2 7 1 |Noorhelm|

DAY 46 - JULY 20TH (pt. 1)

The trip to Paris had been a big success, perfect even, until the very last day. Noora had been feeling sick and totally off from the moment she woke up in the morning. Their plane left at noon, and the whole trip wasn't far from utter hell. William had chased her down the middle aisle, all the way to the tiny bathroom to hold her has as she threw up - twice. It barely fit them both, but Noora appreciated him being there for her, even though it was as gross at it could get. Let alone the bathrooms on board weren't that clean.

As soon as they arrived back home at the apartment, Noora had crashed into their bed, not bothering with changing into something more comforting. William could only stand in the doorway to their bedroom as a hopeless bystander, who wished he could make her feel better. Quietly parking their suitcases in the room, he lied down next to his girlfriend, face to face, and gently began to stroke her hair.

"Maybe you ate something bad? We did eat those snails yesterday," he mumbled quietly, looking at her with concerned eyes, but she responded with a small shake of the head.

Eyes closed, she tried to relax under his touch and used her very limited strength to speak up.

"It doesn't feel like food poisoning. I can't explain it. It just feels like everything is disgusting and makes me want to puke."

Even as worried as he was, William couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Even me?"

She didn't answer, but simply sighed.

"I'll leave you to rest. I'll be right in the living room, if you need me, okay? I'm right here." Before getting out of bed, he placed a tender kiss to her forehead, emphasizing what he'd just said.

Noora was already asleep, or so he thought. As soon as she heard the door close behind him, leaving her in a pitch dark room, her eyes were wide open and they didn't look as happy or peaceful as they had in Paris. Something was on her mind. Something big. She quickly grabbed her phone, unlocked it and opened the internet browser, before she started typing and scrolling around. Noora, more than anyone else, knew that not everything online could be trusted, but there was no doubt that the information online hit her hard. So damn hard that she, more than ever, felt sick and had to put her phone away and lie back down. The feeling of nausea, tiredness, dizziness and guilt shot through her entire body. Sleep, Noora. Sleep, she thought to herself and tried to close her eyes. Only after what seemed like hours and hours of tossing and turning, she managed to pass out of tiredness and fall asleep. What time was it even? She had no idea.

Later, when she felt her body gain consciousness again, it was still pitch dark in the room, but noises came from the living room next door. Slowly, squinting at her slight headache, she got out of bed and made her way to the door. William was probably watching TV or playing video games. He would do that sometimes, when she wasn't around. Halting before the closed door, she had a quick internal battle with herself. Tell him or not? the guilt immediately came back in more forms than one. One of them being more nausea. She pushed open the door, knowing what was waiting ahead and feeling tears on the verge of spilling.

"William?" She whimpered.

Her body froze. No William.

"Oh, hey Noora."

The nonchalant hi came from Chris, the best friend, sitting on their couch and watching the TV. He didn't look at her at first, but quickly noticed the weird silence and looked away from the TV.

"You okay?" He frowned. "You look really sick."

"Where's William?" She didn't even feel like answering his question slash statement.

"He just went to grab some food for us all. He also mentioned something about grabbing... chocolate milk? I don't know what's up with that, but he'll be back in 10 or something."

Frozen, feeling all too overwhelmed and not ready to deal with anything in the entire world, Noora started straight out sobbing as her shoulders shook along. Chris, knowing Noora quite well by now, but not nowhere enough to feel comfortable with this, quickly stood up and walked over to her.

"Woah, Noora? Why are you crying?"

By reflex, not being a total asshat 24/7, the young man enveloped her in his arms and held her against his chest. She couldn't manage to talk, but simply kept crying into her boyfriend's best friend.

"Is something wrong with you and Will? He looked completely cool though."

Noora felt a shock go through her body, stopping the crying as she shook her head no into his shoulder. The guilt and nausea was unbearable, even though she knew it was out of her hands - the guilt. She shouldn't feel this way, she knew, but she couldn't help it. It was all so fucked up.

"Oh, okay. That's good, I guess..." Chris bit his lip nervously, trying to figure out what it could be. "Then what is it? If you really need to tell someone, you can totally tell me? You're William's girl. If there's anything I can do then-"

Noora didn't think. Not in that very moment. Her head shut up, looking at Chris with wet and red eyes.

"I think I'm pregnant."