ISN'T SHE LOVELY | hs

11 | BIRTHDAY BABE

| HARRY |
Monday 3rd October, 2022

"Wakey wakey, riot girl. It's your day."

Crouched at the side of the bed with my voice at a gentle lull, Mickayla stirs in her sleep from the whispered sound.

She's wrapped up in my colour block striped robe like she has been for the last two days, the hood up and on her head, with the floral-patterned duvet pulled up to her chin. I can't help but smile from ear to ear at how beautiful and sweet she looks right now.

Micki makes no moves to immediately open her eyes, clearly too consumed with how good slumber is and hoping to get back to it, but I know she's conscious. Her soft and sleepy breaths have come to a stop, and she's fidgeting ever so slightly, too.

I won't push her to wake up faster, more than happy to use this time to look at her for a little longer. Maybe I can finally count her freckles; something I've been desperate to do since the day I met her.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four-

"If it's my day, then why are you waking me up so early?" Micki's thick-with-sleep voice cuts my counting off and cracks an even bigger smile onto my face than there already was.

I can't help but chuckle, drifting my gaze to watch her eyes tiredly flutter open and show me the honey that lives there. They crease at the corners ever so slightly; a sign that Micki is smiling at me in that sleepy kind of way that I've grown so fond of lately.

"It's midday, Mickayla. You're lucky that I let you sleep in this late." I tell her truthfully, a raspy giggle sounding out from her, "Been dying to wake you up and give you your presents."

"Presents?!" Her eyes shoot open now and before I can process a thing, Micki is quickly sitting up bolt right and grinning at me in complete excitement, "I'm up!"

I'm cackling now as I stand tall, shaking my head at her, "So I see. I'll keep in mind for the future that if I need you to wake up fast, I just have to mention gifts and you'll be more alert that a kid hopped up on sugar."

I take a seat on the edge of the bed by her knees, grinning at her sticking her tongue out at me, and press the back of my fingers to her forehead. She feels appropriately warm, no crazy temperature as of right now which is a good sign.

I take the chance to look at her face again, finding that the tip of her nose is still pink from the illness that she's been living with for the last couple of days, but the colour in her face is starting to come back. She's been either horribly pale or flushed for the last forty-eight hours.

Mickayla's been unwell, a sickness that properly started on Saturday. She told me on Friday that she was feeling a little under the weather, but that she was still up for the Brighton beach trip that we'd organised to go on the next day.

When I drove over to her flat to pick her up that morning, I realised fast that that wasn't happening. Bed bound from how lousy she was feeling, it was Pauli who answered the door to me on her behalf.

I ventured into her bedroom and found her bundled up like a burrito and all but coughing up a lung, I saw for myself just how poorly she was. Micki Magic had lost her glow a little bit, and I was quick to start fussing over her.

It's nothing baby-related. I called Dr. A at Mickayla's request and for her because her throat was too sore to speak. She confirmed that it was not only too soon for strong physical pregnancy symptoms, but all of Micki's seemed like a bad forty-eight hour type of flu.