Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-43-

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Days after that, Delilah's sudden constant nausea kept getting worse and staying day after day after day. After a while of her showing up to work at Ghost Ranch and not being able to work because she felt so bad, Ryan started to grow suspicious.

Today was one of those miserable sick days.

Ryan decided to give her the rest of the day off because she deserved it. She's been working her ass off (what time she wasn't kneeling in the bathroom puking her guts out) and never missed a beat, no matter how bad she felt.

And here they both are again. Delilah on her knees in front of the toilet, one hand on the rim and the other clutching Ryan's hand like her life depended on it. At times it felt like she was cutting off circulation to his hand with how hard she would squeeze. His free hand was holding her hair up for her, each wavy strand gathered together in a big messy ponytail behind her head. They followed the routine of puke, wet washcloth, water, for each time her stomach acted up and she began to feel puny again. Without fail, afterwards, she would profusely apologize to him and he always smiled softly at her and told her that it was okay.

He's a grown man, and he's seen much worse than Delilah throwing up in his toilet.

Seeing her so miserable made his heart ache.

After a few more minutes, she was finally done and Ryan let her hair go and stood up to get a washcloth and wet it underneath the sink. She watched him as he did so, somewhat confused on why he cared this much. To most, what he's doing is considered the bare minimum, but to girls like her it was everything— nobody ever did things like this when she felt sick. Nobody but Ryan.

"What's that look for?" He asked, shooting her a playful glance, trying to lighten the mood.

"Nothin'." She smiled. He reached down to hand her the washcloth before he went off to the kitchen for a glass of water. When he got back and handed her the water, she thanked him without saying a word. The look in her eyes said more than her words ever dreamt of.

Delilah leaned back against the bathtub and let her eyes fall shut while she brought her hands up to rub her temples with her thumbs. Again, the infamous headache was back.

"You sure you don't wanna go to the doctor?" Ryan blurted out. His eyes widened as if he didn't mean to let that slip past his lips. Instantly, he wished there was a way to take that back. He knew she was beyond scared of hospitals, and nothing could ever get her to go to one and it'd just end up in an argument like one an old married couple would have. Neither wanted to argue right now, especially Delilah.

She was mentally and physically exhausted.

"I'll be fine, okay? It's probably just a stomach bug or something."

"If you say so."

                                         —
A week later

Instead of getting better, she was getting worse.

Her stomach was constantly sore, she had to rush to the bathroom with an upset stomach as soon as she woke up in the mornings, and each day more odd shit kept happening to add to her body that- in her words, "is going haywire", and most of the things she couldn't even put a name on.

And today it was so bad she could barely get out of bed to migrate to the couch with a cup of hot, steaming coffee in her hands. She took the day off to stay at home and try to figure out what was wrong with her and hibernate the majority of the day. Maybe she was just tired?

"Hey, dumbass?!" Zach calls out from the kitchen, which was close enough to the living room someone could fart and whoever was in the living room would hear (and smell, but that's beside the point). Yelling in that old ass trailer was nowhere near necessary, but Zach did it all the time for no reason. "Just to be an asshole" is what Delilah came up with, which sounded like a damn good reason to him, apparently.