It started with a sneeze.
A tiny, innocent achoo that echoed down the hallway while she was brushing her hair. I didn’t think much of it at first. She sneezes dramatically even when she isn’t sick.
But then came the sniffles.
Then the groaning.
And then the melodramatic declaration from beneath a pile of blankets on the couch:
> “I’m dying. This is the end. I never even got to bungee jump or win a karaoke contest.”
I peeked over the edge of the couch. She looked like a burrito of tissues and despair.
“You have a cold,” I said calmly.
“I have a tragedy.”
I brought her water. She let it sit untouched while she dramatically clutched a heating pad like it was her last hope.
Then she coughed.
Loudly.
On purpose.
Four times.
“…Did you fake that last one?” I asked.
She sniffled. “No. That one was real. The one before it was practice.”
—
By noon, I had become a personal nurse, chef, emotional support system, and occasional punching bag.
She rejected my chicken soup, claiming it tasted “too healthy.”
She rejected medicine because “What if my body builds immunity and it stops working one day during a real crisis?”
And she rejected sleep because “What if I never wake up and you find me frozen in an awkward pose?”
“You are the most dramatic sick person alive,” I muttered, placing a cool cloth on her forehead.
She opened one eye. “That’s because I want to be remembered.”
“You’ll be remembered, alright. As the girl who weaponized a common cold.”
—
But then, somewhere around 3 a.m., it shifted.
She was quiet. Too quiet.
Her cheeks were warm with fever, her breathing shallow. She whimpered softly in her sleep, mumbling something about being cold.
I sat beside her and replaced the cloth.
Held her hand.
And, against all odds, worried.
She always joked. Always teased. Always had a comeback ready.
But lying there like that—vulnerable, fragile, and quiet—she felt like something I wasn’t ready to lose.
Not even for a second.
—
In the morning, she blinked up at me. “You stayed?”
“I’m not a monster.”
She smiled weakly. “You’re sweet when I’m half-dead.”
“You’re annoying even at 39.5 degrees Celsius.”
“Romantic.”
She reached up, barely brushing my cheek with her hand. “You’d miss me if I was gone, wouldn’t you?”
I looked at her.
Tired. Messy. Sick.
Still the most chaotic thing in my life.
“More than I’d ever admit out loud,” I said.
She grinned.
Then sneezed directly into my shirt.
“…I take it back.”
To be continued…
