Page 28 of Man Flu

Chapter Seven

And this just became the worst, mondayist Wednesday ever …

PLEASE TELL ME I made it to the restroom. I’m not on the laminate wooden floor with dozens of people staring at me, including Logan, a man I’ve probably made up in my head, which would just add to my insanity.

With another round of impending bile rising through my esophagus, I grapple the leg of a nearby chair as the sounds of a dog with a hairball buck through my throat. My hair is pulled away from my face, which is pointless since it already has chunks dangling from the ends. Then, a hand touches my back—a warm hand. “Let me help you up.”

“I don’t think I can move,” I try to say, though it comes out sounding as if I swallowed a porcupine.

Logan squats down beside me and hands me a wad of napkins. My hands are soaked in a puddle of coffee-laced puke, but I reach up to take the napkins, unsure where to clean first. Everything feels like it’s in slow motion as I clean my face.

“Ma’am, we’re going to need to ask you to move so we can mop. It’s a health code violation.”

“Hey man, give her a minute. She’s clearly having a rough time getting up,” Logan says.

“I’m losing customers,” the man continues.

As the wave of nausea passes, anger fills the empty pit in my stomach. Who the hell says stuff like that while someone is obviously sick to her stomach?

A man.

I push myself up off the ground, saturating my hands in my vomit as I come to my knees, and Logan loops a hand around my elbow to help me up the rest of the way. I try to carry myself respectably to the restroom, attempting to maintain a sense of acting like a lady after that display.

After retreating from the restroom, Logan guides me outside. The fresh air feels good on my skin, but I can still smell the horrid scent of bile, and I’m afraid to look down at my clothes.

“I think you caught whatever Cora has,” Logan says.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good assumption.” The words feel like rusty nails in my throat, and my head just became a twenty-pound weight I don’t want to hold up for much longer.

“I’ll get you home,” he says.

“No, I have to get back to work. I have to plan for the event.”

Logan snickers and runs his fingers through his short, dark hair. “No offense, but you’re covered in vomit.”

“I’ll shower and change, but I have to be at work today.”

“Okay, then.” He looks at me like I have two heads but doesn’t argue, which is nice. Most of the men I associate with are insistent and on the controlling side of the spectrum. “Let me take you to your house, at least, so you don’t have to drive.”

“It’s just down the road a few miles.” I try to offer a faint smile, but the tingling in my throat pauses all facial expressions and bodily movements. Please, no. Just pass. I don’t know who told me this old wives’ tale, but I’m staring up into the clouds, pulling in deep breaths as if it will wash the nausea away. Whoever came up with this shit is probably the same person who said to chew ginger gum for morning sickness. Gum causes saliva and saliva goes down and then comes back up. Bastards.

By some luck, the wave of sickness passes by like a putrid breeze, and I continue walking toward Logan’s truck with his escorting assistance. I’m waiting for the lecture on trying not to puke on the luxurious interior of his truck, but it never comes.

“I’ll tell you to pull over if I feel sick.”

“We’ll be okay,” he says, placing his hand softly on my back. With a flick of his wrist, the passenger door opens, and he gently helps me up and inside. I lean my head back and close my eyes, wishing for the unsettling sensation in my gut to go away. The ride will not make it better. That much, I know.

My memories of feeling like death while pregnant with Cora play through my mind like an old movie. I would tell Rick I didn’t feel well, and he’d tell me not to yak in his car because he didn’t want it to smell like vomit for the next month. He had it pretty rough during my pregnancy, working from six in the morning until eight at night. I was asleep when he left and asleep by time he got home, and worked in between all that too.

“Are you hanging in there?” Logan asks.

“Mmm,” I groan, scared to open my mouth. Then it dawns on me, though. He has no clue where I live, so we’re driving aimlessly but in the right direction at least. Rather than popping the cork, I point in the directions he needs to turn, which works out fine up until we hit my street. The deep breaths, the tight jaw, the clenched eyes—none of it’s working. Just a few more seconds until we make it to the driveway. I point a second too late, and he pulls into the wrong driveway. He pulls into Rick’s driveway, but I don’t care now as I push open the door, falling on the way. The moment my knees touch the pavement, an explosion of bile pours from my throat in old-fashioned, exorcist style. What the hell? I’m starting to wonder if I have food poisoning, but one would have to eat something for that to happen, and coffee doesn’t count. I don’t think.

The retching sound I make is basically a call for the neighbors to poke their heads out of their doors, looking for the source of the horrendous noises. Tiana is one of those neighbors, except I’m on her driveway, so she has more of an excuse to look.

“Rick!” she yells. “There’s a truck in our driveway, and some woman is puking her guts out. Can you please get rid of them?”

It truly amazes me—even as I sit here with vomit dripping from my lips—what Rick saw in this woman beside her double D’s, perky ass, and Botox-infused lips. Oh, she probably gives him head more than once a week. That must be where I went wrong all those years. Silly, Hannah.