“I think you might have a stomach bug,” I say to her as I get ready for work. “You should stay home and take a sick day. Tori can help me today.”
“Thanks,” she says. “But I would feel weird staying here in your house all by myself. Can you drop me off at the cottage on your way into the office?”
I want to tell her that it doesn’t feel weird at all to have her stay here, and that it already feels like she is at home here with us, but I don’t. Instead, I just nod and take her back to her cottage, knowing that last night was likely the last time she will sleep in my bed again.
After a relatively uneventful day at work, which I could barely concentrate on since I mostly kept texting Seraphine to see how she was feeling, I head home to make dinner for Lilly.
“How was your date last night with Seraphine?” she asks with an impish grin.
“It was good,” I smile. “But then she started not feeling well and wanted to go home so she could rest this morning.”
Lilly frowns.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought she was starting to feel like thiswasher home,” she says. “And I thought that you might be starting to feel like you wanted her to stay here with us.”
“Lilly,” I say as tenderly as I can. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about that. What matters is that Seraphine goes where she feels the happiest and most comfortable.”
Her frown changes into a big smile and her eyes widen.
“I knew it,” she says matter-of fact. “Youloveher.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous. What in the world would make you think that?” I ask, feeling flustered.
“Because that is how people act when they love someone—they want them to be happy.”
Oh,the wisdom of youth.
She’s not entirely wrong.
Chapter Eleven
Seraphine
I don’t know what in the world I’ve been hit with, but this sickness just doesn’t seem to want to relent. I’ve been sick off and on for several days now, and every time I start to feel like I am getting better, it flares up again. I’ve never known a stomach bug to linger like this, and to come and go as it pleases.
Every time I start to feel better, I try to go back to work. But during the workday, I have several bouts of feeling sick again. I try to push through it, running to the bathroom in the middle of conference calls and doing things like cutting out coffee and sticking to bland foods so that I don’t irritate whatever is causing my gut to rebel against me, but nothing seems to work. One minute I feel absolutely fine, and the next minute I am hugging the porcelain bowl.
“Okay, enough is enough, youneedto go see a doctor,” Chad scolds after one of my several runs to the bathroom.
“Sorry,” I apologize, realizing that my meeting notes are probably full of holes.
“I’m not upset because of work, Seraphine. I’m upset because you are obviously not getting any better.”
He’s not wrong. It’s the strangest thing though. Sometimes, I feel as though I am completely better, only to have a wave of nausea overwhelm me. Whatever this bug is, it’s definitely not easing up.
“If it was something viral, it would have run its course already and be gone. You might need some medication or maybe you have an underlying condition that needs treatment.”
“You sound like a doctor,” I tease.
“I’m not,” he replies, obviously not amused. “But I do think that you need one.”
“I don’t even have a doctor here yet,” I protest. “I don’t even know who to go and see.”
“There’s a walk-in clinic only a mile from here,” Tori adds as if she is dumping fuel on the fire. “I can drive you there if you’d like.”
“No thanks,” I sigh. I’m not going to win this argument against the both of them, and even though Ihateseeing doctors, they are probably right. It has been going on for too long now, and I hate being sick so much—evenmorethan I hate going to the doctor.