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Chapter 8
The next day two things happened: Mitch canceled the brunch and I got the flu.
"You silly girl, what in the world where you doing out in the rain?" Vaun laughed as he sat at my bed side while he had a doctor examine me.
I smiled wearily, all morning people had been shuffling in and out of my tiny room bringing me flowers, hot soup and cute stuffed animals that said things like 'get well soon' when you pushed down on their paw. Apparently when the future queen gets a cold it's alarming enough for everyone to come, baring gifts of course.
"I just wanted to go outside and run in the rain like I used to when I was little." Both he and the doctor laughed.
"Well thats women for you." said the doctor as he pressed his stethoscope against my chest. I closed my eyes, taking in a deep breath as I reminded myself that it couldn't be helped.
"Well," he said as he rose from his seat, "she just seams to have a fever. It should clear up in a few days with some rest."
"See Vaun, I told you." I went to pat his hand but he pulled it away quickly from my reach.
"Wait doctor is she fine to be on her own?" Vaun said as he nearly tripping over himself to get to the doctor before he could make it to the door.
In hushed words he and the doctor had a little chat, most of which I couldn't hear.
"...but she's your...yes but it would be better if you...she doesn't have the plague! It's just the flue...yes alright..."
They returned then, the doctor looking a little skeptical. "Yes well we have decided it would be best for me to return back to my house, so I don't get sick of course."
"You're leaving me then?" I looked from him to the doctor in shock. Yes I wasn't dying or anything but still...
"Just till you're no longer contagious." he said smiling as if leaving me to suffer alone wasn't the most cowardice of acts. He must of seen something in my face that told him is was time to make a speedy escape. "Well then, if everything is settled here I should be on my way."
The doctor mumbled something under his breath that neither Vaun nor I could hear, but the look on his face made it clear enough. Vaun being to man he was knew when he was unwanted and he scampered off to his home eager to be far away from this house.
"Dear, will you truly be alright on your own?" the doctor was an older man. With fading hair and withered skin, he fit the part but I could see the life that sparkled within him. He was one of those rare specimens that had yet to let go of their youth.
"Yes I'll be fine, I don't feel too bad."
He nodded as he pulled out a card from his coat pocket, "Yes well these things have a way of getting worse sometimes, if things start getting bad just give me a call." I smiled and thanked him for his help before letting him go. The rain still had yet to subside causing the pathway here to become quite the danger and as I sat in my empty home I wondered if the doctor made it home safely.
~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~
I was sick for a little over a week. After three days of visits and people calling to check up on me it suddenly stopped. I was on my own after that and aside from Fran, the woman that drops off groceries twice a week, I was alone.
My days were spent in coma like sleep, endless moments of fantasy mixed with reality to the point that I couldn't even tell what was real and what was the fever. Somewhere in that span of time I lost the thermometer so the only estimate of how I was by seeing amount of blankets piled over me.
One morning, or maybe it was the afternoon, there was a knock on the door. It was still pouring and since the road here has become somewhat of a death trap I wondered who it was that stood on my porch endlessly beating at my poor door.
I somehow managed to pull away the nine quilts piled atop my horribly aching body, but the moment I tried to stand up my body fell to the floor, as weak as a flower who's stem no longer has the strength to support it.
Who ever it was continues to beat away, unwilling to be ignored. "Go away," mumble through chattering lips. I try to stand and return to the warmth of my bed but suddenly I find it's to far to reach. My hands curl around my legs as I shiver, wondering if I would die here like this. The thought made me frown but I could no longer remember why.
I close my eyes as I use whats left of my strength to rock my body into oblivion as I listen to the lulling sound of knuckles against wood and rain drops falling from the sky.
Somewhere very far away there is glass shattering as someone steps in through my front window. He walks up and down the hall ways calling out for someone, leaving a trail of mud and muck behind him. The person is now in my room. Still he is calling out for the person he has lost. He is touching me now, touching my face, my arms. He checks my pulse. Am I alive I want to ask him but the words are lost to me.
He lifts me up and carries me away. I try to speak again, tell him to leave me, return me the warmth of my blankets. I hear the sound of water but it is not the rain.
"I'm sorry" he whispers to me. He submerges my body in water, it stings. I find my lips in time to cry out to him. "Shhhh. We have to get the fever down."
I have found my legs, my arms and now I am thrashing about as I suddenly find strength I was sure was lost. He holds me down easily though and he keeps me down as he steps into the stinging water with me. I cry out as my whole body is submerged into hell. I cry but even my tears are cold.
