I went home, took a shower, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. When I woke up, my head pounded and my stomach burned. The pain made me nauseous. I will not throw up, I will not throw up, I chanted over and over in my head. I reached over to my nightstand where I'd left the painkillers that I had gotten from the hospital and grabbed the bottle. I climbed out of bed and drug my feet to the sink to fill up the glass of water that I kept by my bed. I tossed back the pills in the recommended dosage and leaned against the sink until the pain subsided.
Once I didn't feel like I was going to spew the limited amount of things in my stomach, I went out to the kitchen to make myself breakfast. While I was frying eggs to make migas, which I'd been craving for a while since I'd moved in, my phone rang. When I looked at the caller I.D., I saw that it was the hospital.
My heart jumped to my throat. Assuming the worst, I answered the phone. "Hello?" I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. "This is Evelyn."
"Hi, Ms. Muerto. Mr. Marx told us to call you if anything happened." The voice on the other end of the line was female and surprisingly, not filled with sympathy like I'd expected.
I leaned heavily against the counter. "What - " I took a deep breath. "What happened?"
"Oh, everything is fine. Sorry to worry you like that. He's supposed to be discharged today and the doctor needs him to stay with someone for a few weeks while he continues to get better. Would you be up for that? I know you just got out and all...."
"Yeah, yeah, of course. Just out of curiosity, doesn't he have any family that he could call rather than me?" I asked, relief flooding my body.
"He didn't put anyone down but you for emergency contacts. You'll just have to ask him yourself." She hung up the phone.
I sighed and placed my phone back down on the counter. I finished cooking and eating my breakfast before I caught a cab to the hospital.
When I arrived, Caleb was there, smiling as usual. "How do you keep that smile on your face all the time? It seems exhausting," I commented when I approached him.
He laughed. "I get that a lot."
"So where is Noah?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
"Straight to the point. I like that in a woman." Caleb grinned. His words shot a dagger through my heart. Gabriel had said that exact phrase to me when we'd first met. Listen to me, I sound like a teenage girl going through a breakup.
I forced a laugh at his comment. I didn't want him to ask questions that I didn't want to answer.
"He should be coming down any minute now." Caleb motioned me to a seat in the waiting area. "You should sit down. In your condition, you shouldn't be on your feet for very long," Caleb said.
"This is New York. Everyone is on their feet all of the time," I retorted but sat down anyway. He was right. I was starting to get dizzy again.
"Ha." Caleb turned away. "I have a job to do. 'Bye, Evelyn."
"'Bye," I called to his retreating figure.
To pass the time, I pulled out my phone and played some crappy. "Boredom has finally cracked me," I muttered.
Soon enough, though, Noah walked out of the elevator, wearing some gray sweatpants and a white tee-shirt. I was so happy to see him standing up and fine, that I almost ran to hug him, but I remembered how hurt we both were and the fact that we were in a public place. I did jump up and approach him, though. However, he initiated the hug, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my neck. "I've wanted to do this since I woke up," he whispered into my hair.
He smelled like the hospital, but I didn't care. Forgetting that we were in public, I returned the hug. "I'm so glad you're okay," I whispered back, resting my chin on his shoulder.
I heard whispering and a few "awws" so I pulled away from him.
"People are staring," Noah said, grinning at me.
"I noticed," I said, smiling.
He leaned closer to me and whispered in my ear, "I meant what I said last night. Morphine brings the truth out, eh?"
I blushed deeply. "Shut up."
Noah grinned, happy that he got a reaction from me. "This is the second time that I've made you blush," he noted.
"And the last." I glared at him.
"Let's go home," Noah said, smiling at my frustration with him.
"Do you want to run by your apartment to get some clothes?" I asked. "I don't have anything for you to wear at my place."
"I'm sure that some of your ex-boyfriends had some clothes that would fit me." Noah grinned and raised his eyebrows.
I laughed. "I haven't had a boyfriend in over three years. I moved into my apartment six months ago." What I'd said was mostly true. I hadn't had a boyfriend in over three years. However, I'd only lived in my apartment for a few weeks. I'd died in November, and it was December now.
"Really? That's surprising," Noah said as we walked outside.
I had worn a coat, but Noah didn't have one. He shivered when a gust of December air hit us. "Yeah. Are you cold?"
He shivered again. "Nah."
"Okay, sure." Something white caught my eye. "It's snowing!" I cried.
"You are such a child," Noah said, shivering again.
"I love snow!" I defended. I raised my hand to hail a cab. Thankfully, one pulled right up to the curb.
With some difficulty, Noah and I clambered into the cab. Bending down in our present state was not comfortable.
On the drive back to Noah's apartment, I was hyper aware of Noah's knee knocking against mine every once in a while. The cab was freezing, almost as cold as it was outside. Noah shivered almost constantly.
I knocked on the divider and got the driver to open it. "Could you turn the heat on? It's cold as balls in here!" I said.
Noah chuckled quietly at my comparison. "No can do, sweetheart. Heat's broken." He glanced at us in the rearview mirror. "Your boyfriend should have brought a coat."
"We're not - " He cut me off by closing the divider in my face.
Hi. So I finally updated. I'm under the weather right now and I don't really feel like writing this author's note right now, honestly. I hope you had great holidays wherever you are in the world.
Questions
1) Do you ship Noah and Anita as much as I do?
2) What are your thoughts on Noah's family?
3) Should Anita ask him about it?
4) What do you think his reaction will be?
Well, happy holidays!
xCelia
P.S. Migas is a breakfast with fried or scrambled eggs on top of crushed up tortilla chips. It's sooo good.
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The Anatomy of Killer
General Fiction"You know how they say that the shot heard around the world was the one that started the Revolutionary War? Yeah, well they were wrong. It was the shot fired directly at my chest by a man that I thought was my friend" I was given a second chance at...
