She closes it and lets herself plop to the side.Oof,she really shouldn’t have done that, she should’ve slipped back into a fresh set of pajamas first...
The sound of her phone ringing startles her awake. She’s confused about her whereabouts: her feet are near her pillow and she’s stretched out on the bed diagonally. She’s still wrapped in the towel too; she must’ve fallen asleep like that.
Her phone rings again and she hoists herself up, but her head feels stupid heavy. She vaguely registers Gabi’s name on her screen, closes her eyes and swipes to answer.
“Norwich residence, lady of the house speaking.”
“My god, Charlotte. Did you make sweet love to a steamroller?”
“Wh— what?”
She opens her eyes and realizes she is on a video call. Gabi looks somewhere between amused and horrified, and in the tiny rectangle that displays her own face she notices the way her hair clings to her from falling asleep right after her shower.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she growls, angling the phone away. “Just tell me why you’re calling and go back to minding your own business.”
“You’re my business, actually,” Gabi says. “I was worried because you haven’t replied to my texts.”
Charlotte furrows her brows and swipes down the notification menu; she’s missed various texts from Gabi with an exponentially increasing demand to respond. She groans.
“That bad, huh?” Gabi asks, a hint of amusement still in her voice. “You seem to be the living example that hangovers well over the age of 30 last three to five business days.”
Charlotte whips her phone back around, holding it close to her eyes.
“Now listen here you bitch, if you keep bringing up—”
She suddenly pulls away, squints into the light, lifts a finger, and sneezes into her elbow. Loudly.
“Jesus Christ, Charlotte, my glassware just rattled.”
“If you keep— If you keep bringing up—”
She pulls away and sneezes again. And again.
“Uhm, so… have you considered the possibility that it might not be a hangover?” Gabi suggests carefully.
Charlotte sniffles, then scoffs. “Selling Tylenol and condoms doesn’t make you a doctor, Gabrielle.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you just sneezed yourself back to factory settings. Go to bed, I’ll bring you some food.”
“I’m fine, there’s really no need to play the hero.” Charlotte’s whine is met with a challenging eyebrow.
“Alright. So then tell me, because I was going to ask anyway: what happened in the club bathroom?”
“You know what Gabi, I actually do feel kind of feverish.”
“We saw you leave together.”
“I think I’ll get delirious if I don’t hang up now!”
“Did you kiss or fight? Please. You can blink twice for kiss—”
“Oh, the pain!” Charlotte yowls, draping the back of her hand against her forehead like in a Victorian painting. “The tragedy! The end is near!”
She makes a theatrical choking sound and hangs up.
The rest of the day she spends in bed too, slowly coming to the realization Gabi might be right. Her nose clogs up and her throat starts producing increasingly unappetizing sounds. She keeps reminding herself to drink water, but can’t really do much more than that.
Her heart aches a little when Gabi, the absolute superhero that she is, does drop off a care package by her front door later that afternoon. There’s soup, tea, tissues, more ibuprofen, fresh juice, and tupperware with a home-cooked meal. That’ll get her through the night.
