Odd [re-writing]

26. The Sick Leave Cliché

in which, you are sick in bed

Plot Twist: *and your friendship deepens

                Every twenty-eight days or more, a cycle that came from hell happens to the female anatomy. Imagine having an unwanted visitor who comes barging in every month and stays for a week, turning you into a vulnerable, pain-enduring, hormone-raging martyr who hardcore bleeds the whole time.

                Yes, it's that day. The red tide. The devil has arrived.

                I would spare the gruesome details, but the gut-wrenching pain somewhere down my navel, the intensified profanity, and the emotional rollercoaster I was experiencing for the past days would be enough explanation why it was such a horrible week ahead.

                On a Tuesday morning, days after the Satur-Date (Percy insisted on calling it that), I woke up with a fever and my mom hovering worriedly above me. She was in a dilemma, it seemed, since she had to leave for three days because of a business they had to take care of in Miami. She hated to leave me all alone, sick and weak, under unbearable pain, and with no one to take care of me.

                "Mom," I told her, exasperated "I'll be fine. I can handle myself, really."

                "What if I just stayed here," She suggested, her eyes glazed "I could stay here. Screw the meeting, you're much more important."

                I grinned weakly "Are you cursing?" When my mother didn't thaw at the tease, I sobered "But isn't your obstetrician in Miami? It's not just the business meeting you're there for, right?"

                "Andy..." Mom looked like she was the one under distress and not me, which made me worried for her. She always wished she was the one in pain instead of me, which was touching and just natural, but sometimes, I really pitied her. My mom, she always tried so much.

                "I'll be fine. Promise." I chuckled weakly, "Just leave medicine. Food and ice cream. A lot of movies."

                "What kind of mother am I to leave you when you're sick?"

                "The kind of mother who trusts her daughter to be alright." I retorted "The kind of mother who won't risk her monthly check-ups just because her other daughter is sick. It's fine mom, I swear it is. You can go."

                "Andy..." My mother now looks like she's ready to dissolve in a puddle of tears.

                "It's just a fever, seriously!" I told her lightly "Please don't treat me like fragile glass."

                The look in her eyes said "But you are."

                Ah, goddamn. I hated it when I'm weaker than I usually am.

***

                Whenever I had high fever, my mother would put Kool-Fever on my forehead, play classical music, and watch over me 24/7. She said it was because I was always vulnerable to nightmares when I was delusional with fever, and if she weren't there to calm me down, it would seem to the neighbourhood as if they were torturing me. And also because I am her daughter, and it's just mandatory that she stayed there with me no matter what.

                I was in the port. There was a lighthouse that I frequented back when I was in Michigan, and if you walk out into the balcony, a full view of Michigan and the nearby bays would be in perfect view.