Roommates

Chapter 17

"Ah Choo" I sneezed harder than before. I didn't think that was possible until it happened.

It's been about 40 minutes and the sneezing didn't cease not once.

I felt like my nose was gonna fly across the room.

"Bless you" Ryder said, for the 147th time.

"Thank you" I said after blowing my redenning nose.

I guess that was karma getting at me for calling sick for work, so now I'm actually sick.

And I remained sick the next day. And the one after. By the 3rd day, I couldn't even move up from bed, so I missed college.

Ryder was in his bed, doing some art project. He was drawing on some big special type paper, and it was a good drawing.

"Ah choo"

"Bless you" he literally said bless you to every other sneeze. He had a really long patience. I wondered if everything about him is really long.

My nose was too red and tender, and piles of tissues were towering around me.

I decided it's better if I get up and make some chicken soup. I sneezed as I got up from my pillow.

"Woah what are you doing?" Ryder was quick on his feet and near my bed in a jiffy.

"I'b going to bake sobe chicken soup"

"You're not 'baking' anything. You can barely stand" he lowered me back to the mattress. I've never seen this caring side of Ryder. He was so gentle. For the first time ever I was actually jealous of Jane. "I'll do it. There's something I wanted to try for a while now" he eaid as he hurried towards the kitchen.

Wanted to try something? What did he mean?

I tried to squeeze out my mind for anything that could make sense of what he said but to no avail. That's until he came back thirty minutes later, with a bowl of steamy chicken soup on a tray.

That's when I remembered the book he was reading the other day. "Black Magic For Dummies"

"OH HELL NO!" I yelled in horror. "I'b not eating that"

"What? Why not! It took me forever to get the ingredients in the right order"

"Don't act all hurt and stuff on be, I saw you reading that black bagic book. I'b not gonna eat that."

"Seriously Spencer? Don't be stupid. Eat it. You need to get better"

"No. I'b not risking eating it then turn into sobe sort of frog or sobething. No way"

"Eat it or I'm forcing it down your throat"

"You won't fo-" a spoonful of warm delicious soup engulfed my mouth. It tasted better than anything I've ever had before, and I couldn't tell if it was the black magic taking its effect immediately. I closed my eyes savouring every hint of the taste.

"What in the world are you doing?" Ryder asked as I started to examine my hands and face for any transformation.

"What does it look like I'be doing? Checking if the black bagic is working" Ryder sat the tray on my side of the desk and went back to his bed.

"It's not black magic it's grandma's recipe. She sent it to me a couple days ago but I wasn't feeling like having soup"

"Is your grandba Betsy or something because dabn dis is good" I said, shoving more and more of that soup down my throat.

"She's not Betsy, but she is as good as her. Even better sometimes."

"You've never told be about your family" I tried to start a conversation because I was really getting bored of being in bed all day.