanted to double check."
I laughed, though not because anything was funny. "You know me too well, my dear. You don't have to dress any fancier than you would of your own accord."
She sounded relieved. "Okay, thanks. Sorry to bother you when I'll be seeing you so soon anyway, but, well, you know." Actually, I didn't know, but I brushed it off.
"It's no bother. I'll see you in twenty," I said, smiling at the sound of her voice and thinking momentarily of keeping her on the line just to hear her talk. I realized that was silly, though, and made no argument when she said goodbye and hung up.
I had my mother's car for the night, my parents having taken my father's out of town for a few days and approving enough of me doing "actual teenager things" to allow me to borrow the VW Bug to take Sesame to dinner. I would take her to the least-fancy non-fast-food restaurant in town (knowing how we both felt about fine dining) and then possibly go for a drive, if neither of us felt ready for the night to end. This was all assuming that I didn't collapse before then, of course.
But at this point, I just wasn't sure if that was possible.