Even with the assistance of a shitton of weed, sleep did not come easy for Mitch. Had he not been entombed in pillows, he would have retrieved his phone to alleviate the boredom. Being alone with his thoughts sharpened his anxiety to a fine point, and that caused his mind to veer into sketchy territory.
Did anyone ignore Jodie’s warning and reach out to him? Did he occupy the corner of anyone’s thoughts?
Was Calvin awake? If he was, was he worried at all? Were there any messages waiting for him?
What if he didn’t tell Jodie about the prescription? He’d dealt with excruciating pain before, he could probably handle this. But what if he couldn’t? Could he tell the doctor that he lost the prescription and get another one? Could he-
Mitch ran his free hand down his face, murmuring “easy does it, easy does it, easy does it” over and over again until his thoughts weren’t so fixated. He came close to waking Jodie up to discuss it, but she’d already done so much for him. Eventually, he fell into something of a slumber, but it certainly wasn’t restful. When he woke up, his head pounded and eyes burned.
“Twitter wishes you well,” came Jodie’s greeting from the other side of the bed.
“Tha’s’nice.” Mitch closed his eyes again.
“Arin asked if it was OK to cut a promo on what happened last night. You cool with that?”
“Sounds good.”
“They apologized like a billion times now.” She waved her phone in front of his face with the text conversation pulled up, and Mitch swatted her arm away. “Asked if you needed anything.”
“Tell them I’m fine, and that it’s OK. Shit happens.” Mitch waved dismissively; Arin, better known as Lagoon Goon, ranked among the top 5 sensitive bleeding hearts that he’d ever met, and he’d need to make a special effort to assure them that there were no hard feelings. “Anyway, can you hand me my stuff?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Yup.” As she passed off his bag, she asked, “By the way, what do you want for breakfast?”
“Don’t care. Bagels?” He retrieved his phone, but the battery died at some point during the night. “Dammit. Hey Jodie, can you help me out?”
“On it.” Once the phone was plugged in, she walked to the door. “I think we got bagels. I’ll go check.”
Somehow, Mitch found the self-restraint to only check on his phone’s progress every 30 seconds or so. It took 5 minutes for him to give up on that, and move onto trying to get dressed. He undid the sling and managed to get a t-shirt halfway on before getting stuck.
“Bruh.” Jodie’s voice dripped with pity.
“Don’t laugh,” begged Mitch. The smell of toasted bagels wafted, making his stomach grumble. He was so sore and hungry and frustrated, and sleep deprived on top of all of that. “This sucks.”
“It does,” Jodie agreed, and held a bagel half up to his mouth so that he could take a bite. Once he got one, she set the bagel down on the nightstand and instructed that he hold still.
With their powers combined (and plenty of yelling and swearing), Mitch was back in his t-shirt and sling, and outside of his ego, experienced minimal damage in the process. The phone powered on in the nick of time, enough to distract him from yet again calling Jodie “a fucker”, and also from -yet again- being called “a motherfucker”.
As promised, an overwhelming amount of well-wishes awaited him, and he had trouble grasping the scale; people that he didn’t even know, like blue checkmarks and whatnot, somehow knew Zevon, and by proxy, him? Inconceivable. He was also shocked to see how much of the roster blatantly ignored Jodie’s request that he not be bothered, and tears welled up. Hell, Arin alone sent at least 20 messages. “You weren’t kidding, huh? About Twitter?”
“Oh yeah. It’s wild, given that you’re an absolute bitch.” She playfully nudged him. “But you might wanna avoid going through the tag right now. There’s a few gifs of the accident making the rounds. It’s…hard to watch.
Mitch wanted to believe that he could handle it, but ultimately knew that she was probably right in her assessment. Instead, he scrolled through the texts, seeking something in particular.
Something that, he quickly realized, wasn’t there.
His mouth went dry and stomach turned to knots as he combed through the messages a second time, but there was nothing from Calvin other than an exchange that took place before the show yesterday, just dull couple stuff about groceries and bill payments. Trying his best to feign indifference, he mentioned nothing to Jodie and took another bite of the bagel. It was almost impossible to choke down.