"Julia," I sang into the phone, laying across my bed with one arm behind my head. Hey, that rhymes. "Jules. Julesie, Julesie, Julesie, baby answer your phooooone. It's your incredibly sexy and sexually frustrated boyfriend, answer the phoooo-," "Hello?" My mouth popped open at the sound of her voice, clogged and rough, thick and snarly, the definition of ill. "You sound horrible." "And you sound like a retired 1970's porn star. What do you want?" I cringed. "I just needed to hear the sound of your voice. Are you okay?" "No," she moaned. "I'm sick as a dog."
My heart clenched. "What can I do, baby?" "I don't know. Every part of me hurts, my head throbs when I'm laying down and when I'm sitting up, my nose is clogged worse than New York roads during rush hour, my back aches, my throat feels like someone's attacking it with sandpaper, and every time I try to eat something it ends up in my toilet." She sounded ready to cry.
"I'll be over in a couple minutes." "No, Jase. I don't wanna get you sick." "Hey, we McCann's are virus proof. I spent a week camping in a cabin with a fat kid who had six different kinds of infections, swine flu, and the chicken pox, and did I get sick? Nope." "Jasssoooonnnn," she whined. "Let me take care of you," I said softly, already reaching for my Supras, laying on the floor by my bed. "You're going to get sick." "Then it's my fault. Give me five minutes." I didn't wait for her to answer before hanging up, grabbing my jacket off the back of my desk chair and marching downstairs.
"Where do you think you're going?" my grandpa asked as I passed the couch. He looked at me, remote in his hands, the Mets game on the flat screen. "Out." I shrugged and went to keep walking when he stopped me again. "I don't think so, young man. It's almost ten. You're not going out this late at night." "I'm going to take care of my girlfriend," I said, getting irritated. No one told me what to do. "No, you're not. You're going to start school soon, and you need to get in the habit of going to bed early. Get your butt upstairs and into bed before I ground you." I stared at him. "Excuse me?" I asked flatly, clenching and unclenching my hands at my sides.
"You heard me. Go back upstairs." "Nope, don't feel like it." I walked past him and opened the door, stepping out into the chilly Vegas air with no care in the world. He couldn't suddenly act like he was my dad. I was almost eighteen, and completely in charge of my life. I had been for years now. I didn't need anyone to tell me what I could and couldn't do.
.......
"Jules," I called, walking back through the hall of the apartment building and slowly pushing her bedroom door open. She was all curled up on her bed, under a mountain of blankets and still shivering, her brown locks strew like a beautiful mess, brown ink splashed across the crisp white canvas of her pillow. "Julia," I whispered, walking over to her bed and gently sitting down on the edge.
She moaned and covered her ears with her thick blanket. "Not so loud, and ow!" I had shifted my weight on the bed and dipped the mattress, making her grasp at her stomach and cry out. "I'm sorry," I whispered, almost inaudibly. I stroked her tangled hair away from her flushed face. "You're burning up. Are you sure you need all these blankets?" she nodded, holding onto her head and wincing as she did. "I'm s-so cold." I reached out to her and tried to pull her close to me, but she screamed and pushed me away, hugging her body with tears slipping from the corners of her tightly clenched eyes. "It-it hurts," she whimpered. I gently brushed the tears away, trying to be as gentle as I could.
"Sshh," I cooed, slowly and softly easing my arm under her body, determined to transfer some sort of body heat onto her freezing body. Well, freezing to her; to my touch she felt like 150 degrees.
"Ouch, Jason, stop, that hurts!" "Give it a second," I whispered, careful not to move the bed as I settled down next to her, rubbing my hand against her burning shoulder. She whimpered and attempted to scoot closer to me, her body stiff and sore. "What kind of flu, infection, disease do you have?" I asked softly as I pulled her close to me and she bit her lip so hard to keep from crying out she drew blood. "I don't know," she moaned, tears welling in her brown eyes. "Well, I'm here to take care of you. What hurts the most?" "M-my back." I slipped my hand off her shoulder and gently started kneading the tensed muscles of her lower back, a cry and a moan leaving her lips two seconds apart.
I kept nursing the muscles, feeling her stiff body slowly start to relax next to me. Her eyes closed, and I took my free hand and brushed it under her eye, tracing the dark purple bruises there. "When was the last time you slept?" I asked, rubbing my thumb against her freckled cheek. "I don't know," she whispered, her voice weak and fragile. I shut my mouth and bit my tongue against the rampage of questions dying to fall from them.
Eventually, her body relaxed to the point where she could fall asleep, pained, sharp gasps leaving her lips as she slept. My chest tightened to the point where it hurt. She looked miserable, her face a deathly shade of white, no color in her cheeks, purple bruises under her eyes, dragging down to her cheeks, her lips white and chapped, cracked. She felt thin, even though she hadn't been sick for that long, and that worried me. Her long hair had lost its natural shine and luster, hanging tangled and as unhealthy as the rest of her in a thick halo around her head.
"Aaah," she moaned in her sleep, her hand gripping her stomach in a death grip, her thin fingers grabbing at the fabric of her shirt. I slid my hand around to her front and softly started rubbing her belly to ease the pain. Slowly, her hand relaxed and thumped down onto the bed; I kept rubbing, not wanting the pain to come back. Part of me wondered if she was on her period, but I didn't know, and didn't know how to tell.....
Julia jerked awake, knocking my hand aside and sitting straight up, her eyes wild and filled with pain.
"Jules, what is it," I managed to get out, before she puked all over me.
