Alfonso's Bride

Gags- 15

"How do you feel?"

"Nauseas." As if announcing a rule he hauled himself up and threw up on the floor. It was a gooey meagre paste. Just the wheat meal he had had, a sticky white paste-up barely digested. She grabbed a bucket from near the bed and held it closer to him. She soothed his head encouraging him not to keep it in.

"Let it out... Let it all out. You'll just be fine... Come on let it out." A gag reflex. "Let it out... You'll be fine..." Another gag-reflex.

"I feel like my chest will tear apart," Alfonso rasped breathlessly holding onto his chest afraid it would literally tear apart.

"I know... Let it all out sir..." She coaxed but Demerol, king of the gag reflexes, was not ready to let him let it out.

She stood up and walked to the bathroom. She took a rag lying on the floor and set herself to work on the paste on the floor but he was quick to grab her hand.

"The hospital staff will do that. They are the ones who gave me oatmeal and Demerol in the first place. I can not let you touch that. Don't...don't..." He didn't want her touching any of that. She wanted to clean up, it gave her sense of responsibility.

She gave him a weary smile. "Don't worry for me sir. I will do it." She wiped the paste off the floor carefully and dashed into the bathroom casting the cloth in the trash can under the sink. She came back to find his feeble dark nailed hand trembling as he tried to hold the bucket firmly, close to his lips. The image hurt her. It tore her heart as much as the cough had threatened to tear Diego's chest to wreck his lungs.

She held out a mint to him and the image of baby Helly came to his mind, baby Helly holding out a seashell to him. He gazed up at her hand but dove back to the bucket throwing up some more, not much this time but more pain in the abdominal muscles as they engaged in a losing battle which ended with an empty gag. He gazed up again feeling small, used and helpless.

An untamed tear fell from his eye as he gazed up at Helena, the first he had showed Helena. Helena was broken by the lonely tear falling down his dry cheeks from his pale eyes.

"It's painful, Helen." He stated as if to justify his crying. He hated feeling this way. He hated being this way.

"I know." She whispered placing the mint in his mouth. Another bead of a tear fell, this time he allowed them to cascade freely on his left cheek. He bit his lower lip toying with the mint in his mouth but it just made him the more nauseous. Another gag caught up with him and he arched towards the bucket but rather a heartless cough attacked, he engaged in a battle to stop the raging cough but was too weak to defend himself or was it too strong for him to control. He coughed out, a dry cough threatening to tear his lungs and crack his throat.

"I want to die, Helen. Don't stop me please. Let me go..."

Helena sat next to him on the bed and he cowered as she reached for his face. She lifted his face so he looked at her- she did not know what to say to him or how to convince him there as something to live for. She had never been trained for such a situation.

"Will I die?"

"No, no you won't. And you don't want to."

"A lot is happening and a lot has happened to me. You may end up running away from me like...like...like Melanie did." He was tired of talking and she knew he needed a sleep more than anything now. Otherwise he would be hurting hearts soon

"Get on the bed sir. Shall I tuck you in?" He settled on the bed and lay into the pillows. She tucked him in and handed him his medication.

"They come with the nausea." He stated like a child refusing to go to the doctor's. She shook her head and he sighed as if she did not understand anything, or maybe she did not.