Rain by Christie Cote

especially if he didn’t have a shirt on…
    Okay, Taylor, get a grip on yourself. You have a boyfriend.
    I’m just appreciating his body. Yup, that’s it …
    I found him grinning at me. Crap. Does he know what I’m thinking?
    “Well I should go before your dad decides to come back and kill me,” he chuckled as he zipped his jacket up.
    “Yeah that may be a good idea,” I smirked.
    “See you tomorrow, Taylor.” His voice grew softer and his deep brown eyes held mine for a moment before he headed out the door.
    I should have said bye, but I just gawked after him until my parents came back with a new nurse.
    “How are you feeling?” the nurse asked.
    “Worse than I felt before I came here,” I grumbled, some of the nausea I’d had before returning. This officially sucked.
    She checked a few things before leaving the room again. My dad’s arms were crossed and he had a tight expression on his face.
    “What happened to your shirt, Taylor?”
    Oh boy. “Bathroom. I got sick,” I said, pointing. His face softened. “Kyle gave me his shirt because mine got…dirty and he didn’t know where to find one of mine,” I explained further.
    “Well, that was…nice of him…” Dad said, searching for what to say. He smiled at me, and I think he was happy once he figured out that nothing else had been going on.
    “Mom, can you get me another shirt please?” I asked.
    “Sure, honey.”
    Thankfully she got one from my bag right away and handed it to me, because once I had it in my hands, I was bolting for the bathroom again.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    It seemed like I had just fallen asleep when the nurse woke me up again. The night had been spent in fitful sleeping between waking up to vomit every so often. I was tired and felt awful. Kyle’s shirt lay next to me on the bed. I had managed to take it off before I’d begun throwing up again. I didn’t want to get anything on it.
    “Your breakfast should arrive soon,” the nurse told me.
    I was beginning to get why Nurse Michele had insinuated that I would stop eating. After throwing up all night, food didn’t sound very appetizing. Pulling the blanket over my head and going back to sleep sounded much more appealing, so that was what I did.
     
    ***
     
    “I’ll take that soup and crackers now,” I told my parents. This seemed to make my mom happy, especially since I’d slept through breakfast.
    “Okay. I will go get it for you,” she said cheerfully.
    “Thanks,” I said, pulling out Kyle’s iPod for the first time since he had given it to me.
    I was still too tired to read or do anything useful, but I still wanted a distraction, so the music would do. I decided to put shuffle on all of his music since I figured I wouldn’t recognize very much of it. I found that there was a mix of louder and softer songs, and I didn’t hate any of them so far, but some would take longer to grow on me than others. I was surprised when I recognized the song Home by Daughtry. It wasn’t the kind of song I pictured Kyle listening to.
    Mom came back with chicken noodle soup and some saltine crackers and placed them on the table before pushing it in front of me. Nothing like eating in bed. The soup wasn’t bad, and it was easier on my stomach than a heartier food would have been. I wouldn’t receive another treatment until tomorrow, and I was hoping that the nausea would chill out until then.
    My parents gathered next to me, and we channel surfed on the small TV that hung down in front of me. The channels were a blur as we switched from cooking to travel to some overly dramatic soap opera. My dad even groaned when we came about that channel.
    Eventually, I let the fatigue pull me back under, drifting from reality into a much-preferred dream state.
     
    ***
     
    Austin entered the room wearing a blue shirt tight enough that the outline of his muscles could be seen. It kind of irritated me now. He needed a larger shirt. I smiled at him anyways, still