A Little Love (1st Draft)

Chapter 5: Thank God

Chapter 5

Thank God

Alec

My heart pounded over and over. It felt like it was going to come out of my chest. Ariana was coming to the door, wasn't it? It wasn't going to be some random person. I knew she didn't have family living with her, so it couldn't be that. I heard the click of the door lock and the door slowly began to open.

I saw her face.

My face dropped.

She looked sick.

Her face was like a sheet of fresh white snow, but her cheeks were clearly red. Her body wavered, and she looked like she was about to fall over. I pushed the door farther open, disregard for anything at the moment as I reached to grab her shoulders, ensuring that she wasn't going to collapse.

"Ariana?" I ask. "What happened? Are you okay?"

She turned her face to the side and I hear her cough. It sounded deep into her chest. I slowly walked into the house, closing the door behind me to make sure that the cat, or rather a beast of a cat didn't get out of the house.

"I... think I have a cold..." her voice said weakly and she coughed. "I... what are you doing here?" Her voice was frail. This was more than a cold. She didn't look like she had just a cold. My mind was going straight to a cluster of questions. Because I couldn't get by without asking them. I hold my tongue as I didn't want to ask them while she was standing. I needed to get her to sit down.

"Let's just get you to sit, for now, you look like you're going to fall over," I say stating the obvious. I walked her to the couch where My Little Pony was playing on the TV. Truth be told I wanted to pick her up and set her on the couch myself, but I didn't want to overstep my bounds.

After she sat down, I bent down so I was eye level with her.

"I don't think I'll be able to go out tonight..." she says dazedly.

"I don't care about that," I say bluntly, and the back of my hand reaches up to her forehead and presses against it, flipping to my palm to press against her cheek. She was warm, very warm. "How long have you been like this?" I ask.

"Just today..." she answers. Though, I think even she was unsure. "I didn't sleep well when you dropped me off," she mentions. She turns away from me and coughs again.

"Just today?" I asked. "Ariana... do you know that it's Tuesday right now?" I ask. It was three days from when we first met. She looked at me like I was high or something.

"No, that can't be, it should only be Sunday." She says bluntly like I was joking with her. I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone to show her the lock screen.

"See, It's Tuesday," I say. Now I was really concerned.

"But I thought... it.... No..." She looked quite concerned like she was going to go into a panic attack. I quickly rubbed her hand.

"It's okay," I say to try and comfort her. "Ariana... have you eaten anything, drank anything? Have you taken your temperature at all? What hurts?" I ask. I ask too many questions at once and she looks so confused to even answer them. I was two steps from calling an ambulance.

I was staring at her straight into her eyes. Her eyes looked so glossed over. She looked like she was comprehending what I said, but she was only slowly coming out with answers. "I don't remember..." She said to the first two. She shook her head to the third question and then I saw a few tears in her eyes. "Everything hurts..." she says.