Page 76 of I Can't Even

But today? It was pretty bad.

My stomach was roiling, and I wondered idly if it was okay to drink Pepto and take Zofran…

Obviously, these were things that I should know as a nurse, but my brain wasn’t working at one hundred percent. Maybe I should ask my mom?

“Great,” Quaid sighed. “It’ll go through us all like wildfire anyway. Might as well start with you.”

I couldn’t even muster up a smile as he disappeared into the kitchen, coming back a few moments later with a cup of coffee.

The smell hit me like a freight train, and what I thought was nausea earlier, turned into a full-blown evacuation imminent, DEFCON 1 situation.

As per our new routine, he headed to the bathroom for our pills.

When he came back out, he was already holding his hand out to me.

“Here ya go,” Quaid said as he placed my birth control pill into my hand.

I would’ve said thank you had I not thought opening my mouth would’ve caused me to Poltergeist projectile puke everywhere.

He frowned when I didn’t say anything and dropped to the mattress beside me.

The movement caused my body to jerk, and that was all it took.

“Are you…”

The smell of the coffee hit me, and I had one whole second where I thought I was going to straight throw up right into Quaid’s face, but he read the look before I could do it.

He took a large step back, and then I was all but falling out of the bed in my haste to get to the toilet.

I didn’t make it to the toilet.

I did, however, make it to the shower mat where I promptly lost every bit of the contents of my stomach.

“You gonna make it?” Quaid asked worriedly.

I grimaced and stood up, only to wish I’d stayed on my knees.

“I’m gonna do something,” I said as I swayed.

He caught me by the arm and steadied me. “You have to leave in fifteen minutes.”

I knew.

Today was my final exam.

The last and final final exam that I would ever take.

That meant I had one more clinical rotation to work, and I would be officially done with school.

I. Was. Ecstatic.

And where had my nausea gone? It was as if it was magically cured.

“I guess at least you didn’t take your pill yet,” he murmured as he handed it to me for a second time.

I took it and was just about to pop it into my mouth when I saw the small white pill. It wouldn’t have struck me as odd had I not seen a similar pill yesterday when a woman had come in with hives. I’d given her a steroid…oh, sweet Mary, mother of God.

Quaid picked up the bathmat covered in puke and tossed it into the laundry basket folded in quarters.

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