You Make Me Sick

Abbigale woke from her shallow sleep with a cold sweat. She dragged open her dry eyes and wiped the drool from her chin with the sleeve of her purple plush robe. She grasped her head and ran to the bathroom to throw up.

The vomit was stained with blood.

Emily came over at some point, now her day nurse, to give her medicine and do a whole bunch of tests. "I need you to go pee in this cup." She did. "I need to take a cheek swab." She did. "Lets take your temperature." So on.

She wouldn't eat anything--couldn't. After Emily asked her to pee in the cup for the third time, Abbigale finally asked her to leave.

She cooked up some soup and sipped it over the course of an hour. It was gross and cold when she'd finished and the stringy noodles were left at the bottom of the bowl because she just couldn't force down anything solid.

She tried taking a nap so that she could talk to Pierce, but her mind was racing too much to allow sleep.

The radio popped to life with a flick of her finger and played a slow, jazzy tune. A stack of books lay on the coffee table and Abbigale shuffled through them to find one that she couldn't remember the end of. She settled on Black Sunday, hoping that a thriller would keep her mind off of her pathetic life.

After reading for a couple hours she shut the book. Focusing on the pages was making her dizzy. Abbigale pulled a blanket over her shivering legs and placed a pillow over her eyes, trying to block out all the light because she didn't have enough energy to get up and close the blinds or turn the ceiling lights off.

"Mmmm..." She groaned in response to a knock on her front door. "Come in!"

"It's dangerous to keep your door unlocked. You have no idea who I could have been." A male voice sounded from her entree way, and then a click of the door shutting.

"I still don't know who you are."

"My point exactly." The stranger lifted the pillow from her eyes, but seeing his face didn't help her identify him. That didn't say much, though. Even now, staring at him, she wouldn't be able to pick him out of a crowd. He had short brown hair, hazel eyes, and looked about average height. There was nothing particularly abnormal about him. "You probably don't remember me, I'm Michael." He tucked the blanket securely under her, trying to make her more comfortable. "I was your nurse while you were in the hospital, alongside your friend, Emily."

"I don't remember you at all. I'm sorry." Abbigale wiggled beneath the blanket, sitting up a bit. She preferred to be more at eye level with the people she talked with.

"I had no expectation that you would. You were never fully conscious while I was around. Not that you often were at all." He moved to the blinds, taking her squinting as a hint to close them. He did so.

"Thank you very much." She sighed, eyes adjusting to the semi-darkness.

"Too comfortable to get off the couch?"

"Just not enough energy." She admitted. "Will you be staying long? I was hoping to fit in a nap this afternoon." The dizziness swept over her like the static on television, infecting her speech.

"I just need to take a blood sample for testing..." His voice steadily faded until she simply couldn't understand him any longer.

"Finally..." She wasn't sure is she'd truly voiced her happiness.