AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tried to tell myself that I was just doing the halfway decent thing for a woman who didn’t seem to have anyone around to take care of her.
So I brewed a pot of coffee.
Then realized there were no clean cups in the cabinets, so I gathered all the others up and cleaned, dried, and put them up.
After that, as I was making the coffees, I spoke into her little electronic assistant thing, asking for migraine remedies.
Coffee, it seemed, could help.
I had that covered.
So could hydration, so I snagged a bottle of water from her fridge.
And cold compresses sometimes worked too. Luckily, she had a soft icepack in her freezer.
Armed with my supplies, and trying my damndest not to think about why I’d felt the need to gather them, I made my way back to her bedroom, setting the drinks on the nightstand that barely had enough room thanks to all the books stacked there, and pressed the icepack to her forehead.
From there, I took the prescription from the hospital, and went in search of an all-night pharmacy. Where I found myself browsing the aisles looking for more products that claimed to help migraines.
By the time I got back to the apartment, she was no longer in the bed, but rocking on the floor of the bathroom, gripping both sides of her head as she whimpered.
“What happened?” I asked, setting the bags on the counter as worry worked its way through my system.
“My head,” she groaned. “I threw up,” she added.
From the pain. I’d read about that on one of the products at the pharmacy. Headache pain could make humans sick, which was why there was some medicine for nausea in the bag.
“I got you more of the meds,” I told her, going into the bag to find the orange pill bottle, and shaking a pill into my hand.
She took it and the bottle of electrolyte fluid I handed to her, chugging them back, then resuming her rocking.
“I’ve never had a headache like this before,” she told me. “Not even my worst migraines have even come close to this.”
“It’s going to pass,” I told her. I didn’t exactly excel with comfort, seeing as it wasn’t exactly in my nature. But I figured the truth could be comforting. No migraine lasted forever. And thanks to modern human pharmaceuticals, there was hope that she might even feel better in an hour or so when the new pain pill kicked in.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You’ve done too much already,” she added.
“I don’t mind.”
I damn well should have minded.
“Do you want to go back to your bed?” I asked.
“Not until my stomach stops sloshing around,” she said as a tremble moved through her body.
That tremble gave me a purpose. Which was good because I fucking hated feeling useless. It was probably why I was so miserable on Earth. I had no mission, no job, no reason to get up every day—aside from the fact that I had no choice, of course.
Making my way into her living room, I gathered the thick blanket on the back of the couch, then made my way back to the bathroom to drape it around her, taking the little whimpering sound she made as a thank you.
Feeling intrusive, I made my way back out of the bathroom, going around her apartment, picking up stray shit and finding their homes, then doing a quick sweep, cleaning out the coffeepot I’d used before, and refilling the countertop glass sugar container from the big bag in the small pantry beside the fridge.
By the time I made it back to the bathroom, Charlotte had curled even tighter into the blanket and was leaning up against the wall, fast asleep.
Which was good, I guess.
Asleep meant out of pain.
Or, if not out of pain, then at least not conscious of it.
