Their Perfect Match

9

Layla/Morgan

I wake up feeling groggy as hell. I’m sweating like crazy, I pull away all the blankets that are restricting me. I slowly get out of bed, gently setting my feet on the floor, testing out the cast, putting a bit of pressure on it, it feels okay so I take a few hesitant steps testing the waters.

I brace myself on the furniture as I make my way across the room and into the hallway. I can hear Blake talking to someone from the next room, when I reach the living room I’m tired. I lean against the couch and take a deep breath, Blake looks over and sees me. He immediately comes over to my side, picking me up once more and carries me over to the kitchen table.

“You shouldn’t be walking around” He scolds me

He sits me down on a chair, helps me prop my casted leg up on a chair with a pillow under it, “Are you feeling better?”

“I guess, I feel sorta loopy still. Tired, but overall okay I guess. Mostly I’m bored” I sigh, looking around the room. It's neat and tidy but there's nothing to do. Everything has its place and Blake seems like the kind of guy to keep things a certain way. Tidy.

“Bored huh, what do you like to do?” He rests his chin on his hand and gives me a lazy grin.

“I like to read, I was always at the library when I had time. I could spend hours just sitting in one of those comfy oversized reading chairs with a good book, just getting lost in another world” I sigh, remembering the good memories I had. The only good memories I had really.

“Reading huh?”

“Yep” I run my fingers along the wooden table, feeling the grain against my fingertips. I think about my books back at my apartment. I might not have had many but the small collection I did have made me really happy. It took me a while to be able to afford to buy any new books, most of them were from second hand stores, all tattered and worn but they meant a lot to me.

“You could watch a movie” He suggests, nodding to the giant TV opposite the couch, “Get all cozy with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate and watch some sappy chick flick”

“I’m more of a tea drinker… but I suppose it would pass the time” I shrug

Five minutes later I’m settled on the couch, scrolling through Netflix and sipping on a cup of tea. I get bored pretty quickly into the movie and end up closing my eyes to have a nap, waking up to the smell of something cooking.

“I figured you’d be hungry” Blake says from the kitchen a few feet away, he’s cooking what smells like chicken and rice with broccoli. My stomach grumbles in response to him,

“Starving”

I’m so hungry I practically inhale my food, not noticing the tingling feeling in my throat until halfway through the meal. I drop my fork on the table, my eyes widening and panic taking over me for a moment.

“What is in this?” I bark out, feeling my throat swelling.

“I cooked the chicken with a bit of basil, nothing fancy, the broccoli has lemon juice-”

I slap the table in alarm!

I’m allergic to lemons. Being hit by a f*****g truck didn’t kill me but a goddamn lemon does.

Great.

I shoot up from the table ignoring the pain in my leg as I do so, I don’t know where I plan on going, I take a shaky step and fall to the floor. My hands claw at my throat in desperation as it closes, as I gasp for air to no avail.

Blake runs from the room, leaving me on the floor to die. I can hear him cursing and things crashing in the bedroom before he comes running back to me, sliding across the floor next to me.

“How do I use this?!” He shouts at me, he’s holding my epi-pen in his hand which is shaking.

I reach down my body, slapping my outer thigh repeatedly with the last bit of my strength. He seems to understand the message, my eyes are blurred with tears, at this point I can’t see but I feel the hard jab of the pen in the spot on my thigh.

Blake

Watching her grasping at her throat like she can’t breathe, I remember she mentioned she has an allergy to citrus this morning and I completely forgot about it. I sprinkled lemon juice on the broccoli before serving it to her. I am going to kill her.

Leon said he grabbed some allergy meds from her apartment and an epi-pen too. I race to the bedroom to the duffle bag and dump everything on the bed looking for the damn thing. I pray by the time I find the f*****g thing she’s not dead on my kitchen floor. I finally find it and run back to her, sliding across the floor beside her, scooping up her head in my hand.

“How do I use this?!” I panic, I’ve never held an epi-pen before in my life. I need to take a first aid course. I need to be prepared if this ever happens again. Just in the few minutes since she started to get a reaction, she'd developed a full body case of hives and a patchy rash has broken out over her cheeks, neck and part of her chest.

She can barely even open her eyes, her body is going limp in my arms, her one hand is able to move down her side and slap her outer thigh four times before it goes limp beside her. I pull the cap off with my teeth and line it up quickly before stabbing her hard in the leg and pressing my thumb down on the button. I don’t know how long I’m supposed to hold it down for but I guess the longer the better so I keep it down for a good ten seconds before pulling it back and tossing it to the side. I place my hand over the injection site and gently massage it, trying to comfort her in some way. I carry her to the couch and lay her down, putting a cold cloth on her forehead.

I check her pulse repeatedly for the next twenty minutes, making sure she is breathing. The hives seem to be slowly going down but the rash is still very prominent across her chest and neck.

I pull my phone out and call Dr. Clifton, asking him to make a housecall. He doesn’t seem to be happy about it, but once I tell him what happened, he is more understanding.

“You’re really trying to kill this poor girl aren’t you?” He sighs as he writes me a new prescription for her. I snatch the paper from him, “Get a full list of this girls medical history”

Shortly after the doctor leaves she stirs on the couch, waking up. Her cheeks flush and she looks down at her hands when I sit beside her.

“Well, that was unexpected” I let out a relieved nervous chuckle.

She shrugs “It’s not the first time it’s happened, won’t be the last”