In Your Dreams (In Your Dreams #1)

Chapter 3

Mrs. Gillette is definitely the last person I want to show my note from Coach Denton, but since I can't get past the front desk without a reason, I don't have a choice. Showing the note to her means I'm showing it to Marcy by extension, so by lunchtime, everyone in school will know I visited Kieran Lanier in the nurse's office. Although considering most people probably think I tried to kill him in Advanced English this morning, I guess checking on him in the least I can do.

I hand the message over the counter to Mrs. Gillette, and once she's read it, she returns the paper to me and waves me back to the two tiny rooms that pass for Titusville's infirmary. Nurse Foster, a white-haired woman in a baby blue smock and khakis who left retirement age in the dust approximately a million years ago, glances up at me from where she sits at a metal desk scrawling notes on a legal pad. "Feeling ill?" she purrs.

"No...I..." Rather than stand here stammering, I hand over the note from Coach, which she reads before heading to the infirmary room behind her with the paper still in hand. "One second," she tells me, and I rock forward and back on the balls of my feet as I wait for what seems like an eternity for her to return. Once she does, she steps aside from the door and nods over her shoulder. "Go on in."

I turn my head toward the doorway but don't make another move. "He's really okay?" I can't help but ask, not sure what I'm expecting to see once I enter, remembering the word condition from Coach's note. Maybe he's got some weird disorder that causes him to pass out and makes his flesh peel off? Am I going to walk in and discover that he's turned into a drooling, brain-eating zombie, in which case I'm probably safer out here with creepy Nurse Foster, who's about two steps away from zombiefication herself?

"He's fine, Zara. I'm keeping him here through the end of this period, and then he can go back to class."

Taking a deep breath, I decide to stop being a total idiot and go in. I push the door open wide enough to slide my body through into the first patient area, the white sheet on the cot not yet wrinkled by any sick students. To my left in the far patient area, I spy a set of hiking boots at the end of a cot, toes pointed toward the ceiling. Hoping those boots are attached to Kieran's not-yet-zombiefied body, I walk over and stand against the wall next to the curtain. Kieran's lying on his back with his hands tucked under his head, a grin spreading across his still-human face once he sees me.

"Hey," he says, raising himself up on his elbows.

"Hey." I fold my arms tightly in front of me and hunch my shoulders almost up to my ears. Wow-this is awkward. I have no idea what to say. Thanks for scaring the living crap out of me last period, maybe?

His grin widens. "Okay. So people in this town don't bring flowers when they visit the sick?"

My shoulders relax a little. "Well, I am in the middle of a free period right now, but juniors aren't allowed to leave school, so..." I let my voice trail off and since he doesn't stop smiling, I continue with our friendly banter. "Some performance you put on earlier. Really award-worthy stuff."

"Thanks. I wanted to make a big impression on the first day of school."

"Mission accomplished. Everybody probably knew your name ten minutes later."

Kieran rolls his eyes. "Yeah. 'Narco Boy'-that's me."

"'Narco Boy'?" I ask, eyes narrowing.

He shifts his gaze to the chair next to the cot, his gray hooded sweatshirt slung over the back. "Have a seat. Sorry I can't offer you anything to drink. Real lack of amenities around here, and Nurse Foster doesn't strike me as the type who would be willing to fetch us some beverages."