Her Eyes

The drive from the airport wasn’t a long one, but neither of the two could wait to get home. Jordan Staal smirked a little bit to himself when he thought about it. They were going to his apartment, a place he used to dread going to because of it’s empty rooms and lonely, cold interior, but now they were going to his apartment, a place that had become their home. And while Mason O’Rear technically hadn’t moved in with him, most of her clothes were in his closet, and she had brought pictures and little pieces of art to make his apartment “theirs.”

It took them 10 minutes of giggling and fooling around and poking at eachother to get their bags inside the front door, and it took another 15 minutes of kissing and more giggling to get their bags open and halfway unpacked. The next hour was spent procrastinating, picking a movie, and ordering Chinese, the whole time their suitcases were sitting ominously on the bed, begging to be unpacked.

Looking back on it, Jordan should have realized that things were going too well. Things couldn’t last the way they were going. But neither of them could have guessed that this perfect night would have been the end.

* * *

It was almost 9 when Mason shuffled out from under Jordan’s arm and slide off the couch and onto the cold hardwood floor. She sat there staring at Jordan’s face, taking in the chiseled nature of his jaw, his high cheek bones, and his long eyelashes. And she blushed, just thinking about someone as beautiful as him being in love with someone as plain as her. But he was, and she sat back on her hands and took a deep breath.

That’s when she noticed the heat in her face hadn’t gone away, and the tickle in the back of her throat wasn’t just from waking up. Then the nausea hit her like a truck and she had to struggle to get up and launch herself down the hall before the vomit erupted from her throat.

Her knees hit the tiled floor painfully as she gripped the toilet so hard her knuckles turned white. She heaved up the contents of her stomach so many times that she didn’t think it was possible for there to be anything else inside her. She leaned back against the bathtub and closed her eyes, praying for the dizziness and throbbing headache to subside, but it didn’t. It took her several moments to focus on the commotion coming from somewhere in the apartment. She heard a loud thud, some scuffling, and heavy padding that came closer to her and came to a crescendo when Jordan burst through the door. One look at the girl on the floor told him that something bad was happening.

Mason leaned her head back against the cool porcelain of the bathtub and closed her eyes.

“Baby.” Jordan cooed, leaning in to kiss her clammy forehead. Mason could barely lift her head, but opened her eyes to see his face among the spinning world. She parted her lips and let out a whimper before leaning forward and coughing so hard her body shook, and she had to grab onto Jordan to keep sitting upright. When she picked her head up, Jordan paled and reached out to touch her lip.

Blood stained his fingertips. Mason looked down and inhaled sharply before spitting up more blood.

“Oh god.” She whispered, before her vision went black, and her grip on Jordan’s arm fell.

Notes