I'm Normally Perfect (re-upload)

Chapter Sixty-Three

[Author's Note: In an effort to get the rest of the book up, I'm posting the remaining chapters without lightly editing like I've been doing to the previous million pages. Keep in mind I wrote this nearly twenty years ago and it's still a draft. Perhaps at some point in future I'll come back and look over it. Thank you for reading and your support and patience.

Also, there are some traumatic happenings including an assault in one of the upcoming chapters that isn't graphic, but it does happen. This is your content warning.]

With the start of Michaelmas came Alex's yearly mad planting schedule in preparation for the spring. She liked how everything came alive after winter and wanted the gardens to burst into life or some such piffle. I liked how happy it made her so I really didn't mind; besides, she was adorable in her gardening togs. From the window my desk was against I'd watch her playing in the dirt and find myself grinning stupidly. Sometimes she'd look up at me and either smile or point as if to say, 'Get back to work.' I'd pull a face and return to my computer.

She also began her lecture series at Milton. She was lecturing on the changing role of women in literature both as writers and characters and I sat in on one of her sessions. I'd never realised that I hadn't seen her teach before. I sat in the back row in the lecture hall and watched her walk around down near the lectern, gesturing casually as she spoke; her voice carrying over the hall and the pupils making notes. She was completely in control of the room up there-the sort of professor a student wouldn't dare show up tardy for. I'd not known what a commanding person she was until that day. It was-quite frankly-hot.

At the end I waited for everyone to file out of the hall before approaching her. She asked, 'What did you think?'

'I think I would have pounced on you a lot sooner if I'd seen you lecture.'

She laughed, 'Come now.'

'All right.'

She looked at me, trying to figure out if I was being serious then we hurried over to her office.

Alex came down with flu the second week of term and so we skipped the first dons' meeting-much to my relief, though I hated that Alex was ill. It was hard seeing her so sick and being able to do nothing more about it than bring her soup and orange squash. Actually, it was odd seeing her ill in the first place, as she'd not had so much as a sniffle during the nearly six years I'd known her. She didn't complain about feeling unwell, but she was so pale and hot I felt horribly for her. 'Hot' in the high temperature sort of way. Flu isn't sexy in the least. During the good days I'd sit on the bed and she'd rest her head in my lap and I'd stroke her hair. The bad days were spent with her in the loo and me asking from outside if she needed anything. She didn't want me to see her that way, but I found I wanted to be with her even if it was nauseating-if I couldn't do anything to make it better the least I could do was offer some moral support. It was strange feeling protective of another person, as I'd always felt rather like the one who needed protecting. Being with her made me feel safe and loved, but it'd also given me the strength to see myself as something other than a victim.

Even with an illness designed personally by Satan she insisted on going in to work all hopped up on cold medication, so I drove her in and packed her off to class like a parent. Then I'd drive back and collect her at the end of the day. She'd fall into the car exhausted and I'd ask after her day. We'd get home and I bundle her off to bed and make soup, explaining to the girls to be good, as their mum wasn't feeling well.

When she was first coming down with it she'd insist she was fine to stay up and work outside, but by the end of it she didn't argue and dragged up the stairs to collapse into bed. One day I brought up her dinner tray to find her asleep on the eiderdown fully clothed. I undressed her with minimal assistance on her behalf and got her into her jim-jams and beneath the bedclothes and fed her some soup before she succumbed to sleep. It was only a week, but it was the longest week of my life. When she was fully recovered I forbade her getting sick again for at least another six years. She chuckled and promised.