Page 97 of Wish You Were Her

“Don’t,” Allegra pushed out the words, “worry about me.”

She closed her eyes for another little while and was vaguely aware of Jasper putting a jug of water and a glass on the floor byher bed. She was exhausted but her aching lungs made it difficult to get to sleep. She opened her eyes, about to call out and ask Jasper if she needed anything to work with, but stopped.

Jonah was standing in her bedroom doorway, holding a takeaway cup of something that smelled incredible. They regarded one another in silence, and Allegra felt what little air there was left in her lungs disappear. She had been thinking about him since the moment Lake Pristine became a speck in the distance. She had tried to script together what she would say to him, on the other side of the media circus.

She tried to say, “Hey.”

But nothing came out because it was so hard to breathe. He moved toward her, looking twice as concerned as Jasper. Jonah was almost beside himself.

“You look like you’re dying,” he said quietly.

“God,” she indicated a laugh, as she was not able to deliver a real one. “Thanks.”

“No, I mean it. Jasper said it was a chest infection so I insisted on coming, and then I said I needed to get you this.” He gestured to the wonderful soup in the takeout cup. “But this… this looks so much worse.”

“Can I have some of whatever that is?” she asked him. “It smells incredible.”

“Of course! It’s my Uncle Reuben’s chicken soup. It’s pure, salty chicken broth. He runs a deli not far from here. I wanted you to have this. It’s penicillin in liquid form.”

He handed it to her and she sipped from the cup, closing her eyes in bliss as she inhaled its aromatics.

“It’s unbelievable,” she sighed after swallowing a few sips. “Your uncle is a genius.”

“Yeah, it can cure the common cold,” he said, but then hefrowned. “But I’m not sure about what you’ve got. This is bad, Allegra. I’m… I’m worried about you.”

“I had pneumonia a while back. I was in cold water and got hypothermia during a scene and wasn’t right afterward. This is just a bit of a callback, must have picked up a bug at the studio the other night. I wore a mask there and back, but they don’t let you keep it on once you’re on air.”

It took her three times longer to say all of this than it would have done if she was in good health. She closed her eyes for a moment, saddened by her own fragility, before taking another big sip of soup. “Jonah, this is so good,” she said with a moan.

“Good.”

He glanced around the room and then slowly sat down on the beautifully varnished floorboards. “This isn’t how I pictured a movie star living.”

“Sorry,” Allegra chuffed. “That’s what Jasper’s do-doing in the other room. Planning to turn this place into an actual ho-home where people can sit in chairs and stuff.”

Jonah smiled sadly. “Don’t speak if it hurts.”

Everything hurts, she wanted to say.The sun hurts my skin during the day, the night makes it impossible for me to sleep. Everyone is too close, except you. You’re the only one who was ever just enough. Just right.

She sipped again and felt something close to peace.

“My dad,” she took it slow, “was so weird about me coming back here.”

Something appeared in Jonah’s face for a split second before vanishing again. Allegra had expected him to laugh but he looked almost forlorn. “Well. George is weird about a lot of things.”

“He understood why I had to leave, but,” Allegra inhaledand waited for the pain to ease, “but he also seemed so mad that it all happened in the first place. The pictures.”

“He was worried for you,” Jonah said softly. “He doesn’t understand computers or the internet or anything outside of Lake Pristine. But he knows it exists and he knows it can turn on people. He was scared for you.”

Allegra was so startled by his gentle understanding. She sipped a little more, still staring at him.

“And,” Jonah added, now looking full of regret, “it wasn’t just the pictures themselves that had upset him.”

“No?”

“No. It was because they were with me.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven