Page 51 of Reverse Perspective

“I’ve been trying to wake you for hours. You were scaring me,” he says as he sits beside me. “How do you feel?”

“Better than this morning,” I say with a sigh. “What time is it?”

“A little after two,” he says. “You should get up and eat lunch.”

“Yeah, I haven’t eaten since dinner last night,” I say as I slowly sit up. I get out of bed and stretch before Todd and I walk out of the room. The light still hurts my eyes a bit, but it’s not nearly as bad as earlier when I first got up.

“Sit and I’ll make you something,” Todd says. I nod and pull myself up to sit on the counter.

“Why do you care so much?” I ask after a few minutes of silence. Todd sets the spatula down and turns to face me.

“Why do I care?” he asks and I nod. “I don’t know if you know this, but you are my friend. Friends generally take care of each other when they need it with no expectation of anything in return.”

“Yeah, but you’ve spent your entire day here yet again while I just… sleep,” I say.

“Call me crazy but I like taking care of my friend so she doesn’t pass out in the kitchen only to be found hours later,” he says.

“So it is for me, not a favor to them?” I ask.

“Sadie, of course, all of this is for you,” he says. “Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I just feel like you all only put up with me because the guys would flip shit if you didn’t,” I shrug.

“Doll, if I didn’t want to help you, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t you get bored?” I ask.

“Not really. I just do some work and go in and check on you every now and again,” he says as he plates my food and hands it to me. He puts food on a plate for himself and leans against the kitchen island to eat.

“Hey hey,” Leo calls out from the living room.

“We’re in here,” I reply.

“Hey, man,” Todd says. “What are you doing here?”

“Dean said Sadie wasn’t feeling well and I had to drive this direction anyway, so just wanted to see how things were,” he answers.

“Well, that’s sweet of you,” I smile. “I’m good. Migraine is mostly gone. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” he says with a kind smile.

“How’s work been?” I ask as I eat.

“Oh… It’s going,” he chuckles. Leo is an electrician and has a house up the road that he is working on so he stops in occasionally. “We should be wrapped up in the next week or so.”

“That’s good,” I say as I get off the counter and take Todd’s empty plate from him. Once I get it loaded into the dishwasher, we go to the living room. Todd packs up his work stuff and turns to face me.

“Are you good? I need to go pick Stacy up. Her car is in Billy’s shop,” he says. “I don’t want to leave if you’re taking more medicine.”

“No, I’m okay,” I say. “It’s basically gone now.”

“Okay. Stacy and I will be back later on tonight when the guys are home. The guys are going to force you into a game night,” he says with a chuckle as he hugs me.

“They always pick games I suck at,” I laugh. “I’ll be a good sport and join game night.”

“Atta girl,” he nods. “Okay. Just call me if you need me. Earlier, Lance called and said they would be home around six or so.”

“Okay. Drive safe,” I say before he steps out of the house and shuts the door behind him.

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