“Hey, man. The soup was disgusting, but thanks for the crackers.”

Ben plopped down on the easy chair and looked at his brother, then her.

“You both look terrible. Maddie, did you get any sleep last night?”

She brushed that away.

“A little. I’m fine.”

Ben shook his head.

“I know what ‘fine’ means. I speak woman. Go home and take a shower and get some rest. Eat something that isn’t soup. You can’t take care of him if you’re this exhausted.”

Maddie looked at Ben, and then over at Theo. She didn’t want to leave, but Ben was right. She’d never be able to fall asleep here, not when she was vibrating with anxiety like this. She had no idea if she’d be able to fall asleep at home, either, but she should try. Otherwise she’d be a basket case tonight.

“Okay, but what if he—”

“Starts slurring or acting like he can’t understand me? I know, I’ll call 911. I did pay attention yesterday. Go home. You need a break.”

She stood up.

“Don’t let him watch TV. Or touch his phone.”

She wanted to kiss Theo good-bye, but she hesitated to do it in front of his brother. Sure, Ben probably knew what was going on, but as long as no one said it out loud, she could pretend no one but she and Theo knew.

“Okay. Thanks, Ben.”

Theo closed his eyes again before she walked out the door.

Theo woke up on the couch again. He didn’t even remember falling asleep. Again. He had a feeling this was going to keep happening.

He turned over and sat up. What was baseball doing on his TV? Why would Maddie have turned on baseball? He turned to ask her that question and saw Ben sitting in Maddie’s chair.

“What are you doing here?” he asked his brother. “Where’s Maddie?”

Ben tore his eyes off the TV.

“Oh, you’re awake. Welcome back to the world of the living. You’ve been out cold for a while. Maddie left hours ago, remember? We sent her home to get some rest?”

He had a vague memory of that. He was both glad and resentful Maddie had left. Glad because he was getting sick of her telling him what to do all day. Don’t look at your phone, Theo! Stare at the wall so I can watch TV, Theo! Eat this gross soup, Theo! Stop talking about the biggest professional crisis you’ve ever had, Theo!

And he was resentful because he somehow didn’t know how to function without her there.

“Oh, right.” He stood up and grabbed on to the arm of the couch as a wave of dizziness hit him. “I’ll be back.”

He made his way to the bathroom. He hated this. All of this: the protestors who had shown up at the rally; the specific protestor who had hit him over the head; the entire concept of concussions; the phone calls he hadn’t made that would have doubled the number of police officers at the rally; that he’d failed at something he’d worked so hard at; the way Maddie had acted this morning; that Maddie had left.

Had Maddie just been pretending all summer when he’d talked to her about the rally and why it was so important to him? He’d thought she cared. About the campaign, and about him.

From the way she’d acted this morning, it seemed like she couldn’t wait to be done with him.

He realized on his way back into the living room that he was hungry again. The last thing he wanted was more soup, but Ben probably wouldn’t let him eat anything else.

“What’s the least gross of the soups you brought me?” Theo asked. “Maddie made me eat . . . what’s it called? . . . the noodle one. I can’t wait to eat real food again.”

Ben turned off the TV and stood up.

“I can’t believe you ate chicken noodle soup. I’ll heat you up something else. I know better than to let you walk down that hallway holding a bowl.”

“Hey, I can walk almost normally now!” he shouted after Ben. Wait. He didn’t know why he was arguing this. His little brother was waiting on him; he needed to enjoy this as long as it lasted.

After not too long, Ben came back with a bowl of some hot yellowish liquid and another box of crackers. He sat down next to Theo on the couch and plunked the bowl in front of him. Theo looked at it and sighed. At least he’d brought more crackers.

“Here.” Ben handed Theo a spoon. “Eat. I promise it’s not terrible.”

Theo broke open the crackers, dipped one into the soup, and sniffed it.

“Concussions are the worst,” he said. He bit into the cracker and shrugged, then took a few cautious bites of the soup. It tasted better than he’d expected, but he wanted food he could chew. The doctor had probably told them previously when he would be safe from yesterday’s nausea, but he barely remembered anything the doctor had said. And Maddie wasn’t here to tell him.

“Did the doctor say anything about when I can go back to normal food?” he asked Ben. Ben shrugged, like Theo knew he would.

“Maddie will know. You can ask her if she comes back tonight.”

It wasn’t until Ben said “if” that Theo had even considered the possibility of Maddie not coming home tonight. What if she’d been so sick of taking care of him she decided to stay at her house? What if she fell asleep and slept until morning?

He pushed back the panic that had risen in his chest. Maybe she’d finally realized what an obsessive stress case he was at all times, and had taken the opportunity when Ben had arrived to flee forever.

It would be fine. He would be fine. He could take care of himself. He’d survived this long without Maddie; he could survive this without her.

He turned to Ben to tell him to find that concussion fact sheet or whatever, and found Ben staring at him with a big smile on his face.

“Freaked out at the idea of her not coming back, huh? What’s going on between you and Maddie anyway? From what you told me, I thought she was just some girl you were fucking. But then I got to the hospital yesterday and she was ordering everyone around like she was in charge. Hell, I let her order me around, because it seemed like she was in charge. That’s how girlfriends act, dude.”

Shit. He did not need Ben going around calling Maddie his girlfriend. He opened his mouth to deny it, but Ben just kept talking.

“You’re obviously in love with her. Any asshole can see that in the way you look at her.” Ben grinned. “I approve. And not just because she’s so hot, but that helps. She has sister-in-law material written all over her.”

Oh no. Now Ben was the one who was all excited and talking about how he and Maddie were meant to be together, the thing Maddie always said Alexa would be the one to do, the reason why she was so intent on keeping them a secret.

But that probably wasn’t the real reason she didn’t want to tell Alexa about them. It was probably that she always knew he was too uptight, too anxious, too dull for her.

He couldn’t handle the idea of Ben knowing what Maddie really thought of him. Or of Ben knowing how hard he’d fallen for Maddie, while she was just counting the days until the wedding so she’d be done with him.

He needed to disabuse Ben of the notion that Maddie was his girlfriend, or Ben’s future sister-in-law, or that Theo had fallen in love with her. Immediately.

It might help to disabuse himself of that notion at the same time.

“Look, Maddie’s cool, but there’s no there there. When I first met her, I thought she was just some superficial, bitchy hot girl, who only cared about status and looks and money, and didn’t care about anything important. She’s still that same shallow person I thought she was, no matter how long she stayed at the hospital yesterday.”

The front door slammed.

“Oh really?” Maddie appeared in the doorway. “I’m just some superficial bitch?”

Note to self: next time he was giving his brother some bullshit reasons why he wasn’t falling for someone, make sure it was in a place the someone didn’t have the key to.

He stood up to face her. She had a pizza box in her hands and looked beautiful and well rested and furious.

Had she heard what Ben had said, about how he was obviously falling in love with her? Part of him hoped she had; maybe it would make her less mad about what she’d just heard. But another part really hoped she hadn’t. He knew what her response to that would be.

Ben got up and slipped out of the room. He wanted to shout after his brother to stay here with him, but instead he watched him go.

“You think I’m just some superficial bitch?” she asked again. “Really?”

Okay, he had to explain why he’d said that to Ben. But he couldn’t tell her what Ben had said, about how he was clearly falling in love with her.

A joke. He should turn it into a joke.

“Sometimes you sure as hell seem like it,” he said. “Hell, you seemed more upset that my clothes got ruined than about anything else that happened yesterday.”

That didn’t come out like he’d meant it as a joke. Shit. He opened his mouth to try again, but Maddie jumped in before he could.