Perchance

~three~

Rory lied.

It's been three days since she swore she'd get her wound treated, get a tetanus shot, and be a responsible adult. Except she's swamped with assignments and overtime and she can't quite find the time to breathe, much less seek proper medical care. Yesterday she began just wrapping her whole hand in bandages so she doesn't have to look at the angry red streak that's creeping across her palm.

So now she's in class, sitting through a ninety minute lecture on the minutiae of congressional procedure with her entire hand hot, swollen, and throbbing - and she's beginning to realize that she hasn't been demonstrating the greatest decision making skills.

Because being an overworked and underpaid college student is painful enough without adding a festering puncture wound.

But once she thumbs through her calendar and sees how far behind she is on her term paper and how many hours she's scheduled to work this week, she pushes the fantasy of going to a doctor firmly out of her mind.

*****

Three more days and Rory's at her other job, a vegan bakery called The Glittering Rainbow Unicorn. In the last 45 minutes, she's put three times too much sugar in the coconut cupcake batter, dropped an entire tray of triple chocolate fudge, and served one of the regulars with a peanut allergy a cookie that could have killed her.

It's after the latest near-disaster, when all traces of the peanut butter cookie have been eradicated and the customer's complaints have been soothed with promises that she'll eat free for the next month, that someone finally pulls Rory aside.

"Okay, what's up with you?"

Laurel is leaning against the display case, the colorful mermaid tattooed on her forearm dancing as she wipes down the already-pristine glass. In the mid-day sun, the tiny Monroe piercing above her lip sparkles. "You look like half-baked death and your head is clearly all screwed up."

Rory should tell her the truth; she knows that. Laurel is one of her best friends and a great boss - she'd make sure that Rory was taken care of.

But if she admits to the hot, purplish color that is coursing up her bandaged hand and under the sleeve of her sweater, Laurel won't let her come back to work until she's completely healed. And, given the swelling and fever, Rory doesn't think she's going to get better for quite awhile.

And no work means no pay; Rory can barely afford to eat as it is.

So she plasters on a smile.

"Sorry, Laurel," she says with what she hopes is a clueless shrug (and hides the wince of pain that the motion sends shooting up her arm). "Just school stress, I guess."

Laurel's face softens with sympathy. "You can go home and study, I can find someone to cover-"

"No, no. I'll be fine. Really."

********

The rest of her shift passes in a daze; the only reason Rory makes it home is because she doesn't have to go very far.

She lives in the tiny apartment directly above the bakery, and manages to make it up the rickety flight of stairs to her front door. But that's the last bit of strength in her - she collapses in the hallway just inside, the door still standing open behind her, the yellowed, cracked linoleum floor ice cold against her feverish skin.

Her vision swims; it's as if the entire world has been submerged and is sinking fast to the bottom of the sea, everything swirling and blurring. Rory fumbles for the phone in her back pocket but it takes her at least five tries make the emergency 911 call because she sees the screen in triplicate.

The call finally connects but she drops the phone, her only good hand sweaty and shaking. Gasping for breath, she can't speak when the operator answers, his voice sounding tinny and so far away in the narrowing tunnel of her consciousness.

Her whole body shudders, hard enough that her teeth knock together, and all she can do is stare at the wall in front of her. The dingy paint is peeling off the thin baseboard, and Rory is suddenly certain that she's going to be stuck staring at it for hours (which is all that's left of her miserable life) because she let herself get so sick that she can't even call for help.

Stupid spinning wheel, she thinks.

Stupid me.

But the emergency officials must have some way of tracking her silent call, because there's men with a stretcher bustling into her apartment ten minutes later. They seem worried, and their frowning mouths are moving as if they're speaking, but Rory doesn't hear a word. She doesn't hear anything but the rush of blood in her ears, the wheeze of her breath, and then the world tilts, slides sickly sideways, and goes dark.