The Pointe Of The Game

Chapter 19

My girl falls asleep almost immediately after my mom leaves the room which leaves me to my thoughts. I feigned being busy earlier because I wanted her to sleep but now that she's actually sleeping, I have no idea what to do. I have to stay in here because I don't want her to puke again and choke to death but at the same time, I feel awkward just sitting here doing nothing like a creep. I decide now's a good time to get my homework done, so I run and grab my bag before coming back to join Ols. I am in the middle of doing my English paper when Ollie stirs again. It's been only 15 minutes. She should still be asleep. She groans before sitting up and running out of the room and a minute later I hear her puking. I hurry over to the bathroom where she is and see her resting her head on the bowl of the toilet, just finishing her upheaval. After I'm sure she's done, I slowly help her up from the toilet and back to the couch where she quickly falls asleep again. Deciding that I don't want to sit here and do nothing, I grab Ollie's phone from her bag and text her mom's number:

Olivia: Hello Mrs. Beckhams this is Charlie. Olivia has been puking all afternoon so I brought her over to my house where my mom and I have been taking care of her.

She doesn't reply right away, but then again I didn't expect her to because she's probably in the middle of a shift. Still, I wanted to make sure she knew nevertheless. My mom walks in a minute later, "Did she puke again?" she asks. I nod my head, preoccupied with my paper once again and she sits down on the opposite couch but not before putting a bowl on the floor next to Ollie. We sit like this for a while before I put my stuff away and head back to school for basketball practice. Once I pull into the parking lot, I quickly change into my gym clothes and head to the gym. I see my whole group of friends with no one else from the team in the gym and they're all huddled together on the bleachers talking to each other. When Aaron sees me, he jutts his head towards the direction of the group signaling for me to join them. I walk over and sit down while tuning into their conversation.

"I'm just saying, if men could fly it would solve all our problems." Jordan was telling the group. Noah was sketching a picture of what we would look like if we could fly and Elijah was helping him, giving pointers here and there. Aaron was trying to convince them that it's better if they could teleport instead of flying. And Levi is downright ignoring them playing snake runner on his phone. They all fall silent and look at me with brooding eyes. I sigh before saying, " I would rather be able to teleport. You wouldn't need to fly if you could teleport everywhere" I hear a collective "that makes sense" and "that's right" as they all agree in unison. We continue talking for a few more minutes as everyone else on the team trickles in slowly. The coaches come in a minute later and we get started practicing.

----------------

The next day Ollie still isn't feeling very well but luckily her dad will be able to stay with her so that she's not alone all day. I pick up her homework for her and before I go home, I decide to go by our local cafe and pick her up some of my favorite soup. My mom would always buy a special soup for whenever we were sick and even though we don't live in Illinois anymore, I found this soup a few weeks ago and I've been buying it nonstop for a snack whenever I'm near this cafe. After I get her some soup, I drive back to my house and walk over to her house, knocking on the door. Her dad opens the door a second later and I say, "Hello sir, I brought over some stuff for Olivia. May I see her?" "She's asleep. I can give it to her and you can see her later." he informs me. Before accepting her homework and soup and closing the door. I walk back to my house utterly confused. I go up onto my roof and pull out my phone and shoot Ols a text:

Charlie: Hey Ollie girl how are you feeling?

Hedgehog: I'm feeling a little bit better still puking and can't hold anything down but besides that, I'm doing better.

Charlie: That's good Ols! I brought you your homework and soup. I gave it to your dad

Hedgehog: thanks boyfriend

I shut off my phone and lay back on the roof, mystified as to why her parents dislike me so much. All I want to do right now is run into my girl's house and wrap her up in my arms so that she never has to feel the hurt and pain of the world.

I go back downstairs when the sun starts to set and it starts to get cold out and because I'm hungry, I decide to make dinner tonight because I'm in the mood for some honey garlic chicken and my parents insist that I'm the best at making it and I honestly don't mind it because it's so satisfying to actually cook something that's made from random materials. I put some music on our kitchen speakers and get to work breading the chicken. About halfway through making dinner, my dad comes home from his office and sits at the island while talking about his day and asking about mine. We talk for a little while until I start to fry the chicken and my dad gets up and helps me with making the sauce. My mom walks into the house right as I'm frying the last of the chicken and joins in our conversation. She sets the table for us and I finish making the chicken and pour the sauce into a serving bowl. We all sit down and start eating with our conversation steered towards trivial topics.

It's almost eleven thirty when I finally go to bed. I text Ollie a good night and a promise to stop by tomorrow if she's still not feeling good. I don't get a response but I didn't think I would either. I plug in my phone and get into bed and fall asleep almost immediately.

The next day I'm starting my car when I see Ollie walk out with all of her stuff on her back. Mystified, I walk over to her and say, "Hey Ols! Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah." she continues, "See you at school huh?" before she promptly turns around and tries to get in her car. Tries being the keyword, because I grab onto her upper arm before she can take two steps away from me. I turn her back around to face me and corral her in my arms for a big bear hug. I notice how warm she feels in my arms. I look at her face and realize how flushed she looks too.

"Are you actually Ok? You still feel a little warm." I ask and she pulls out of my grasp.

"I haven't thrown up since yesterday and I don't want to have to make up any more work so I'm going back." She says trying to leave again.

"Why don't you ride with me?"

"I have stuff I gotta do after school. Don't worry about me, I'm fine. I promise." she says before successfully escaping. I let her go this time and watch as she pulls away before walking back to my car and doing the same.

True to her word, Ollie does indeed perk up throughout the day which eases my worries a little bit. I can't tell if she's being genuine about how she feels or not though. I just hope that for her sake, she would tell me if something was actually going on and wouldn't try and hide it from me.