Glancing at the clock, the girl groaned inwardly and
rolled onto her side. It was 3 am and the dull pain in her stomach was keeping
her awake another night. It was a feeling she remembered too well: the
introduction of a violent illness that had plagued her three months earlier and
ruined her last days in Prague. She didn’t mind the aching nausea so much as
the symptoms that had already visited her once today. She rolled over and
glanced at the clock again. This time it read 03:04, causing another groan to escape
into the room. This time it was as much one of inconvenience: in the morning
she was supposed to catch a train to Frankfurt to make the flight home. Under
ordinary circumstances, she would have felt exhilarated, and probably even
enjoyed the nine hour trip north, but her rapidly approaching symptoms rendered
this somewhat doubtable this time round.
Feeling her stomach knot, she
slipped out of bed taking extra care not to rouse her sleeping friend. ‘She
could handle it this time’ she told herself. ‘She didn’t need to worry Cleo like last time.’ It wasn’t that she didn’t want the fuss. In fact at the moment
it was that maternal care she most craved. It was that she’d stress Cleo, who
in turn would pick up the phone and stress her parents. She reached the
bathroom with no problems, and leaning over, emptied the minimal contents of
her stomach into the toilet bowl. She hadn’t dined that night, feeling too
nauseous to keep anything down and for a short moment was unconsciously glad of
that fact: this time it was only bile and essential minerals she was loosing,
not the calzone and coffee she’d enjoyed at lunch. Standing up, she staggered
to the sink to rinse out her mouth and freshen up. Looking in the mirror she
watched motionless as the gaunt reflection before her slowly blurred and
wavered before disappearing out the bottom of the mirror.
The crash of her limp frame
against the door was enough that when she regained consciousness, Cleo knelt
beside her, with the phone in one hand.
