One of the things he admires the most about Reed is her passion for learning. She reads textbooks in her free time and studies in advance for her subjects in class. She's hardworking and diligent when it comes to her assignments and schoolwork—but the downside is that it drives her to hole herself up in the library during breaks that Roden doesn't get to see her often, and when she comes to lectures in the morning, the bags underneath her eyes are darker than the day before and her smiles are tired.

Frankly, it's worrying him. When he talked to her about it, she whispered, "I'm not the brightest bulb out there, Roden. I have to read a paragraph twice before I understand, I have to watch crash courses on YouTube and take twice as long as the video before I get an idea about what the heck the person's talking about. Please. If I don't want to make myself look like the idiot in class, I have to do this."

So Roden does it with her.

They're studying in her apartment now. Reed's spread out against the sofa with a book on her lap and a highlighter between her teeth. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her nose is scrunched in the cutest way possible. Roden smiles, faces the table again, and folds his feet underneath him from his spot on the carpeted floor.

Roden knows that this isn't a good idea. That the more time he spends with Reed, the faster the roots in his lungs take his breath away. But he'd rather be hurt than hurt Reed by avoiding her. She's going to be clueless, she's going to ask herself what she did wrong, why he won't see or talk to her, and she's going to be sad and she's going to cry. Roden can't do that to her. He won't be able to bear it.

He coughs a little before focusing back on the multiple papers he has to write and the presentation he has to work on for tomorrow. Because the toxicity of the flowers are making his body tired and weak, he's put off all his workload to the last minute. Usually, Roden doesn't have a problem dealing with all-nighters, but the Disease isn't giving him much motivation and energy to do anything productive for the past few days. Still, he's determined to get all of his shit done even when he's worried about swallowing flowers down all night long.

Because Reed can't know. No matter what, Reed can't know. That's his only fucking rule.

It's an hour and a half later, when he gets through one of his papers, that Reed speaks."I don't understand."

Roden turns around quickly. "Show me."

Because it's hard for Reed to say those three words out loud. It's when she reads the paragraph for a third time and she's still confused, and she needs Roden to explain it for her. When she says those words out loud...they're mumbled and shy, and when it happens, Roden is happy. Because she trusts him. Because she's learning. Because he doesn't make her feel like she needs to apologize or be embarrassed for needing to ask.

Roden goes over the paragraph with her until her eyes light up with understanding. "Oh," she says quietly, teeth capturing her bottom lip. "I get it now. Thank you."

"You're welcome. Come on, let's take a break and stretch. We should grab some burgers down the corner," Roden suggests, extending his hand out to the younger.

Reed looks at his hand for a moment. "Um, I think I'll pass."

"...you'll pass?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Bull."

"Did you know your voice sounds terrible?" she asks, lips turning up around the corners. "Do you have a cold? Or are you still not feeling well since movie night? You were looking kind of sick then."

Roden shakes his head. "It's nothing, I'm fine." He's not. If anything, he feels a lot worse.

"I'm fine, too. Really, I am."

"Stop changing the topic."

They hold each other's gaze for a moment until Reed sighs and leans back against the pillow. The book falls to the ground with a thump. "It's just the same old, Roden, honestly. The girls from my gym class were just joking around about my muffin top. Not a big deal."

Roden's jaw visibly clenches. "You said you stopped caring about that long ago. Ever since that incident back in high school."

"Yeah, I know. Which is why I said it's not a big deal."

"It clearly is when it still affects you. Come on. My treat."

"I'm not hungry," she says again. How stubborn.

"Bull. Shit. I bet you haven't eaten anything yet and it's almost six in the evening."

Reed opens her mouth, but before any word comes out, the phone on the coffee table rings. The contact name on the screen makes Roden's blood boil. Reed sighs, stands, and answers the call. "Aaron, hi."

Roden pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek as he watches Reed retreat to the kitchen to talk to the asscrown in private.

There are things about Reed that Roden doesn't admire.

The first being her taste in romantic partners. In high school, the asshole Reed first dated was too much for her—too loud, too rowdy, too ill-tempered, wore too much cologne, asked for too much.

Currently, she's with an asscrown named Aaron Wheeler, and he's...well, to put it in the nicest way possible, he treats Reed like shit. 

The second and the last being her adamant and fierce desire to care too much about what others think of her that it forces her to starve herself. To eat less.

Reed slides the phone into her back pocket as she walks back inside the living room. Her hand comes up to rub the lines of her forehead, and Roden instantly knows it wasn't a good conversation. "What did he want?"

"We were supposed to hang out when he returned from his family reunion," she answers slowly, like she isn't sure, "but he just cancelled because he's staying with his parents overnight."

"Last time, it was about a friend who got food poisoning," Roden reminds her flatly, feeling the burn of his chest that's screaming at him, that's telling him that Reed could do so much better than all of the assholes in the world, that's feeding his desire to love her without care of the repercussions. "And the time before that, it was his brother getting into a car accident. He doesn't even have a brother, Reed. If he doesn't want to see you then why does he bother to date you?"

Reed shakes her head and sighs. Looks at Roden with sad eyes. "I don't know," she murmurs, and Roden hates that. "He likes me. He's just...busy."

"Leave him."

She doesn't say another word. Roden grabs his wallet and steps out of the apartment to buy burgers for the both of them. Just in case.

When he comes back with his head clear and temper calm, he doesn't bring up the topic about Aaron again. It only makes her upset, so when Reed hesitantly digs in, Roden says, "Your muffin top is fucking adorable, alright?"

Reed smiles. It's a genuine one, and shit, his chest aches at the sight. "Alright."

They finish their food and they're back to work, and there are times when he needs to go to the bathroom to cough out all of the flowers lodged at the back of his throat.

Hours later, Roden's eyes keep getting heavier and heavier and the tiredness from all the retching is beginning to eat all of his energy. He's only into slide eight of his PowerPoint presentation, and there are fourteen more slides to go with all the graphs he needs, but...his body is giving up.

"I'm gonna close my eyes for a second." Roden weakly slides his laptop away and drops his head onto the coffee table. "Wake me up in a bit, please."

"Okay," Reed says quietly from behind him.

*

She doesn't.

And when he wakes up, Reed is gone. He's no longer seated in front of the table but lying next to it, a pillow underneath his head and a blanket covering his body.

Roden sits up, coughs out two petals without a care and lets them fall onto the carpet while he checks the time on his phone. It's eleven in the morning, and his class is in two hours.

"Fuck," he mutters as he scrambles to get up. He turns the laptop back on and rubs his eyes incessantly to wipe the sleep off his face.

And he's surprised when there are exactly twenty-two slides in the PowerPoint presentation with everything perfectly typed out including the keywords and the graphs that he needs, and there are two empty cups of coffee sitting next to his laptop and a half-eaten sandwich on top of his notebook.

He's about to call Reed to scold her for staying up for him, for not waking him up, for doing his work, when he finds a text that's been sent at seven o'clock in the morning:

roden~~ i hope you're not mad, you just looked so tired that i couldn't bring myself to wake you up. i'm sorry i did your work, i hope i did it correctly (* ^ ω ^) i followed your notes!! ace your presentation!!! let me know how it goes x

There's another text sent two minutes after that:

oh and i set your alarm to eleven-thirty in case you need to change some things i did wrong. good luck!!! (*¯ ³¯*)♡

Who the fuck gave her the right to be this fucking cute?

And dear God, if the flowers don't kill him soon, his poor heart will.