Until I Met You

6

I woke up the next morning with a smile and a stomachache. I probably shouldn't have had that salmon fettuccini last night. Marcos said I would like it, but when I tried it I just pretended it was good so he wouldn't worry. It was so damn raw that I could picture the face of the fish screaming, 'take me back to the ocean!'

It was a rainy Monday. I looked outside of my window and saw the sky crying with sun included. I always thought it was ironic how that could happen, how the sun would shine so bright through the clouds but rain came through anyway. I stood up from my bed and walked to the tiny bathroom, I opened the shelves above the sink to look for Peptobismol for my stomach, I usually didn't liked to  drink Peptobismol because there was this one time that I stayed at my aunt's house in Dominican Republic, because my parents were away for a wedding in the US. I was probably 7 or 8 years old, and I woke up in the middle of the night and threw up in the toilet. My cousin Jose Miguel was awake at that time, he was probably 20 at the time. He saw me and took me to the kitchen to give me Peptobismol, and feeling a little better I went to bed again, but no. I woke up again in a matter of 2 minutes and threw up the Peptobismol. He was worried but after that, I felt better. Ironic right? I had to threw up the Peptobismol to feel better.

"I really don't know if I should drink this, I don't want that to happen again", I thought while I poured the liquid on the little cap that comes in the bottle.

"I want to feel better so", I said while drinking the whole thing. The taste remembered me that night, the bubble gum liquid paste aftertaste in my mouth was not bad.

I went to lay in my bed a few more minutes to calm my stomach down, then I heard my phone buzzing on my nightstand.
I heard a loud laughter coming from outside my bedroom door. It must be my crazy-ass roommate.

'Natalia!!' Anika said as she entered my bedroom without PERMISSION.
She sat next to me and took my plush toy.

'How was your dinner with Marcos yesterday?', she asked with her Russian accent. I loved the way she pronounced the r in her sentences. She transferred from Russia last year and we became friends after a while of living together.

'It was awful, I got sick because of eating fucking seafoood!', I said while rubbing my tummy.

'But you hate SEAFOOD', she said while hitting me with my plush toy, 'idiot'.

'I know, but how the hell my opinion mattered, he wanted to go there since last month when he heard about it', I said while trying to evade her hits. She was so strong.

'Hey', she said while stopping, 'I love you and you know that but, you have to make a decision here, you can't be in this relationship if you feel your opinion is not important at all'

She was not wrong, but I was so scared. Scared of ending up hurt.

'Don't worry, I'll do the right thing, you know that', I said while giving her a thumbs up.

'I hope you do', she said while standing up, 'remember you have to do the creative writing research', she said while closing the door behind her.

Damn it.