The Misfortunes Of Carrie

Chapter Twenty| The Misfortune in Photo Albums

Chapter Twenty| The Misfortune in Photo Albums

The next week was straight from hell.

On account of having stood in the bitter rain, I caught the flu and my monthly gift from Mother Nature arrived.

I was in literal pain. Physical and emotion and everything in the middle.

I couldn't bare it, I couldn't take it and I had pretty much shut down from the world outside of my head, living in my bedroom, barely eating and sleeping for hours on end.

Guilt consumed me on every level. Guilt from having to see Valentina and Alec having to watch my every movement (not that I did much). Guilt from eating so much chocolate (from the gift baskets) that I threw up on my bedroom floor and Alec had to clean it up. Guilt from having to throw away every single bouquet of flowers that came in because I was allergic to them.

After throwing away the fifth gorgeous bouquet, I had Valentina take them to mum and dad's grave and I picked out all of the mistletoe (left over from Christmas decorations that people threw in) and left it for Will. He loved mistletoe, for some reason.

He would hang it all over the place and wait for a pretty girl to come by and kiss him. It was funny until he left a bunch up in the school and Mrs. Fitzmaurice and Mr. Lynch had to peck each other's cheek in front of the entire school assembly.

He got suspended and was forbidden from hanging mistletoe on school property again.

Besides, I think he liked mistletoe because it was the only plant that didn't make me sneeze like crazy.

Alec and Valentina kept a close watch on me for some reason; it wasn't like I was going anywhere. I barely had the energy to get out of bed every few hours. School was pretty much the furthest thing from my mind and even when I did think about it, I could practically hear my grades dropping by the second, not that that mattered to me much either. When Valentina had dance practice, Alec stayed with me, usually doing his own homework or trying to get me to say something (which I didn't really feel like doing either). Mrs. Finch would come by every few days to cook and fill the fridge up with frozen food, but I mostly ate the tasteless noodles that tasted mostly like cardboard. I couldn't hold down anything else.

Most days, I would stay bunched up in the bed, hidden among the blankets and the crumpled tissues that lay beside my bedside, sleeping and/or completely numb and oblivious to those around me. Every once in a while, I would drift out and manage to get myself out of bed to move onto the couch and then sleep there.

Also, I cried uncontrollably.

Like, I could not stop.

I couldn't help it, it hurt. Every part of my body hurt and my heart ached with a pain that could be rivaled by the greater pains themselves. I hated people seeing me cry, so when I needed to cry, I would hide in the bathroom and completely lose track of time and everything around me. Of course, when Alec twisted his ankle trying to kick down the door because I fell asleep in the bathroom, I made sure to make some sort of a noise to let him know I was okay.

And even when I did that, whoever was babysitting me would sit outside the bathroom door.

I'm sure I had a certain number of visitors, which I pretended to be asleep when they came by.

"How is she doing?" A voice whispered quietly but I didn't know who since I was curled up in the bed, with my blanket turned away from whoever was talking.

"I don't know. Sick, she has a pretty bad fever and can't hold anything down when I can even get her to eat. Other than that, she's completely locked herself in. She's just stopped, like her whole world has just frozen completely. I don't know how to talk to her or reach out either," Alec's voice rang and I roll my eyes.