Borrowed Time

Chapter Twenty Seven

Maybe it was just how gross she'd already been feeling from practice the day before or maybe it was her stress levels bringing down her immune system, but Juliette really was sick... Which was annoying because she never got sick anymore, not for years... But there was no way to ignore this, she couldn't even get out of bed without the entire room spinning and her falling right back down. This was bound to happen, she'd stopped taking care of herself, she'd let the crisis consume her... and now the crisis was fighting back and God was it a fucking bitch.

She'd managed to sleep most of the day away with her father occasionally checking in on her just to make sure she was still breathing, and it'd helped more than anything else she'd tried. By 4:00 she was able to sit up and eat something... but she was choosing not to. Her bed was too comfortable, why do something that took effort when she could instead just lay there and sleep? She couldn't think of a better way to spend her day at this point.

It'd felt like she'd only closed her eyes again for a couple of moments when she heard a soft knock at the door and sat up, yawning. Why was her dad knocking now? He hadn't knocked the entire day.

"Dad, you don't have to knock, it's okay." She called, and Juliette heard a familiar chuckle as she door creaked open. Esme stepped inside with a wide grin, carefully shutting the door behind her.  Good God, she just looked better and better every time Juliette saw her, that wasn't fair at all, considering she probably looked and smelled like she'd crawled out of a sewer.

"It's not your dad, but I'll keep it in mind." She shrugged her jacket off and hung it on the hook behind her door before walking over and sitting on the edge of her bed, placing a hand on her knee... God, she looked so perfect that Juliette felt like she could cry... How pathetic was it that she was feeling like it'd been days since she'd seen her when it'd only been a couple of hours? "Hey princess... How are you feeling?" Wait. She was sick, she didn't want Esme being sick... She should leave before she gets sick. Granted, Juliette was 90% sure that whatever she had was brought on by stress and that it wasn't contagious, but she didn't want to risk it.

"Esme... No, you shouldn't be here, I don't wanna get you sick-." Esme shook her head, taking one of Juliette's hands in both of hers as she looked at her with a sincere smile, leaning down to press a kiss to both of them... Risky move when she was actively bedridden from being sick, but part of it made Juliette's heart flip. Sickness and health... Nope, too soon to be thinking about that, that made her sound fucking insane.

"You're not gonna get me sick, relax." Maybe that was true, there was a large possibility that it was... But what was she doing here? Had she driven the opposite direction of her house just to come and check in on Juliette? That was incredibly sweet and very unnecessary, she just needed to rest and be alone so she could get better and come back to school.

"What're you doing here?" She asked, and Esme shrugged, nudging her lightly like they were sharing some kind of inside joke... Except they weren't, and Juliette had no fucking clue what was going on and what she was supposed to be in on... She could've sworn that Esme had work after school today, had she called in? Juliette wouldn't put it past her.

"Well, I wanted to check in on my favorite girl... and I also have to give you my chem notes, I wouldn't want you to fall behind." Esme said, and Juliette sighed in relief, holding out her hand as Esme dug through her bag. That was something that she'd been worried about, not having notes from Chem. She pulled out a new notebook and slid it into Juliette's lap... Huh. She'd actually bought one, good on her.

"You are literally a fucking blessing, thank you so much." She flipped it open and her face dropped. There were little scribbles all over the page, flowers and tiny dinosaurs fighting, things that she'd seen Esme draw in class... But there was no way of knowing what they covered... How was this supposed to help her at all? "This... There isn't a single note on this entire page, Esme... What the hell?" She asked, and Esme grimaced, nodding at her as she went to take back the notebook, but Juliette held it out of her reach. She wanted to flip through the rest of it.