Artifice

Ill

This chapter is kind of slow, & I'm getting worse at updating, perdon. (I'm laughing at the title, I had no idea what to name this part)

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. I grabbed it and swiped my finger across the screen to answer.

"Hello?" My voice was hoarse and I could tell I was becoming ill.

"Evangeline it is nearly the afternoon, what are you doing still sleeping?"

You've got to be kidding me. I threw my head into one of my pillows.

"Mom." I complained.

"I just wanted to check up on you since you had to go so fast yesterday when I called."

Yesterday.

Yesterday was a roller coaster, with school, work, then that ball that I'm trying to still figure out if I dreamt or not. After ice cream last night, Harry and I hung out here till we could see the sun rising. I don't remember when he left but he did.

"Can I call you later, when I'm actually out of bed okay?"

"Alright. Rest well." She hung up and I pushed my face in my pillow again.

After minutes of attempting to fall back asleep, I gave up.

My feet tapped on the cold floor of the apartment as I walked into the kitchen. The blinds were open so all light coming from outside was intruding the apartment. I felt like a vampire that couldn't be in the sun.

I made myself an entire jug of coffee, just in case and slumped back down onto my bed.

Looking at my phone I received a few text from Liz and Chloe.

*Are you busy today?*

-

"'Ello." An voice came up behind me.

By the Irish accent and Chloe's face lighting up, I could tell who it was

"Niall." Chloe chirped.

"You invited Niall to our lunch?" Chloe invited me to eat to catch up since I left so abruptly during Halloween, and now she invited company.

"Don't act like I'm not one of your favorite people in this city." Niall elbowed me with a goofy expression.

"Sorry, I was just unaware that you were joining us." I should've noticed that Chloe picked out a table of 4 instead of 2.

Chloe and Niall were obviously closer than how they were a few weeks ago. The both of them were joking around with each other and informing one another on their personal lives. I picked my phone out of my bag while they were discussing how Niall dropped his hot tea onto his school work this morning.

*Hey* I texted Harry.

"I'm so ready to eat." Niall scanned over the little stores menu.

We all ordered our meals, and I consistently kept looking down at my lap for a text I wasn't receiving.

"So Eva, you're still going to that art institute aren't you?" Chloe asked and I looked up from my phone, feeling like I was just caught doing something bad.

"Mhm." I hummed.

The food shortly came, though this was the first meal I was going to have today I still wasn't as hungry as I should be. Also with the amount of times I've coughed in the span of the past twenty minutes, it was safe to say I was coming up with something.

"Seriously who are you talking to that you keep looking down at your phone?" Chloe asked.

"No one." Literally, Harry had yet to reply back. I hated that I felt compelled to look at my phone once a minute to see if he would answer back. Honestly, who was I becoming?

When we finished lunch, Niall and Chloe asked me to join them shopping but I declined since I was slowly getting worse. The weather was no help either, just stepping outside made my nose stuff up making it hard for me to breath.

Unfortunately the apartment wasn't as warm as I wanted it to be. If I wrapped myself inside a blanket, tightly bundled between the pillows on my bed.

The sun was slowly lowering and I had yet to receive a reply from Harry. At some point I just gave up on even checking my phone, it was laying at the far end of the bed, untouched.

"Eva?" A voice from outside my room called for me.

Lizzy popped her head inside the door, and if I wasn't feeling so shitty I might've pretended to be surprised.

"What's wrong?" Her face pulled down into a frown.

"Don't know, I think the cold has finally got me." I sniffled my nose.

"Do you want me to make you some soup or something? We can eat and watch movies all night." Liz has always had this mother instinct when it came to someone being sick or injured.

-

I was close to throwing a pillow at Liz's face if she tried to check up on me one more time.

She was definitely making this sickness seem worse than it was. She made enough chicken soup to last us a week and put on a funny movie in the living room.

"How is Liam?" I asked her. Honestly, the movie wasn't my favorite so far so I didn't mind being drawn into any conversation, away from it.

"He's great." Her eyes closed as she smiled widely.

I've seen her approximately three times in the past week, plus this was the longest we've been together in weeks. It didn't bother me as much as it once did, she was in love and I couldn't ever be mad about that.

"He's working at this very successful bakery, I'm so proud of him." The joy in her face was evident.

"That's awesome." I let out a throaty cough, my throat was killing me.

"Do you hear that?" She grabbed the remote and turned the volume of the tv down, revealing a ringing noise.

"Shit, that's my phone." I threw my head back sighing.

"Do you want me to get it?" She offered.

I knew the call was either from my mom or Harry and I wasn't up for talking to neither at about this moment.

"Nah, it's fine." Liz turned up the volume to the tv again.

We watched the tv for a few seconds until she turned her body on the couch towards me.

"You're birthdays coming up." She wore a sly smirk. "What are we doing this year?"

"Nothing crazy please." I begged, remembering how hungover I was after my 21st birthday last year.

I shook my head at all of her suggestions, that all involved a lot of people and drinking in some way. "A dinner?" She was running low on ideas by now.

"Better."

"You're kind of really lame for not wanting to do something more fun. Like seriously when was the last time you've got drunk?" I rolled my eyes at her question.

"Two months ago, I think." The day I met Harry, coincidentally ran into him at a club, and let him take me home. It all seemed like such a long time ago.

"Even more reason."

"A dinner should do." I crossed my arms and continued watching the movie, I didn't want her to keep pushing this.

"Fine grumpy."