Nursery

24

Ms. Diane pulled the blankets around me, making sure my bear was tucked in beside me. "I'm going to call Alex and let him know you're still not feeling well."

"Do you think he'll be mad at me?"

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Honey, why would he be mad at you?"

"Cause I'm making him leave work. Again." It felt like I was doing something wrong each day that I showed up at daycare. I couldn't remember the last time I left daycare at the end of the day. Alex knew how I felt about his job and I really didn't want him to think I was getting in trouble just to make him leave it early. That wasn't my intention at all.

She brushed my hair away from my face. "I won't let him get upset over this. You can't help being sick."

"I don't want him to think I'm faking it just to go home early."

She rested her arm on the side of the crib. "You don't look like you're faking it to me."

I rolled onto my side. "I don't like getting sick."

"I don't think anyone does." She patted my arm before she straightened up. "I'll come back to check on you in a little bit."

I watched her walk away, envious that she felt fine and I didn't. I hated being sick. Growing up, I never faked being sick to stay home. I didn't get sick often, never had allergies, never threw up unless it was from food poisoning. I got lucky growing up but it seemed it caught up with me as a baby.

I wasn't expecting Alex to show up when he did. It wasn't even lunchtime yet and he was coming to pick me up. I had fully expected to sleep through the day and see him at the usual time. So when he leaned over the side of my crib and woke me up, I thought I was hallucinating.

Alex laughed. "Ly, it's just me."

I rubbed my eyes. "What time is it?"

"A little after ten."

"In the morning?"

"You think I'd make Diane stay here all night with you? I wouldn't do that to her."

I threw my bear at him.

He lifted me out of the crib and situated me on his hip. The jostling sent waves of nausea through me and I had to hide my face in his shirt to get rid of some of the dizziness.

"No, no, no."

"Lyla, what are you doing?"

"One wrong move and I'm going to throw up."

Quietly, so no other kids heard, he cursed. "Alright. Looks like we're seeing Monica sooner than expected."

I gripped his shirt tighter in my hands as he gathered up my diaper bag. He slung it over his shoulder, careful not to move too much. I was sure he didn't want me to throw up on him.

He carried me out to the car and set me in my car seat, taking his time to be as careful as possible. "Please don't puke in my car."

"Then don't drive like you usually do."

"I'm not a bad driver."

"I could drive better and I can't reach the pedals."

He rolled his eyes. "The nausea will go away if you keep your mouth shut."

"Jerk." I mumbled.

---

Naomi opened the door for us when we got to Alex's work. She glanced at me and frowned. "Is somebody not feeling good?"

"I'm afraid not. Can you call Monica and have her meet me in exam room 2?"

Naomi nodded. "Of course. I hope she feels better soon."

Alex smiled at her as he stepped through the second set of doors. Naomi opened those for us, too.

I waited until the door shut behind us and Alex was walking down the hall. "You like her."

Alex rolled his eyes. A little too hard, if you ask me. "She's helping me out. I'm just being polite."

"I can tell when a guy likes someone and you like her."

He looked down at me. "I've got other things to worry about than a relationship."

"I'm almost a hundred percent sure she won't care about that. In fact, she seems to me like the type of person who would love to have someone like me around."

"As far as she knows, you can't talk so I'm sure once you say one word, she'll run as far away as she can."

"You can only run so far in Alpine."

---

Hey guys! A new chapter will be posted Sunday sometime so stay tuned. We'll be finding out what's wrong with Lyla. You don't want to miss it!

Also, I wanted to share that I use Grammarly when writing and it always wants to change 'bear' to 'beer' so it cracked me up when it wanted 'I threw my bear at him' to 'I threw my beer at him'. Like... could you imagine little Lyla throwing a beer? Funny stuff.

I love you guys and have a good weekend!