Unexpected Love

Chapter 16 - Bailey

I feel like a hundred-pound truck ran over me.

Twice.

Maybe that would have been a better alternative. I was rarely ever sick when I was a kid. Even in those few times that I was, I was the one taking care of myself. I was the one getting up to make myself soup or grabbing the pain medication from the fridge. I was the one starting the cold bath and sinking into it when I had a dangerously high fever.

Even when I felt like I was dying it was me who brought me back to life. Because no one was going to do it. When I was sick, the way my body coped was to vomit.

My dad never even bothered to be home enough to notice that I even got sick. Even if he did know I doubt he would care. He wouldn't stop gambling to make a bowl of soup for me.

His addiction was way deeper than his love for me.

I wanted someone to take care of me. I wanted to be fluffed and pampered and yelled at to stop moving. I wanted someone to make me soup without asking, I wanted someone to help me to the tub when it was done being filled, and I wanted someone to throw tissue boxes at me because they didn't want to come close enough to risk them getting sick.

I wanted to be cared for.

I was sick twice in the three years Riley and I were living together. The first time she came home and found me laying on the bathroom floor.

Dying.

She was yelling, louder than she should have been. She told me,-yelled at me saying I should have called her. That she needed to be informed so she could take the day off and help me.

To take the day off, for me.

Who knew this is what it felt like to be cared about? To be so worried about that they offer to take a day's work off pay off.

It almost made me cry.

Almost.

When Greyson showed up I thought I was hallucinating him. I thought he wasn't really there, just my imagination hosting up hallucinations to get through this virus. But then his hand started rubbing my back that was when I knew he wasn't a hallucination. His hand felt hotter than I already was. The heat radiated from his comforting hands.

Then, I did the worst thing a girl can do to a boy she likes.

I threw up on him.

He put his arms around me and carried me as I slept, and I repaid him by vomiting on his shoes. He didn't even grimace or wince. He took it without a bat of his eye. Like I was his problem and I fucking hated it because I wasn't his problem.

I wasn't anyone's problem.

He just started taking care of me and putting me to sleep like I was his girlfriend.

I didn't need him taking care of me.

I didn't need him carrying me.

I've carried myself this far through life, I could do it a few more times.

~~~~~

A few hours later I woke up and he wasn't there. I was out for less than three hours, and immediately the first thought that crossed my mind was if he had snooped.

That he saw the piles of plane white notes written with death threats that I told him I wasn't getting. Rushing over with my hand pressed against my head. My headache was getting worse with every step. My dresser was in the same state I had left it. The notes pile was sitting beside my frame and I blow out a breath of relief. He didn't see anything.