Playing the Part

10. sick allie cracks jokes?

Allie

I'm sweating. 

It's three A.M in November and I'm sweating. 

I'm sweating so profusely my clothes are sticking to the sheets and my shorts are soaked to the bone but God, I feel so cold. 

The sudden onslaught of a migraine causes me to curl up in a ball and all I'm thinking is I miss Alex. I need Alex. 

But that thought liquifies when I feel bile rushing up my oesophagus, making me double over and puke a little into the sheets. 

I rush to the bathroom, hand over my mouth and I spill my guts into the off-white toilet bowl. 

My ears start ringing as I make the most inhuman sounds while streaks of involuntary tears roll down my cheeks. 

The room is spinning and my legs are wobbling but I reach for my phone and dial the only number I think to call. 

"Allie?" After four gruelling rings, Alex's voice comes through. 

*

Everett

I try to ignore the duck sounds coming from my phone by covering my ears with my pillow. But the insistent quacks weasel their way in somehow. 

I make a mental note to change my ringtone but acknowledge the fact that Gracie will probably change it back to something equally, if not, even more obnoxious. 

"Hello?" I rub my face, trying to scrub myself awake.

Alex's voice booms through the speaker and she's spewing a string of words that sounds a whole lot like gibberish. 

"What? Slow down, Alex. What are you saying?" 

"Allie is dying. She's been throwing up for the last ten minutes and sobbing into the phone and I need to get back to her soon- fuck she's calling. Please just go and check on her. I need to go now." Alex ends the call as abruptly as she started it. 

My stomach drops as I get out of bed and I grab my car keys. 

An almost primal instinct to take care of Allie washes over me that feels foreign and uncharacteristic of me. 

As I charge down the empty road, any remnants of sleepiness disappears. I'm pure adrenaline from head to toe, especially because I was getting close to no sleep after returning from the gym. 

I had too much going on in my head to go home after leaving Allie's.

As soon as I pull up on the side of the curb, I'm sprinting up three flights of stairs and pounding on Allie's apartment door like a mindless idiot. "Allie, it's Everett. Open the door." 

Allie's weak voice comes through from the other side of the door and I hear the lock turn. 

The door creaks open comically slow and Allie chokes out a soft 'hi' with her thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders. 

I reach out to touch her forehead that's sticky with hair. "Jesus you're heating up." 

"It's really hot in here." Her cheeks are flushed, hair in disarray and her shirt's sticking to her skin but I just want to...God I don't even know. 

"Baby why don't you go take a shower?" The nickname slips through my lips and I'm praying she's too delirious to hear me. 

"I'm sorry, I'm really gross. I puked all over the sheets and I'll clean all of it-"