Perspectives

[Bilo0618]

For this story, I’m going to try something a bit new with the perspectives. I’m going to write it in its entirety three times – once from Jean’s perspective, once from Carla’s, and once from an omniscient third person narrator’s perspective. I’m going to have some new details in each version, although the overall story line will be the same. This is my first time writing fiction in ages, and I’m hoping that you all enjoy it!

Jean’s Perspective

When I woke up, my throat was a bit sore, but I didn’t think anything of it. I get a sore throat from time to time, but usually it’s not for any real reason. I went to work as usual, in the IT department for a large distribution company. I don’t ever work with customers, just on the computers of the other employees and occasionally on the company’s network as a whole. This suits me just fine.

Then, at a meeting, I started to feel snot dripping down the inside of my nose. You know, that feeling you get when your nose is just starting to run at the beginning of a cold and you can feel it, not itchy, not yet, but just about to make itself known. I groaned internally – how was I supposed to pay attention to the upcoming system updates with the ticking, nagging distraction of a budding cold. It was clear, now, that I was coming down with something. I sniffed a bit, and brushed my finger against the bottom of my nose. It didn’t help any, but it did reassure me that my nose wasn’t visibly running – yet.

I almost made it to the end of the meeting without needing to blow my nose, through a mixture of sheer dumb luck and undignified sniffing. Then, just as my boss, Jordan, went to make his final statements, I felt my nose finally, truly, start to run. A massive drip was managing to make its way out of my left nostril, and my right one wasn’t far behind. I sniffed once – twice – and hurried over to the tissue box in the far corner of the room, embarrassed that all my coworkers could see my nose running. My face burned.

I reached the tissue box, pinched my nose quickly with a tissue, and grabbed a couple extras to dab my nose with at my seat. No way was I going to blow my nose in front of everyone in the meeting! Besides, knowing how my nose got when I was coming down with something, there was no way a single nose blow would be effective. You know how when you get a cold, and from the second you start blowing your nose, that’s all you can do? Yeah, that’s exactly what I was trying to avoid. I shuffled back to my seat, aware of all eyes on me.

“Alrighty!” my boss, Aaron, continued, “We’ll start carrying out the updates on all the computers starting tomorrow, so plan for a busy day as we go around updating! And of course, responding to the inevitable complaints that the layout of the computers have changed.” We all chucked a bit at that – usually, after an update was our busiest time. People seemed to always struggle when a major update occurred.

“So, let’s go ahead and head out for the night! Everyone have a great evening, and I’ll see you all bright and early.” With that, the meeting was over, and I was relieved to be able to head home. I dabbed my nose briefly with a tissue, anticipating the next day’s work with dread. This was no time to come down with a cold.

As quickly as propriety would allow, I said farewell to my coworkers, packed up my laptop and notes, surreptitiously grabbed a handful of tissues for the drive home, and left.

Unfortunately, I underestimated just how many tissues I would need to make it back home to my girlfriend, Carla. I usually kept a travel pack in my glove box, but that had been used up the week before when Carla got a bloody nose on the way home from the grocery store. I had, of course, forgotten that fact, and had only gotten maybe five or so tissues from the office to last me the whole 20-minute drive home.

As I left the office, it started to rain, and I ran hurriedly to my car. I had parked at the far end of the parking lot to get in some walking before work, which I now sorely regretted. When I finally made it into the relative warmth of the car, I blew my nose vigorously into one of the tissues from work, nearly turning it to pulp. It was a relief, but ultimately did nothing to reduce my symptoms. I could tell I was in for a wild ride with this cold.

I turned on the car and pulled out of the space. As I got onto the highway about five minutes later, I groaned. There was traffic lined up as far as I could see.

“God damb it!” I swore, hearing congestion starting to creep into my voice. Today was just not my day. I blew my nose into the last of the tissues I had brought from work, and opened the glove box to grab out the pack of tissues I knew was in there.

Suddenly remembering that I still needed to replace the travel pack I kept in my glove box, I cursed some more. This afternoon kept getting worse. I resigned myself to having to make do with the two napkins I found in the glove box, and – shudder – the inside of my blazer. As I sat there, in stop and go traffic, dripping wet from the rain, I felt absolutely miserable. Considering I had, just that morning, only had a sore throat, that was fairly shocking. This cold was progressing fast, and my drive home was going at a snail’s pace.

By the time I pulled into our garage, my nose was starting to flare red from the harsh treatment on the drive home. The two napkins I found had held out as long as they could, but ultimately they failed, leaving me to dab my nose with the inside of my blazer to keep the snot from running down my face. Carla was home already – she worked as a science teacher at a nearby high school – and I hoped she wouldn’t say anything as I sped inside to change out of my damp clothing.

“Welcome home!” I heard her call from the kitchen. Normally, I would go straight to the kitchen and give her a kiss, but today all I wanted to do was change into some fluffy pajamas and grab a handkerchief from my dresser. A lot of people think handkerchiefs are gross, but to me they were indispensable when I was feeling under the weather. They were reusable, soft, and didn’t fall apart in your hands like tissues tended to when your nose was particularly runny.

Warm PJs and soft hanky acquired, I shuffled into the kitchen and heaved myself up onto one of the barstools.

“Hey hun!” Carla exclaimed, coming over from the stove where she was cooking some sort of pasta dish. “Get caught in the rain?”

“Yep,” I replied, “Plus I’m definitely coming down with something. My nose has been running for over an hour, and my throat has been scratchy all day.”

“That sucks! Don’t you have that big update this week too?”

“Unfortunately,” I mumbled, leaning into Carla as she hugged me.

“Well, good thing you’ve got me here to support you!” She practically sang into my ear, squeezing me just a bit tighter before letting me go and moving back over to the stove.

I smiled and said, “I’m always glad that we can support each other.”

We made small talk about our days until the pasta was ready, the kitchen filled with our laughing voices, the sound of boiling water, and the occasional gurgle from me blowing my nose into my handkerchief. By the time dinner was ready, I had all but soaked through the one I had grabbed when I got home, so as Carla put the pasta in bowls and took them over to the table, I went into the bedroom. I grabbed a new handkerchief, tossed the old one in the laundry bin, and washed my hands thoroughly. Then, I hurried back to the kitchen and sat next to Carla at the table.

We chatted some more as we ate dinner, although the pepper in the pasta burned my throat far more than was normal. After dinner, Carla and I put on a late night show we’d recorded from the night before, although I can’t quite remember which one it was. I fell asleep pretty much as soon as we sat down.

Carla shook me awake, “Jean, honey? Let’s head to bed.”

“Ok” I muttered, surprised at how scratchy my voice had gotten over the course of my nap. I must have been snoring or something for my voice to be this torn up.

We walked to the bedroom, and I noticed that Carla had her hand pressed against my back as we walked, as if she was worried I might fall over. It wasn’t needed, but I appreciated the soothing warmth of her touch, so I didn’t say anything.

I slipped into bed the second we got to the bedroom, deciding that my sweatpants were good enough pajamas, and making the (probably irresponsible) decision to just skip brushing my teeth and go right to sleep. I fell asleep before Carla made it into bed, desperately hoping that with enough sleep tonight I’d be able to make it through the work day tomorrow.

That morning, I first woke up to the sound of Carla’s alarm blaring. She quickly turned it off, kissing me on the forehead and shuffling out of bed. Carla usually wakes up well before me, since she has to be at work before seven to finish prepping for the day’s classes, while I don’t leave for work until around 8:30. Normally I would wake up around 6 and make her breakfast before work, but today I was too out of it from the cold. I slept, snoozing my alarm every few minutes until 8. Then, I hurried through my morning routine, pulling on the most comfortable work clothes I had, brushing my teeth, and eating half a bagel. I put a big handful of handkerchiefs into my work bag, knowing I’d be needing them. I hadn’t started sneezing yet, but I was sure I would before long. I gave my nose one last, long blow in the privacy of my room before I left to face the day I had ahead of me at work.

As I hurried into the office, my nose already running like it was a star track and field athlete, I felt a strong itch in my nose. Oh no. I knew what was coming. Quickly, I whipped a handkerchief out of my pocket, barely catching the first sneeze – “Ah – Ah – chew!” – that first sneeze was quiet, but right after it another one snuck out, bringing my walk to my cubicle to a complete stop, bending me nearly in half – “Uh- Ah – Rashchiew”. This sneeze was productive and messy, even managing to clear my clogged nostrils for a moment before they filled back up with mucus. I folded my handkerchief over onto itself a bit, absent-mindedly blew my nose once more, and walked the rest of the way towards my cubicle.

“Bless you!” called Miranda, one of the other women in my department. She worked three cubicles down from me, and would no doubt be treated to the soundtrack of my sneezes all day. That is, the parts of the day when we weren’t out updating the hundreds of computers used by our company.

“Thangks!” I called back, the volume scratching my throat and making it burn even worse. The congestion was clear in my voice, having settled in thickly during the night. I’m sure Carla didn’t sleep well, as I was definitely snoring last night, given how stuffy my nose was now.

John was in the cubicle next to me. He had been working with us for a few months, and was generally pretty nice. “You want some DayQuil?” he asked, sliding a bottle through the opening between our cubicles.

“Yeah, thanks.” I managed, realizing that in my haste to leave the house I had forgotten to bring any cold medicine with me. “You’re a lifesaver.”

We worked in mostly silence for an hour or two, the typical quiet white noise of the office broken up by my sniffles and sneezes. Luckily, the DayQuil was starting to help some by the time my boss gathered us all up at around 10 to start off the real work of the day – updates.

We each took a floor of the office building to (hopefully) get done by lunch. Then, after lunch, we’d head out to the warehouse and update the computers in use there. By the time we finished up for the day, the whole company should be updated. I headed off to the third floor, down only one from our location on the fourth. I can’t imagine what the poor people working in accounting thought seeing me come down with my raging head cold. There was no hiding the symptoms, despite how they were reduced by the cold medicine I took.

I walked up to the manager’s desk, told her I was here to update the computers, and got to work. Generally, people were fairly accommodating about letting me take over their cubicles for the ten minutes or so it took to do the update. Every once in a while, though, someone would argue.

“Why do you have to do it today! I’ve got to get these emails sent out now!” One man argued.

“I ndow, I ndow, I just ndeed to –“ I gasped “– sorry – Ahschiew – I need to do it at some point before lunch, so if you want I can go do some other computers next, but I’ll have to come back to yours pretty soon.”

He grumbled a bit, before ultimately just letting me do the update then. People can be so fussy sometimes about even a short delay on their work. Although in his case, I think he might’ve just wanted me to take my sneezing self away from his office.

Since he was a jerk, I didn’t worry too much when I sneezed right on top of his keyboard, uncovered. It snuck up on me! And, I thought vindictively, this cold might just sneak up on him. It was a bit of a rude move on my part, but honestly? I was too done with the day to care.

Finally finishing the floor at 12:30, I hurried upstairs to eat my lunch. We were leaving for the warehouses at 1, so I needed to eat quickly! I heated up some leftover tomato soup I had brought from home, wincing as the acidity of it burned my throat a bit. The hot liquid had the benefit, or curse I guess, of loosening up the congestion a bit, so my nose was running quickly after having mostly calmed down that morning. On the plus side, by the time I was done eating I could almost breathe out of both nostrils, although given I had drenched an entire hanky to do it, it may not have been worth it. I stretched, breathing in through my nose and hearing the air whistle a bit as it went in. I breathed out through my mouth, not wanting to risk re-clogging my nose, and put the Tupperware container back into the bag I brough my food in. I packed up all my stuff, joining my coworkers in the meeting room at 1:05 – barely late at all!

“Alrighty!” My boss said, “Now that we’re all here, is everyone ready to head over to the warehouse? It’s about a 15-minute drive, and once we finish up there, we’ll come back here to debrief before wrapping up for the day! We’re halfway there everyone!”

None of us matched Jordan’s level of excitement, but we all said that we were ready to go and went downstairs to head over to the warehouse. We all drove separately over there, which normally I cursed as a waste of gas, but right now I was glad to have a bit of privacy. I put my car into park at the warehouse, and sneezed, uncovered, towards the passenger side of my car. “uRSCHIEW! Ah-uh-CHIEW!” My sneezes had gotten progressively messier as the day went on, likely because the DayQuil I took earlier was wearing off. I should’ve gotten some more from Josh before we left.

Snot was dripping down my face after those messy sneezes, and I cleaned myself up with a handkerchief, blowing my nose thoroughly before getting out of the car to head inside. There weren’t actually many computers to update here, but the ones that were here were spread out and hard to get to. The computer terminal on each forklift, for instance, had to be updated.

As we finished up the ones in the heated parts of the building, and moved onto the main part of the warehouse to update the computers in there, I started coughing. I leaned against the wall and held my handkerchief up to my mouth as I gasped for breath between coughs, although they weren’t particularly productive coughs, simply sounding dry and painful. When I finally stopped coughing and looked up, everyone was staring at me.

“Sorry.” I said, “I’m combing down with a cold.”

“Coming down with?” Jordan replied, “I think you’ve been downright mugged by it. Why don’t you go ahead and head home? We’re almost done here”

I hesitated. While going home did sound nice, I wasn’t really sick enough to warrant time off. It was just a cold, after all, and in the early stages of it too.

“No, I’m finde. Might as well stick it out for the rest of the day.”

“Alright,” Jordan said, “But I don’t want to see you here tomorrow. You weren’t sick at all yesterday, and today you’re a mess! Clearly that cold isn’t something we want spread around the office.”

“Ok” I acquiesced, and with that the conversation ended. We finished doing the rest of the computers in the warehouse about an hour later, although I barely made it through, to be honest. It was a bit embarrassing, but I was wishing that I had taken Jordan up on that offer of heading home early. The longer we took in the chilly warehouse, the worse I felt.

Once we finally finished up, everyone headed back to their cars to get back to the office for our wrap up meeting. As I went to leave the warehouse, Jordan pulled me aside.

He looked concerned, and was silent for a moment before finally speaking. “Listen, Jean. I know you just have a cold, and it can be hard to take work off for those. I need you to understand, though, we have paid sick days for a reason. Go ahead and go home, don’t come back to the office. I’ll see you when you’re feeling better.”

“Thangks.” I replied, my voice hoarse from all the sneezing and coughing I’d done that day. “I – schiew! – I appreciate you letting me go home early. I’ll let you know when I’m feeling better again.”

“Good talk.” He said, smiling a bit. “Now go rest.”

“I will.” With that, I walked out of the warehouse, with Jordan following shortly behind me. I got in my car, and drove home. My ears burned a bit when I thought about how I made a fool of myself in front of everyone. Jordan was right, I probably should’ve just taken a sick day from the get go.

Luckily for me, the warehouse was already most of the way back to the townhouse I rented with Carla, so the drive home was quick. As I pulled in, I was surprised to see that Carla wasn’t back yet. I looked at the clock, and it was only 3 pm. She wouldn’t be home for another hour, at least.

I went inside and, after leaving the Tupperware from lunch in the dishwasher and putting my used handkerchiefs from the day at work into the laundry – I would need to wash them soon, if I wanted to avoid running out – I decided to take a shower.

As I got in the shower, hot water streaming down around me, I relished in the warmth. Then, just like at lunch, the steam and warmth loosened the congestion blocking my sinuses, and my nose started to drip runny snot as I stood under the pressure of the shower. I blew my nose into my hands, disgusted by the feeling of the snot in my hands but relieved to feel like I was making some progress on the blockage in my nose. I blew and blew, rinsing my hands off in the shower water as they got filthy with my germs.

Finally, my nose no less blocked but my sinuses feeling significantly lighter, I started to wash off the struggles of the day. Then, just as I finished showering and turned off the water, I felt an itch in my nose. “No no no” I whispered frantically to myself, wrapping myself in my towel and pressing my hand against the wall as I felt my breath start to hitch. “Ah…Ah…..AHCHIEUUUU!” Snot flew out of my nose onto the bathroom floor, and strings of it dangled from my nostrils. I cupped it in my left hand, and went over to the sink to clean up. I washed my hands and grabbed some of the tissues that sat on the back of the toilet. After cleaning off the floor and blowing my nose, using up half a dozen tissues in the process, I finally left the bathroom.

I had been sent home sick from work, and all I really wanted to do was sleep. I pulled on some light and cozy pajamas, and grabbed the softest handkerchief I could find out of those remaining in the dresser drawer. Then, I wrapped myself in a fleece blanket we kept folded at the end of the bed for particularly cold nights, and went to the kitchen to make myself some tea. I always liked to drink tea when I was sick. It soothed my throat a bit, and reminded me of the happy, uncomplicated days at home when my mom would take care of me when I was sick.

After the tea was done brewing, I took it to the bedroom and put it on the bedside table, climbing into bed and propping myself up with pillows against the headboard. I sipped the tea for a bit, before remembering to text Carla so she wouldn’t be surprised to see my car already in the garage when she got home.

“Jordan sent me home sick from work. ☹ Going to take a nap, don’t worry about me. No fever, just a bad cold still. See you when you get home.”

Message sent, I finished up the rest of the tea before falling asleep.

When I woke up, I could hear Carla talking to someone in the kitchen.

“Thanks for the concern! I’ll make sure to let her know you hope she feels better.”

Then there was silence for a moment – she must be on the phone.

“Yeah, I’ll feed her plenty of soup! Don’t worry about us.” Carla laughed. I wondered who she was talking to.

Another moment of silence, then “Bye! I’ll talk to you again soon!”

She must have hung up.

I heard footsteps coming towards the bedroom, and pushed myself up, noticing that someone (Carla most likely) had pulled the comforter up over me. I sat up, leaning against the headboard for a second, before I started coughing.

Everything faded out, all I could pay attention to was the pressure in my throat and the need for air. Eventually, as my coughing stopped, I felt Carla’s hand on my back, rubbing in circles. She probably came in when I was coughing.

“I – I’m sorry you have to see me like this” I gasped, feeling bad about how worried she must feel. Then, realizing I had been coughing uncovered that whole time, I startled.

“Oh no I’m gonna get you sick aren’t I! You shouldn’t be in here with me. It’s not nearly as easy for you to take time off as it is for me, and this cold is absolutely miserable.” When I stopped rambling, I noticed Carla was looking sharply at me.

“Jean-“ She started, “I’m in this relationship to be your partner. And that means being with you when you’re sick, regardless of what the consequences of that may be. I’m going to be here with you, even if I might get sick. I lo- care about you too much to be worried about myself when you’re hurting so much.”

I sat there in silence. Had she almost said? No, I must’ve imagined it.

Carla kept rubbing my back, pulling me into a hug. “Have you had any cold medicine?”

I was startled for a second, then I responded, my head blurry from sleep. “No, not since this morning. I had some DayQuil around 9, but nothing since then.”

“Ok,” she replied, “You’re due for some then. I’ve made soup in the kitchen, and after you eat that you can take some NyQuil and go to bed.”

She passed me a water cup from the bedside table. I hadn’t noticed that, when had it got there? There was a whole heap of stuff on the table, a thermometer, some cough syrup, some NyQuil, a stack of handkerchiefs, probably as many clean ones as I had left, even a box of tissues. I sipped a bit of water, before putting it back on the table and starting to get up. Carla helped me up, and we walked to the kitchen.

I honestly wasn’t very hungry, still half-asleep and feeling even sicker than I had before bed. All the same, I didn’t want to worry Carla by not eating, especially since I knew she much already be so worried about me. I looked at the clock, and was surprised to see it was seven pm. She must have been home for a while. Plus, I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and I probably should eat something.

Carla filled two mugs with soup from a pot that was simmering on the stove, bringing it over to the table.

“It’s egg drop soup. I know that’s your favorite soup.”

“Thanks, Carla.” I replied, taking the mug from her. I sipped the soup, feeling the warmth of it burning down my esophagus. We sat in silence, both sipping the soup.

After a minute, I realized my nose was running, and looked around for a hanky or some tissues. Carla noticed my furtive glances, and grabbed a box from the counter behind me, holding it out. “Here you go, hon.” She said.

I love it when she calls me pet names. Her voice is always so filled with warmth. Plus, when she uses my name, I know she’s deadly serious. She pretty much only calls me Jean when she wants my undivided attention for a serious conversation.

I pulled a tissue from the box, wiping at my raw nose as Carla sets the box in front of me.

Then, as the feeling of the tissue rubbing on my nose arouses an itching sensation, I started to sneeze. “Ah- Ah- AH-“ My eyelids fluttered, and the itching sensation grew. I hold the tissue up to my face, and then all of a sudden, the sneeze was gone.

I groaned, and put the tissue down on the table, resting my heavy head on my hands.

“Lost it?” Carla asked.

“Yeah” I replied, feeling almost disappointed at the lack of release.

Then, all of a sudden, too fast for me to even pick the tissue back up, I sneezed, uncovered, right at Carla! “-CHOOO!” The sneeze wasn’t nearly as messy as the one when I got out of the shower, but it still sent a spray of snot and germs all over her.

“Oh god!” I squealed, mortified. I picked up my discarded tissue from the table and wipe the mess from beneath my nose, cleaning up the strands of mucus still attached to my face.

Carla grabed a tissue from the box in front of me, deftly wiping off her face and neck.

“I am so sorry” I said, my face bright red.

“It’s ok,” Carla replied, “If I’m going to catch this cold I probably already have.”

“Still…” I moaned, burying my face in my hands. “You’re the best partner ever, cooking me dinner when I’m sick and bringing me tissues and all, and I repay you by sneezing on you!”

“Well,” Carla almost purred, leaning towards me. “You’ll just have to repay the favor if I do get sick. And if I don’t, no harm done!” She looks a little too happy about being sneezed on.

“Carla-“ I practically croaked. “Did you… like that?”

She blushed, looking flustered for the first time that night.

“A bit.” She admitted. “It was… kinda sexy? Not that I want you to be sick, or anything.”

“Oh.” I said, stunned.

“If you want, I could always… try to sneeze on you?” I almost whispered the last words, a bit shocked at how daring they were. Taboo, even.

Carla nodded slightly, before holding a tissue out and pressing it against my nose. “Your nose is still running,” she said, “go ahead and blow.”

I was a bit shy at first, blowing my nose into the tissue held to my face by her hand. But then, as I blew, it felt comfortable and safe. She was there for me, supporting me. And if she got sick, I’d be there for her too.

After that surprisingly intimate moment, we finished the soup quickly. I smiled at her as I finished my cup, a bit surprised that I had managed to eat all of it despite how sick I felt. “Want to head back to the bedroom?” I asked, my voice raspy but mostly free of congestion. “I can take some NyQuil and then we can cuddle and watch some TV?”

“Sounds great.” Carla replied confidently, taking both mugs and loading them in the dishwasher.

I stood up, leaning against the table a bit as I found my balance. The world was spinning a bit, and I needed a moment to find my bearings. Carla came over and wrapped her arm around my waist, and then we walked to the bedroom, me leaning against her a bit as we moved.

She helped me get into bed before getting a dose of NyQuil out of the bottle for me. She passed me that and the cup of water from the bedside table, and I took the medicine. Then, Carla walked around the bed and climbed in next to me, grabbing the remote from her bedside table. I laid my head in her lap and she carded her hands through my hair.

Carla put on some documentary; I didn’t pay attention to what. Honestly, I’m not sure she did either. I had a hanky clutched in my left hand and my right laid between her legs. Every few minutes, I would blow my nose in the handkerchief, or sneeze. When I had to sneeze, I turned my head up towards Carla’s, and sneezed uncovered at her “aha- AH- Shew!” The mist would hit her face, and she would lean down and kiss me, softly, deeply.

There was no way she wasn’t getting this cold.

Somehow, I wasn’t as bothered by that right then.

Eventually, I fell asleep in her lap, the world fading away.

I’m going to go ahead and cut Jean’s perspective off there for now, and I’ll post the rest of it tomorrow. It’s getting a bit unwieldy and long! After I finish Jean’s perspective, I’ll post Carla’s, and then the 3^rd person one! I hope you all enjoy this fic!

[NickG1998]

I can’t wait to see the next part of this amazing story please keep up the great work 

[Jeff1]

This is absolutely amazing. Hope you continue!

[z8]

This was phenomenal. I can't wait for Carla's POV. 😍😍

[Likesn]

What a great story! I really like the perspective thing you've going on and I can't wait for the rest of it 🤩

[Bilo0618]

Ok! Here’s the start of, for lack of a better word, chapter 2! The first part was nine pages long on my word doc, and I’m betting this one will be just as long – the words are just flowing with this fic right now so I’m just going to see how far I can go tonight!

I woke up slowly, not startled awake by any alarms. I slept through Carla’s early alarm, and mine were all turned off since Jordan had not-so-subtly banned me from work while I struggled through this cold. My mouth was open, and there was drool and snot trailing down my face to the pillow. Gross. I reached for the pile of handkerchiefs left next to the bed, and blew my nose into the first one I grabbed. The pressure hurt my sinuses, and all that came out was a nasty honking noise and some thick snot. Apparently the third day of this cold – had it really only been two days so far? – would be marked by congestion.

I looked over to the bedside table, noticing a note left by Carla. It read: “Hope you’re not feeling too bad this morning! I left a couple boxes of cold medicine on the counter in the bathroom for you, and there’s DayQuil, NyQuil, and cough syrup on the bedside table. Remember to drink lots of water! Leftover soup is in the fridge. Lots of love – Carla.”

First things first – get something in me to ease the cold symptoms a bit. I downed a dose of DayQuil with the water cup on the table. It had been filled up again since last night; Carla really was doing so much to care for me. I pulled myself out of bed, wrapping myself up once more in the fleece blanket we kept in the bedroom. It felt freezing in the house, although that was mostly the transition from the bed talking. Once I was standing, my congestion was especially noticeable. I could feel it pressing down in my nose, and going nowhere.

I felt that familiar itch, and sneezed uncovered towards the floor. “huh- ah- schIEw” An undignified kind of squeaking sound came out as I sneezed, and the snot filling my nose barely even budged. I dabbed at my raw nose a bit with the handkerchief before shuffling into the kitchen, glad that I had nowhere to be any time soon. The kitchen was even colder than the bedroom had been, and the hardwood floors left me regretting not taking the time to put on socks. Two more sneezes tumbled out as I came to a halt in the kitchen – “HUHSCHOO- K’TCHOO-“ – and I regretted for a moment bothering to pull myself out of bed.

I grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl besides the fridge, not wanting to spend effort heating something up, regardless of how good the warmth would likely feel. As I ate the banana, it felt chalky and tasteless, going down like concrete. I finished it anyway, knowing that Carla would definitely ask if I’d eaten anything when she got home.

With a sort-of meal eaten, and some cold medicine in me, I made a cup of tea and settled back into bed to watch some TV. I found a rerun of Law and Order, so I put that on while I nursed my tea. As I finished the cup of tea, my phone buzzed, prompting me to look at my notifications. 7 texts from Carla! She must be worried sick.

The most recent one said “Taking my lunch break now – do you want me to come home and check in?”

I quickly responded, “Don’t bother – just laying in bed watching reruns. Took some DayQuil earlier, so the symptoms aren’t even too bad right now.”

Carla responded with a smiley-face and a thumbs up. I was glad she’d accepted my message. There was no point in her leaving work just to come see that I was still sick and miserable. I sneezed into my hanky – “ahCHOO” – my sneezes were, somehow, coming even more frequently today than yesterday. This cold was holding no punches.

I resolved to get up and eat lunch after coughing and sneezing my way through one more episode of Law and Order. The coughing wasn’t too bad, the DayQuil had managed to mostly help with that. Mostly, my chuckles at the occasional lack of reality to the show would trigger small coughing fits. Luckily, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. The sneezing, on the other hand? It felt like every time there was a new scene, my nose needed a new sneeze. A body was found? “HUH-SCHEW!” A new suspect was interviewed? “Ah-huh-raCHOO!” Worst of all, every sneeze made my throat burn and did nothing at all to clear my congestion.

Somehow, despite all this, I managed to doze off before that last episode was over, completely forgetting to eat lunch. My next memory was of being shaken awake by Carla.

“Jean, hun? It’s time to wake up.” She whispered, rubbing my shoulder with her thumb.

“Carla?” I barely managed to choke out, my voice nearly gone from all the demands of the cold. “Why’re you home so early?”

“Early? Jean, it’s almost six o’clock. I’m waking you up for dinner!” She seemed worried at my disconnect from time.

“Oh…” I mumbled. “I fell asleep before I even had lunch… sorry about that.”

Carla brushed her hand against my forehead, apparently feeling for a fever. “There’s no need to apologize, honey. You’re sick, it’s out of your control right now. Anyway, dinner’s important for helping your body heal.”

Carla helped me out of bed and to the kitchen, where there was once again a soup simmering on the stove.

“What did you make tonight?” I asked, excited despite my illness to find out what was in the pot.

“It’s just some chicken broth I picked up from the store.” Carla replied, “I wasn’t sure you’d be up for anything more than that.”

“Perfect.” I said, a smile creeping its way onto my face.

As Carla poured some soup into a mug for me, and grabbed a plate with an already made sandwich on it off the counter for herself, I felt an itch in my nose once more. I remembered the nigh before, and wanted to try something. This sneeze was, in my opinion, perfectly timed. As Carla walked over with the mug and plate, my breath hitched. “ah- AH- HUH- “ I desperately struggled to not give into the itch, until – there! Carla leaned over the table, putting the mug in front of me. Her face was mere inches from mine. “-CHOOOOO!” Sweet release, after all that build up. A thin mist of saliva and snot shot into her face, and a thick glob of snot dripped from my nose, dredged loose by the massive sneeze. Unlike my sneezes earlier that day, this one was not made ineffective by congestion. In fact, between the sneeze and the steam from the broth now sitting in front of me, my nose was starting to run again with thick, yellow-green mucus, the congestion I’d been suffering with all day finally lifting a bit.

Carla blinked for a second as she felt the spray on her face. Then, she smiled at me, and leaned in for a kiss. Her mouth was on mine, even as snot dripped down from my nose onto her lip. After a moment, I pulled away, gasping for breath after a long, passionate kiss.

“Wow-“ I muttered as loud as I could, “If you keep that up you’re definitely going to catch my cold!”

I wiped off my face with a tissue from the box left on the table the previous night, giving a hearty if largely ineffective blow while I was at it. Carla cleaned my snot from her face with her napkin, and gave a deliberate look at my soup. I took it to mean – “Don’t think you’re off the hook for missing lunch just because you’re sick!” – and started sipping on the soup. Unlike the acidic tomato soup I’d had for lunch the previous day, this soothed my throat, releasing the aches from a long day of feeling under the weather.

Carla finished her sandwich long before I finished my soup, and started regaling me with tales from her day at work. She was teaching chemistry this year, one of her favorite subjects. Apparently, she was working on stoichiometry with her students, which in her eyes was little more than fancy algebra. They’d been struggling with it all week, and she was running out of new ways to try explaining it, so she’d spent her prep period looking for new metaphors and exercises online.

This topic of conversation was relaxing for me. Every few minutes, I would chime in with a “Can you tell me more about that?” or a “What did your students think about it?” and in exchange I’d get a peek into Carla’s life. Plus, avoiding talking and focusing on my soup was just what I needed right about then.

As I finished up my soup, my cold decided to make itself known again, giving me a coughing fit that left me worried I would throw up all the soup I’d managed to eat. Just like the night before, though, Carla rubbed my back and helped me through it. When the coughing finally ceased, I noticed that there were tears and snot running down my face, a tangible remnant of my struggle to breath. I reached out for a tissue – I really did prefer handkerchiefs. Only a half hour or so at the table, and I’d already used over a dozen of the flimsy Kleenex! – and cleaned up my face a bit. Then, I turned to Carla, and whispered a request for a glass of water. She filled a cup for me in moments, holding it out for me to drink.

I sipped hesitantly at the water, appreciating the soothing feeling of it but also not wanting to tempt another coughing fit. After I managed to drink half of the cup, I looked to Carla and said, “Can we head back to bed now?”

She readily agreed, and helped me to the bedroom. Just two days earlier, I would have been able to make the short trip with ease, but with this illness weighing me down I could barely even make it with help, sitting on the bed and sneezing towards the floor the second we made it back. The itch built in the back of my nose, intense and hard to satisfy. Carla sat next to me on the bed, and I leaned against her as my breath hitched, “huh… ah…. AHSCHOO!” As I sneezed, I pitched forward, losing my balance on the edge of the bed. Carla pulled me back into a stable sitting position, and I managed to hoarsely whisper “thank you” before I was caught by another violent sneeze “TISHOOO!” This one had barely any build up, but was still as forceful as they come, leaving me gasping for breath as if I’d just run a marathon.

I reached over to the night stand again, grasping my water and some NyQuil and quickly swallowing a dose, still leaning on Carla for support.

Then, struck by an idea, I turned to her. “Any chance you could turn the shower on high for me? Yesterday the steam really helped with the congestion I had then, and I’m sure it would help again today.”

Carla looked at me for a moment, before agreeing “Sure thing hun.”

We went into the bathroom, and I sat on the ground next to the shower, head tilted back against the wall. Carla turned the shower on full blast, and sat in front of me with a couple of tissues in her hand.

Just like the previous night, as my nose started to run and the congestion broke up, Carla leaned up towards me, held the tissues to my nose, and confidently instructed me – “Blow.”

And blow I did. I felt like gallons of snot left my nose, turning the tissues in Carla’s hand to useless mush. After a moment, I leaned back with a groan, feeling the congestion shifting in my head in response to the steam from the shower. I was nowhere near done.

Carla pulled more tissues from the box on the back of the toilet, pulling it down to sit next to her. She cleaned up my face a bit before once more pressing a wad of tissues to my face. This time, I didn’t even need to be told to blow my nose – I simply did. The mucus left my head in a wet stream, and then right as Carla pulled her hand back from my face and I caught my breath, an itch snuck up on me once more and “SCHIEW!” I sneezed right on Carla once more. She wiped under my nose with the remains of the tissues in her hand, leaving behind a burning sensation as my raw skin was irritated.

“ahCKIEW” I sneezed, feeling my sinuses continue to loosen. This time, the spray mostly went toward the ground, coating our legs where they were bent against each other.

After a moment, I started to cough again, a hearty, productive cough, unlike my drier coughs from earlier. I pulled a few tissues from the box, leaning against Carla as I pressed them to my mouth, catching phlegm and saliva as the congestion filling my respiratory tract finally started to clear. As the coughing came to a stop, I dropped the tissues from my hand. They fell to the floor with a squelch, and Carla picked them up and put them in the trash can. I got up, and Carla followed.

We got in bed, curling around each other. Carla’s arms encircled me, and I hoarsely asked “Can you tell me more about your day? That sounds like the best end to the night I can imagine.”

“Of course.” Carla replied, lulling me to sleep with a tale of high school drama and woes.

The next thing I knew, Carla was shaking me awake.

“Honey, I need to take your temperature.” She whispered.

I opened my mouth, letting her stick the thermometer under my tongue. After the beep of the thermometer, she looked at the results, sighed, and passed me some pills and water. I swallowed, and watched her from bed to see if she had anything she needed to say.

“You don’t have a fever, so I’m still going to head in to work.” Carla said, running her hand across my forehead. I’ll write down the time you can take some more cold medicine for you, and please remember to eat lunch today. Text me if anything goes wrong, ok?”

I smiled a bit at her fussing. “Don’t worry so much. I’ll be right here when you get home. Go and blow them all away. Just not with actual explosions.” I joked.

“Well, at least your terrible sense of humor is intact!” Carla laughed a bit, looking somewhat relieved despite herself.

We kissed once before she left, and even as my nose protested each brush against her face, I relished the closeness of her, the warmth of her body pressed ever so lightly against mine.

“I love you,” I mumbled, half asleep.

Carla smiled, responding to those words for the first time in our relationship. “I love you too.”

Then, she was out the door, and I was trying to fall back asleep.

“ahschiew!”

Trying was, apparently, the operative word there. While I hadn’t had much trouble falling asleep in the days before, now it seemed that every time I got close to nodding off, I would find myself sneezing myself awake. My sneezes were high pitched and weak, not managing to create nearly as much mess as they had so far with this cold. Even worse, though, was the coughing. If I breathed too deeply, I would get struck with terrible, body wrenching coughs. After about a half hour of trying, and failing, to go back to sleep, I pulled myself out of bed, resigning myself to a long day sitting on the couch.

“huhSHPEW!” I sneezed just as I stood upright, curling inwards on myself. It felt like I had been sick for an eternity, but I knew logically that barely any time had passed at all since I first felt the edges of infection pushing against my throat. I dragged myself into the kitchen, blanket wrapped around myself for warmth as had become my habit these past days. I grabbed a container of yogurt from the fridge, and sat on the couch in the living room as I struggled to eat. Luckily, the smooth yogurt was somewhat soothing to my raw throat, so all I had to grapple with was my complete lack of appetite.

I felt disgusting. I hadn’t managed to take a shower since I’d been sent home from work, and my body was caked in sweat. At the moment, though, I couldn’t bring myself to care. An itch arose in my nose once more, so I dragged my blanket wrapped fist across the tender skin at the base of my nose. This did nothing to ease the itching sensation, and after a moment I sneezed – “KCHIEW!” – into the blanket. Mist settled on my knees, pulled up below in front of me on the couch.

I took another bite of the yogurt, cringing at the thick feeling of it in my mouth. The silence of the house was starting to get to me, so I turned on the TV. I put on Good Morning America, and relished the sounds of morning talk show which covered the sounds of my mouth breathing and frequent sneezes. My nose was completely clogged today, not even running at this point. It was as if my sinuses were filled with concrete. Instead of the thick squelching noises my nose made yesterday, when I blew my nose all I could manage was an unproductive, unsatisfying honk.

I left the TV running as I wandered through the kitchen, making a cup of lemon tea with honey. It was cliché, but I figured hopefully I’d be able to taste it a bit, and regardless it would help my throat. Every time I sneezed my throat stung, and when I coughed it practically felt like it was on fire. It was a miracle, in my opinion, that I hadn’t lost my voice.

The steam from the hot tea didn’t manage to make my congestion budge, so I resigned myself to feeling that uncomfortable pressure for the rest of the day. It was worst when I bent forward, the pressure sloshing forward and making the front of my face simply ache. I sipped at the tea, barely able to taste the tangy flavor of the strongly brewed tea. I had potentially let it steep a bit too long, distracted by a sneezing fit that left me gasping for breath.

After a few sips, I hurriedly set the mug down on the table, feeling an itchy pressure in my nose that I knew meant I was about to sneeze. “huhKCHO- AHSHOO!- kiTCHEW!” I sneezed three times, shuddering as each sneezed pressed me forward until I was bent over, my top half practically horizontal. I sniffed, a deeply congested sound emerging from my nose, “SNKKK”.

I had been left a bit dizzy after those sneezes, so I leaned back against the couch, my head tipping back as I gave up on holding it upright. Today was better than yesterday, though. I was still sneezing, but it wasn’t nearly so messy. Plus, I at least wasn’t so exhausted from this cold that I spent the whole day in bed again. I sat there for a few minutes, my head pounding and heavy, listening to the murmuring of the TV in the background.

Finally, I picked back up the cup of tea, taking a few long sips of it. I felt like the warmth of it was soothing to every part of my body, easing aches in my joints and settling my stomach. I spent the next hour like that, until the tea was long gone and my muscles were stiff again from sitting on the couch so long. I stood up and stretched, letting a wave of dizziness wash over me, waiting for it to recede before I started moving back to the bedroom.

I looked for a note from Carla next to the cold medicine, finding one that said “Last dose of cold medicine, 6:30 am. You don’t have a fever, but check again around noon – if your temperature rises, please let me know darling. Don’t forget to eat the soup in the fridge for lunch today! I love you. – Carla”

I traced her words – “I love you”. It was hard to believe she had really said them. Or, I suppose, that I had said them first. I blushed a bit, like a middle schooler enamored with their first crush would. I sat down, and looked at the clock on my phone. It was 11, so soon enough for some more cold medicine, by my estimation. It was every four hours, right? I checked the box, and after seeing that I remembered correctly took a dose of the daytime medicine. As I took the medicine, I emptied the cup on my bedside table.

After a moment, I went to the kitchen to fill up the cup, drinking it in its entirety again. For the first time since I started to feel sick, I was thirsty, desperately so. I took this to mean my body was starting to put itself back together, and drank deeply, only pausing to breath. I couldn’t breathe through my nose at all, but that probably wouldn’t go away until the end of the cold.

I watched TV for another hour, putting on a channel that ran reruns of old shows from the 70s. I sneezed prolifically, as if it was my job to do so. Every few minutes, I would feel an itch in my nose, and sneeze harshly into the air. “ah… AH….. AHHHHCHOO!” It was a consolation, though, that these sneezes at least made hardly any mess at all.

Lunch went smoothly, I heated up some leftover soup from the fridge. I was honestly getting sick of soup – I wanted something with more texture for dinner tonight. Yet another point in my favor in the starting-to-feel-better column. I put a bit of hot sauce in my soup, hoping that it would help clear my congestion a bit. The spice managed to make my nose run, but it didn’t help with the congestion at all. Plus, it irritated my throat, making me cough every few bites.

I dabbed at my nose with my handkerchief as it ran, cringing a bit at the burning sensation from the touch of the soft fabric against my flushed red skin.

My phone buzzed, and I picked it up, greeted by the sight of a text from Carla! I was glad to hear from her. It must be her lunch break again.

“Good morning hun! 😊 Starting lunch now. Have you been taking care of yourself?”

Quickly, I typed out a reply “I’m starting to feel a bit better, which a relief. This cold hits hard, but seems to get past the worst of the symptoms quickly. I’m just finishing up lunch, and am doing just fine. How are your classes going today?”

After a moment, there was another notification – she had texted me back. “Classes are fine, although I’d rather be home with you 😉”

I giggled a little before responding, “At least tomorrow is Friday, and after that we’ll have all weekend together!”

Carla responded with a smiley face, and I sent back a heart emoji.

For the rest of the afternoon, I sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and sneezing and coughing intermittently. I considered going back to work the next day, before deciding I might as well just start work back on Monday. I was still very much feeling the effects of my cold, after all. Around four, I remembered that today was Carla’s late day at work. She was supervising the robotics club until 5, a long 2-hour meeting.

“Hope the robotics meeting is going well!” I texted Carla, wanting her to know she had my support.

Text sent, I decided to make dinner for Carla – she had been taking such good care of me, after all. I knew I wasn’t quite up to a complicated meal, so I decided to cook some grilled cheese sandwiches and cut up some cucumber slices to go along with them. I even decided to heat up some frozen apple pie for dessert. It wasn’t the most cohesive meal, but I was happy with it. A break from all that soup would be perfect, even if it was a bit scratchy going down my throat.

Just as I put the grilled cheese in the pan on the stove, Carla walked in. She looked exhausted, which made sense given how long of a day she’d had. I walked over to her, dressed warmly but having finally shed my blanket wrapping. I put my arms around Carla, hugging her tightly as she leaned into me, exhausted from a long day of work. After a minute, she pulled away from the hug, and looked over to the stove.

“What’re you making” Carla asked.

“Well….” I dragged the word out dramatically “Tonight I’ll be serving grilled cheese with a side of sliced cucumber, followed by a delicious dessert of apple pie.”

Carla smiled, leaned against the counter, and said “I see you’re feeling better then.”

“The cold medicine is finally enough to mostly stop my symptoms, so definitely!” I turned around to flip the grilled cheese, coughing a bit as the steam from the stove hit my throat in just the wrong way.

“So, how was robotics?” I asked, still facing the stove.

There was a beat of silence before Carla replied, “Great! We’re making real progress on the rovers for our upcoming competition!”

“That’s awesome, glad the kids are having fun.” I waited a minute for the grilled cheese to finish cooking before pulling it off the stove and flipping the sandwiches onto plates I had laid out for us. We both sat at the table, and I started to nibble on the grilled cheese. As long as I took small enough bites and drank plenty of water, the sandwich didn’t hurt my throat too bad. Carla and I ate mostly in silence, me tired from the effort of standing long enough to cook, she worn out from her day at work. Every so often, I would sneeze, usually uncovered in Carla’s direction.

I was still a bit weirded out by it, since sneezing at someone on purpose was totally new to me. She had said she liked it, though, and even though I was no longer sick enough for it to be a complete accident, I decided to indulge her a bit. Every couple of sneezes, Carla would lean in kiss the tip of my nose, setting off another sneeze or two.

“ahCHOO- huhKIEW-!”

Carla wiped her face off with her napkin between my sneezing fits, and we both laughed a little bit and smiled. Despite our mutual exhaustion, this was… sort of fun.

Just as we finished our sandwiches, the pie finished cooling. Apple was Carla’s favorite pie, so I served her a huge slice, almost a fifth of the pie all for her. For myself, I got a fairly small one, not even an eighth of the pie. I was feeling better, sure, but not really well enough to want much in the way of dessert.

We took the pie slices to the couch, and ate them as we watched a movie Carla had recorded for us the other night. After the pie was gone, we leaned against each other, pulling a blanket up to cover our legs. At some point I drifted off, and when I woke up it was dark outside, the TV was playing some sort of infomercial, and Carla was snoring softly next to me, her head tilted back and her mouth hanging open a bit. I shook Carla awake, and we went to bed. I took some NyQuil before swiftly falling back asleep, Carla’s warmth at my back.

              I once again slept through Carla’s alarm, waking up just before she left. I checked my temperature – 99.8, not normal but also not a fever – and took a dose of cold medicine. I attempted to blow my nose into a handkerchief, the last clean one on my bedside table, producing a loud, sputtering honk.

              “Good bornding” I croaked as I walked into the kitchen, congestion thick in my voice as I tried to speak. Carla was drinking a cup of coffee, as she usually did in the mornings. I could tell from the clock that she would have to leave any minute now, but I was glad I was able to see her before she left.

              I heard a wet sniffling sound from Carla, and was instantly concerned.

              “Are you getting my cold?” I worried aloud.

              “Probably,” Carla admitted, “My nose has been running a bit all morning.”

              I felt a bit guilty – maybe if I hadn’t been so willing to sneeze all over her, she wouldn’t have caught the cold. Although, I supposed she was the one who gave me permission to sneeze at her like that. And besides, we slept in the same bed. It wasn’t like she was going to avoid catching it for long anyway.

              “If you start to feel too sick, go ahead and come home.” I said, wrapping my arms around Carla from behind her seat. “I probably shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did on Tuesday, I’m sure it made my symptoms worse.”

              “Gotcha” She cheerily replied, turning around in her seat to press a kiss to my lips.

              As she pulled away, I whispered “I love you.”

              She smiled, and kissed me one more time, before responding “I love you too, honey.” and getting up to leave.

              Right as she got to the door to the garage, I sneezed “huRASCHIEW!” My cold apparently was determined to make itself known in this moment.

              “Bless you!” She called, walking out the door, “See you tonight!”

              “See you then!” I responded, just a trace of congestion audible in my pronunciation of the word “then”.

              Left alone in our home once more, I focused on cleaning up a bit. I showered, pulled on some still comfy but less casual leggings and a t-shirt, and started a load of laundry. Someone needed to wash all those dirty handkerchiefs, after all. For good measure, I also washed the sheets and the blanket I’d been sneezing all over these past few days.

              Laundry started, I relaxed on the couch, turning on the TV once more to have some shitty daytime TV in the background. After about an hour, I heard the chiming tone of the laundry machine finishing and got up to go put it in the dryer. As I pulled the lint off the lint catcher in the dryer, some flew into the air, irritating my nose just enough that – “hahchiew!” – I sneezed, my nose still irritated from my cold and thus easily susceptible to triggers such as a bit of lint. Finally, I put the laundry in the dryer and went back to the couch, checking the time and taking another dose of cold medicine.

              After a bit, I dozed off on the couch, not falling asleep as deeply as I did at the height of my cold, but still fairly tired from a small amount of work. When I woke up, I ate lunch, heating up a frozen single-serve lasagna and tiredly shoveling it into my mouth. Following lunch, I continued my self-imparted cleaning mission, folding and putting away all the laundry I had just washed. Then, I texted Carla, “How is school going? Runny nose not giving you too much trouble?”

              Bzzt! She quickly responded, “I’m fine lol – just sniffing a bit during my lectures. The students are paying attention, so today’s a pretty good day.”

              “Glad to hear it!” I shot back, glad that this cold didn’t seem to be kicking her butt as quickly as it did mine.

              “Can’t wait for you to get home so we can spend all weekend together!” I texted, thinking of how nice it would be to be cuddled together on the couch all day, her succumbing to the cold I had given her, me just recovering from it. Ok, maybe I was a bit into this whole sneezing on my girlfriend thing as well, I realized, blushing at the realization.

              Carla replied with a heart and a kiss emoji, and I smiled.

              “hah-ahhhhCHIEW!” I sneezed, realizing that my cold medicine must be wearing off again. Sighing, a took another dose, looking forward to (hopefully) feeling well enough by the end of the weekend to not need any DayQuil to make it to work.

              The day seemed to crawl by and speed past at the same time, and before I knew it Carla was walking in from the garage.

              “Welcome home!” I called, happy to be awake to greet her. Carla came and sat on the couch next to me, leaning against me. Her nose was flushed red and her upper lip was glistening with snot. I pulled a tissue from the box on the coffee table, gently wiping her nose.

              “How was work?” I asked softly – I could already tell that the answer was going to be ‘not well’.

              Carla groaned a little bit and whispered, “I don’t really want to talk about it,” before sneezing sharply, stifling with her hand. “h’ngxt!”

              I hate it when she stifles – it just sounds so painful. I rubbed her shoulder a bit, remembering how absolutely miserable the first days of this cold were. I kissed her forehead and pulled a blanket up over us, mostly over her. We cuddled for a few minutes before I sneezed “hah….ahSCHIEW!” Almost as if in response, Carla also was overcome by a sneeze, stifling again “ahhhh-kxt! N’chzzzt!” She pulled her hand away from her nose and it was filled with snot from her sneezes. She pulled a few tissues from the box, wiping off her hand before fiercely blowing her nose, a gurgling noise coming out as her messy nose turned a fistful of tissues to mulch.

              Carla dropped the handful of tissues on the coffee table before nestling her head against my shoulder. After a few minutes she fell asleep, breathing exclusively through her mouth and drooling a bit as she snored. I scooted out from under the blanket, laying Carla down on the couch. It was probably a good idea to start dinner, as well as make sure there were plenty of tissues out for Carla. While I typically preferred handkerchiefs, Carla always wanted a box of tissues when she was feeling under the weather. I decided to make some chili tonight, hoping that the spice would work to clear both of our noses a bit.

              As the thick soup simmered, I sneezed once “hahCHIEW!” then a second time “ah-hah-SCHOO!”, my nose irritated by the steam rising from the pan. I picked up a handkerchief I had placed on the counter earlier, dabbing a bit at my nose. I impulsively decided to also cook some corn muffins, and popped those in the oven to bake. When dinner was ready, I went into the living room and woke up Carla.

              “Sweetie? I need you to get up for dinner.”

              She blew her nose in a tissue before getting off the couch and coming to the kitchen.

              “What’d you make?” She asked, looking at the bowls already steaming on the table.

              “Chili and corn bread” I replied, pulling out her chair for her. Carla sat down and sipped a bit of water from the cup I’d put at her seat. I sat down across from her, placing my hanky next to my bowl on the table, prepared for my nose to run like crazy once I started eating. We both dug in, noses streaming from illness and spice.

              I started to talk about my day in between bites, talking about the random shows that had played on TV while I relaxed on the couch. Every once in a while, Carla would bury her nose in a tissue, “k’chngt!” or I would cough a bit into my handkerchief. Eventually, Carla laid her head on the table, using her arms as a pillow. I took a few more bites before taking our bowls to the dishwasher and loading them up. I scooped the remaining chili into a Tupperware container, sliding it into the fridge.

              “You want to go cuddle in bed?” I asked, rubbing my hand in circles across Carla’s back.

              “Yeah.” She responded, standing up to come to bed. If I had also looked this sick on the first day of my cold, it was no wonder she had seemed so worried. Carla pulled on some pajamas and slipped into bed, and I passed her some NyQuil to help her fall asleep. As she swallowed the medicine, I also changed into pajamas, glad that I had finally felt well enough to shower and get dressed that morning. I took some NyQuil as well before climbing into bed next to Carla.

              Carla turned on a documentary on the TV, and we cuddled a bit.

              “You know, Carla.” I said hesitantly, “I would also like it if you…. You know, sneezed at me a bit.”

              I didn’t know how to put that in a way that didn’t sound awkward, so I just said it.

              Carla and I sat there for a moment, the sound of the TV running in the background. We both were blushing, and after a moment she haltingly replied, “Oh, uh, OK.”

              She blew her nose, the TV murmuring quietly in the background. I was entranced by her, thinking about how at any moment she might sneeze, spraying me with her germs, caught from me just a few days earlier.

              A couple minutes later, she did just that, “hahhhhhhAHHHHHH-NXIEW!” Her sneeze was messy and harsh, the first unstifled one she’d had since getting home that day. The mist from her sneeze flew across the inches between us, visible in the light from the TV. I felt it splatter a bit on my face, and I breathed in, living in the moment of the experience.

              “Bless you.” I whispered; my voice hoarse not from my cold but with desire.

              I had just been sneezed on, but this was the best I’d felt in days.

              A few minutes later, Carla fell asleep, eyes dragged closed by exhaustion from fighting her cold. My cold, invading her body, really. I blew my nose one more time, a soft kshhhh coming out as I did, before turning off the TV and laying down to go to bed.

              As I tried to fall asleep, I felt Carla shifting between my arms, coughing occasionally in her sleep. I snuggled against her, the sound of her snoring a white noise soothing my mind. It was almost a reassurance, that we were both safe, if ill. That she was still there for me.

              I dozed off, head lying just behind Carla’s.

              The next morning, I found that while I still had a bit of a cough, even the remaining congestion had cleared away, leaving me finally able to breathe through my nose again. Carla, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. She woke up a few hours after me, and was even running a low fever. 100.8. While I got her to take some cold medicine and eat a bit of food, she was clearly not hungry. Every couple of minutes, she would be overcome with sneezes. Despite my invitation to her to sneeze on me, she still stifled most of the time.

              Our bedroom was filled with the sounds of Carla’s illness. “hngXXT! Ah-KNGT!” Stifled sneezes were frequent, and when she tried to shift her position too much, such as moving to sitting, she would be struck by a truly terrifying bout of coughing. Even though I remembered just a few days ago struggling to stand due to the cough that came with this cold, I still worried about her every time she started coughing.

              I made some tea for both of us, bringing it into the bedroom so that Carla didn’t have to force herself out of bed. She sipped a bit of it, before simply laying her head in my lap an falling back asleep. I pulled out my phone, checking my email as I sipped the tea.

              “ahCHOOO!” Carla sneezed in her sleep, jerking slightly. I looked down at her, checking to see if she was waking up, but she hardly even stirred. I put down my mug and ran my hand along her back, trying to sooth her a bit.

              Eventually, I slipped out of bed once more, deciding to go ahead and put together a lunch for us. I ate a PB&J sandwich and some chips before heating up a mug of butternut squash soup from a box we kept in the fridge. I figured that it would be easier for Carla to just sip from a mug, so I didn’t even bother getting out a bowl.

              I walked back to the bedroom, putting the soup on Carla’s night stand before shaking her awake.

              “What is it?” Carla mumbled, clearly still half asleep.

              “Lunchtime” I replied, keeping my voice down in case she had a headache.

              Carla slowly sat up, and I repositioned her pillow so that it would lay between her and the headboard. After a couple seconds of coughing, she started to try to get out of bed.

              I put my hand on her shoulder, and interjected “Don’t worry about getting out of bed! I brought you some soup.” Carla leaned back against her pillow, and started to drink a bit of the soup I’d brough for her. Her nose was still running like crazy, so every few minutes she’d have to put her lunch down, pull a tissue from the box on her night stand, and blow her nose.

              The gurgling noise she made as she blew seemed kind of cute to me, even. I wasn’t sure what to do with that, though.

              When Carla had finished about half of the soup, she made a bit of a face and said “I don’t thigk I can eat any mbore.” I barely understood her, the congestion was so thick in her voice. In response, I passed her a dose of cold medicine and a water cup. She quickly drank a bit of water and took her medicine. I took the soup from her and walked back towards the kitchen.

              As I walked, I was surprised by a sudden sneeze “huTSCHOO!” I jerked from the force of it, and the soup in the mug sloshed over the side, spilling onto the floor and covering my hand. I put the mug in the dishwasher and poured the remaining soup down the drain before returning to the hall to clean up the mess I’d made.

              I leaned down and wiped up the soup spill, grateful that I wasn’t so congested anymore. Even the day before, leaning over like this would have left my sinuses burning from the pressure of my congestion. As I stood up, I coughed a bit, and the coughing forced me to lean against the wall for support. I put the towel I’d used to wipe up the spill on the counter in the kitchen, and went back to the bedroom to check on Carla.

              “Jean?” Carla turned towards me as I opened the door, her eyes barely open.

              “I’m here darling.” I responded to the unspoken question, climbing into the bed next to her and holding her hand.

              “Can you just… stay with me for a while?” Carla asked. Even if I wanted to get out of bed, I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to deny my miserably sick girlfriend some company. Given that I was just recovering from the same cold, though? I was feeling exhausted even after the little bit of work that I’d done so far that day, so I curled up next to her.

              Pretty quickly, I heard Carla’s congested breaths turn into quiet snoring. I looked over, and a trail of snot was dripping down her upper lip towards the bedsheets. Her mouth was cracked open slightly, and a thin layer of sweat shone on her forehead. I wiped her face with a tissue before I, too, was dragged asleep by my weary body.

              When I woke up, Carla was still fast asleep next to me. I grabbed my phone and checked the time – almost 7 pm. We’d been sleeping since lunch! I got out of bed, head still fuzzy from sleep. After I shuffled into the kitchen, I pulled some chicken broth out from the fridge, glad that there Carla had picked up plenty of it when she went to the store the other day.

              As the broth heated on the stove, I drank a cup of water. I was thirsty, but every couple sips I would swallow too fast or just wrong and wind up coughing again. The congestion being gone really did not mean I was recovered from my cold. I grabbed a bowl for myself and a mug for Carla, filling both with broth. As I did, I heard footsteps coming towards the kitchen from the bedroom.

              “Jean, hun?” Carla called out hoarsely as she turned into the kitchen, leaning against the door frame for support.

              “Well, good morning sweetheart” I said, trying to sound suave and cool. “Sleep well?”

              “I woke up and you were gone…” Carla trailed off, not answering my question.

              I walked over to where Carla stood, helping her to the table. After she sat down, I grabbed the broth from the counter and brought it over, planting a kiss on Carla’s cheek as I returned to the table.

              “I heated up some of that broth you bought for us.” I explained, sitting down across from her, “You didn’t have to get up, though. I would have brought it in for you.”

              “I wanted to get up, I was tired of –“ Carla cut off all of a sudden, her eyelids fluttering, “NGXT!” she sneezed before continuing, “I was tired of laying in bed all day, wanted to get up and spend some time sitting upright.”

              “That’s fair,” I responded, slurping a bit of the broth from a spoon.

              The warmth of the soup combined with her now upright position seemed to make Carla’s nose run even worse, and after a minute or two she was clutching her mug of soup in one hand and a wad of tissues in the other. Carla would sip her soup, and then press the tissues to her nose, blowing lightly. Every couple of blows, she would have to get a new set of tissues, the old ones having been rendered useless from the amount her nose was running.

              “huhSCHIEW!” I sneezed right as I finished my bowl of soup, and as if taking that as a challenge Carla’s nose decided it was time to start sneezing as well. She was finally tired enough to have given up on stifling her sneezes, allowing herself to sneeze uncovered in my direction, nose twitching from how itchy it had gotten.

              “ahhhSHOO! huhhhhAHTCHIEW! KCHEW!” With each sneeze Carla’s eyelids fluttered, a look of relief on her face as the set of sneezes came to an end. Every sneeze released a cloud of contagious mist in the air, although those germs would find no new host as both of us already had the cold. They settled on the table, on our hands, on the box of tissues between us.

              Carla blushed and grabbed a tissue from the box to blow her nose into. A moment later, I kissed her as I picked up the dishes from the table. We kissed deeply for a minute before she had to pull away, gasping for breath.

              After supper we cuddled in bed some more. I checked Carla’s temperature before we went to bed since it had been so high earlier, and was relieved to see it had dropped a bit to 100.3. Carla took a dose of NyQuil and I turned on the TV, picking out some movie that neither of us was particularly interested in to distract us from our illnesses until we could fall asleep. Carla was having to blow her nose every few minutes, and there was still a dull, constant ache in the back of my throat.

              Eventually the NyQuil took effect and Carla drifted to sleep. I stayed up until the movie ended, and then I tossed and turned, struggling to fall asleep, finding myself caught in a harsh coughing fit every time I got comfortable. I must have surrendered to sleep at some point, because my next memory is of waking up sometime in the night. I needed to use the restroom, so I got out of bed and started to walk over to the toilet.

After a few steps I started coughing. My coughs gave me no relief, getting stronger and stronger until I was gasping for breath and struggling not to gag. Finally they abated, leaving me kneeling in the doorway between our room and the bathroom, my torso supporting my the door frame as I leaned against it. I used the toilet, washed my hands, and returned to bed. My hands were shaking slightly, and I decided to take a dose of cough syrup before trying to fall back asleep. Maybe I had been pushing myself too hard these past few days trying to get over my cold quickly.

I noticed Carla was shivering and pulled an extra blanket up over her, wrapping my arms around her for good measure. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke up the next morning to the sound of Carla’s stifled sneezes “tchNGT! huhNXT! ahhhhhCKT!” I rolled over, looking at my girlfriend.

Carla was curled up on her side, nose pinched in between her fingers. She released her grip on her nose and sniffed thickly, congestion clearly stopping her from breathing at all through her nose. I reached across her and grabbed a handful of tissues, remembering how warm I had felt when she held tissues to mine. I pressed them against her nose, cupping my hand. She blew her nose into my hand, and I felt warmth slowly filling the tissues I had pressed to her face.

When she stopped blowing, I wiped up her face a bit before tossing the tissues. Carla leaned towards me and kissed me briefly. I smiled and sat up, coughing for a second. Then, I checked my phone for the time. It was already nearly noon! I drank some cough syrup and passed a dose of DayQuil to Carla, sliding out of bed and shuffling to the kitchen. Carla followed me, pausing as she left the bedroom and sneezing fiercely, “huuuuuuRASHOO! K’TCHIEWWW!” The sound of her sneezes was completely different from her tightly controlled stifling the day before. Now, she sounded exhausted, done trying to limit the mess of her illness.

We ate breakfast, each eating a bit of toast and drinking some of our beverage of choice – tea in my case, coffee in Carla’s. Carla coughed a deep, phlegmy cough, attention focused entirely on her drink. My eyes were rapt on her face, though. I drank in her watery eyes and bright red nose, focusing on every aspect of Carla’s sickness. Her nose ran and she idly wiped at her face with her hand, dragging a line of snot from her nostrils across her cheek. My attention was broken as a sharp cough bubbled up from within me, interrupting my intense focus on Carla.

The two of us shuffled through our day after that, the occasional roaring sneeze exploding out of Carla, and painful cough tearing from my lips. We cuddled on the couch for a while, nothing in particular playing on the TV. Carla fell asleep, and I read an ebook I had downloaded to my phone. When dinnertime came, we ate together before heading to bed. We both took a dose of cold medicine – I was not about to repeat my mistake from the night before – and fell asleep. Somehow, I even remembered it was Sunday night and managed to set my alarm for the first time since Tuesday. The sound of snoring filled the air in our bedroom, and I was glad to be feeling (mostly) recovered.

When I was startled awake by my alarm, Carla was still fast asleep. I showered and got dressed for work, packing some DayQuil, cough drops, and handkerchiefs in my bag just in case. I made a fried egg for breakfast, knowing I would need energy to make it through the day. After I finished breakfast, I called Carla’s school.

“Hello? This is Larry speaking.” Larry was the secretary at the school Carla worked at.

“Hi, Larry? This is Carla’s partner, Jean.”

“Oh, hi Jean! I remember meeting you at the end of year party this summer. How are things going?” How things were going was, unbeknownst the Larry, the crux of the matter.

“Unfortunately, not too well. Carla’s been sick all weekend, running a bit of a fever and everything. She’s not going to make it in to work today.” I blurted out, wanting this conversation to end.

“That’s awful!” Larry responded, “Give Carla my best, will you? I hope she’ll be back soon.”

“Will do, Larry. Have a great one.”

“You too.”

As Larry said those final words, I hung up, ending the call. I breathed a sigh of relief that the call was over with – I’d always hated phone calls. Emails were just so much more convenient.

I went into the bedroom and watched Carla sleep a bit longer, still having a few minutes until I had to leave. Before I left, I shook Carla awake and took her temperature, glad to see it had dropped below 100 for the first time all weekend.

“I’ll see you tonight” I said, kissing her gently.

“See you thend,” she muttered, congestion and exhaustion combining to muddle her words.

I drove to work, relishing the lack of symptoms so far that morning. When I got there, I slipped quickly through the cool fall air into the office. As I walked to my cubicle, several of my coworkers greeted me.

“Glad you’re feeling better!” Called Miranda.

“Mborning,” muttered Josh, looking sick. He must have caught my cold when I was in last week.

I saw Jordan walking towards my cubicle, and smiled at him.

“Thanks for sending me home on Tuesday.” I said, “I was a total mess, but a bit too stubborn to see it.”

“Just don’t make it a habit.” Said Jordan, laughing a bit.

He walked away, and I logged into my computer, grumbling a bit at the sheer number of emails I needed to reply to. I only started coughing a few times during the day, thankfully not in front of Jordan, as it would have somewhat undermined my point of being all better. Josh, on the other hand, fell asleep at his desk a bit after lunch. He drooled a bit on his keyboard, breathing exclusively through his mouth until I woke him up at 5.

“Josh?” I said, “It’s the end of the work day.”

He startled awake, looking around confused.

“Also, a tip? Stay home until you’re feeling better, this cold’s a real bad one. Sorry you caught it off of me.”

He nodded a bit absentmindedly, standing up to gather his stuff.

“Goodnight!” I called, walking out of the office and heading home to Carla. I wondered how she’d been doing all day – was she feeling any better? I hoped so.

As I pulled into the garage and walked in, I smelled something cooking in the kitchen. I walked in, smiling as I saw Carla cooking a stir fry. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun and her nose was still flushed red. She was wearing the warmest socks she owned – I had gotten them for her last winter – and she smiled when she saw me.

“Welcombe home” she said, hugging me tightly.

“Hey there sweetheart,” I responded, kissing her briefly on the cheek. We stood for a moment like that, relishing the moment of peace and warmth.

“ahhhtchiew!” Carla sneezed, head pressing into my shoulder.

I looked over at the stir fry, and noticed it was starting to burn a bit. I stepped away from Carla and pulled the stir fry off the stove, turning off the burner as well.

“You feeling any better?” I asked, spooning some of the stir-fried vegetables onto a plate for myself.

“Yeah,” Carla replied, “I’m still not at my best, but I think I’ll be good for work tomorrow. I’ll just put on a clip of Bill Nye and pass out a worksheet, the day will go by quick.”

We both smiled, and I sat at the table with Carla, relaxing in her presence after a long day away from her. As we ate the veggies Carla had prepared, she sneezed twice more – “huhTISH! Ah-huuuuSHOO!”- I blessed her, and we continued the meal. The whole time, though, my attention had been tied to her, relishing the desperate look on her face and her visible relief when the sneezes ceased.

That night, we went to bed early once again. I decided to go without cold medicine, though Carla still took some. We both set our alarms, and we cuddled, wrapped in each other’s arms until we fell asleep.

That’s the end of Jean’s perspective, clocking in at a bit over 15 thousand words, including authors notes. It stands alone as a complete story, but I am planning on coming back with Carla’s perspective here in the next few days. There was a lot going on during those days when Jean spent most of her day sleeping and miserable, and I’m excited to start revealing all of that to you!

Hope you’re all having a great night, and see you soon!

[nothin2sneeze@]

Love this! Can’t wait for the next update!!

[emten10]

This is so great! I’m so excited to see what happens next. Their relationship is so cute 🥰 

[Purplelily]

This was adorable! It really hit all my buttons, from the messy colds to the soft caretaking. I can’t wait to read the story from Carla’s perspective! 

[Likesn]

Oh boy! It took me about an hour to read the last part, but it was worth it 🤗 Can't wait for next parts. I'm hoping to read more about the time they were both sick.

[NickG1998]

I absolutely love this story please keep up the amazing work 

[Italiangirl]

I love this story! Please, write a chapter about Josh, explaining how he got a cold (from his pov) and everything...

[Bilo0618]

Alrighty! Starting in on Carla’s perspective. There will be some overlap with Jean’s pov, but I think it should be interesting enough! And, of course, lots of sick fic goodness 😉

Carla’s Perspective

              I didn’t realize anything was off until Jean got home that Monday.

              “Welcome Home!” I called when I heard the door open, busy cooking a pasta recipe I’d found on Pinterest. The first hint that something was off was that Jean didn’t come straight into the kitchen to say hi – on a normal day she would be eager to hear about my day, not bothering to change out of her dress clothes until just before bed.

              I heard a creaking noise behind me, and saw Jean walk in, her curly dark hair pinned down against her back with the weight of water. It was still dripping slightly, and she was wearing a pair of PJs she really only wore when she wanted to warm up. Her cheeks and the rims of her nose were flushed red, and a blanket was draped over her shoulders.

              I left the stove and went over to give her a hug. “Hey hun! Get caught in the rain?” I inquired. It was more of a pleasantry than anything else, since the answer was clearly hell yes.

              “Yep,” Jean replied, her voice sounding just a tad hoarse, as if she were about to start coughing at any moment. “Plus I’m definitely coming down with something. My nose has been running for over an hour, and my throat has been scratchy all day.” Well, that explained the raw look of her nose – it must be a bad cold, for her symptoms to already be so visible on only the first day of the illness.

              I remembered that this week was supposed to be especially busy for her, and commented “That sucks! Don’t you have that big update this week too?”

              “Unfortunately,” Jean groaned, leaning into my arms. She felt just a bit too warm, though her nose was cold and wet as it pressed against my neck. She had tucked her head down into the crevice where my neck met, and sniffled a bit in an attempt to keep her nose from running onto me.

              With a reassuring smile, I pulled her a bit tighter, emphatically saying “Well, good thing you’ve got me here to support you!” I was worried, but I didn’t want to overstep, so I pulled her tighter for a moment before going back to cooking.

              “I’m always glad that we can support each other,” Jean said, barely managing more than a whisper.

              It was clear that she was struggling to even carry out that much of a conversation, so I chattered on about my day, taking the burden of conversation away from her. Every few minutes, Jean would blow her nose into her handkerchief, drenching it slightly. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, feeling somewhat excited for her to start sneezing.

              For years, I’d found sneezing to be almost erotic. I scarcely wanted to be in public during cold and flu season – it felt awkward, like I was peeking in on something intimate. With Jean, though, maybe it wouldn’t be so awkward. She was my partner, after all. For weeks, we’d been dancing around saying “I love you” for the first time. We were so close, maybe it wouldn’t be an issue for her.

              The timer I had set for the pasta blared, and I started dishing out the meal. Jean drifted away, returning with a new handkerchief just as I took our bowls to the table. Jean’s nose continued to run throughout dinner, although she seemed to perk up a little as she ate. Jean was drinking a lot more water than usual, which I guessed was because of her sore throat.

              We finished eating, and I noticed as I took the bowls to the dishwasher that Jean had left about a third of her pasta untouched. Lack of appetite was a worrisome symptom, and I resolved to make sure she ate enough in the coming days. Jean frequently forgot to eat, distracted easily from her hunger by anything from cleaning to a good book. That was probably my least favorite habit of hers. We’d had conversations about it before, and she was trying to do better.

              Jean insisted on putting on a recording of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, although she was clearly exhausted and ready to head to bed. In fact, she fell asleep before the end of the opening monologue, snoring loudly as she typically did when she fell ill. The rhythm of her breathing was reassuring to hear, and I pulled the blanket wrapped around her shoulders tighter before settling in for the rest of the show.

              Eventually, the episode ended and I turned off the TV. I put my hand on Jean’s shoulder, rubbing it softly as I whispered, “Jean, honey? Let’s head to bed.”

              “Ok…” Jean’s voice sounded even more scratchy than it had earlier, and her voice trailed off a bit towards the end of the word. I helped her up, and she swayed a bit as she stood. ­­­­As we walked towards the bedroom, I walked slightly behind her, my hand lightly touching her back to provide support.

              Jean didn’t even bother changing into a different pair of pajamas before bed, another sign that she was indeed coming down with something. Normally, she wouldn’t wear her warmer PJs to bed, since she easily overheated at night. She didn’t even brush her teeth, which was honestly a bit gross. I figured if there was any time to let that slide, though, it was when you could barely breathe through your nose. Jean fell right asleep, the sound of her snores resuming before I was even wearing my PJs.

              It took me a while to find asleep, tossing and turning as Jean snored away. I almost decided to try my luck on the couch, but finally I drifted off.

              My alarm went off at 5:30, like usual. I work as a teacher, so I get up bright and early to be ready for my students. Jean stirred a bit at the sound of my alarm, so I leaned over to kiss her on the forehead once I turned it off. Normally, she’d get up just after me to make us both breakfast. It’s an established pattern between us – I have more time in the evenings, so I make dinner, whereas Jean has more time in the mornings so she makes breakfast. I had the feeling, though, that today she wouldn’t be up to it.

              I hurried about the kitchen, grabbing a bagel to eat on the way to school and picking my bag up from where I had left in when I got home the previous night. I’d totally forgotten to do any grading after Jean stumbled in, dripping wet and clearly unwell. The weekend homework I’d collected on Monday would simply have to wait to be graded until my prep period. Wrapping a thick scarf around my neck, I left the house and started walking to work. We lived only a 15-minute walk from the high school where I taught chemistry, so it was an easy enough one to make.

              The school day seemed to drag on, and I worried about how Jean was faring at work with that update to all the computers. Several of my coworkers were sick today, sneezing and coughing up a storm in the break room. Hearing them only served to remind me of how much Jean must be struggling, and I yearned to check in on her. I resisted texting her, though, not wanting to interrupt her work.

After my last class, I caught up a bit on my grading and lesson plans. I tried to always be a few days ahead on my plans, whenever possible. About 20 minutes after school had ended, I got a text from Jean - “Jordan sent me home sick from work. ☹ Going to take a nap, don’t worry about me. No fever, just a bad cold still. See you when you get home.” I did my best to resist simply dropping everything and heading home right then, Jean would be asleep and there was honestly nothing I could do for her. With a cold, she’d just have to recover with time and sleep.

Another half hour or so of work later, I decided I was sufficiently caught up on my work and began the trek home to my ill girlfriend. I checked my phone, and saw there were no new texts from Jean. She must still be fast asleep. When I arrived home, I peeked into the bathroom, seeing Jean fast asleep. I noticed she was lying on top of the sheets, so I maneuvered her under them, the comforter, and an extra blanket for good measure. She coughed a bit and rolled over after I finished moving her, and I crept out of the room to leave her to her sleep.

I puttered about the kitchen for a bit, making a bowl of egg drop soup for Jean as I checked the calendar for the rest of the week, planning to go through and cancel all of our upcoming plans if I could. The calendar was, lucky for us, mostly clear. The only thing planned was a dinner with two of our friends, Jim and Maria, the next night. I went ahead and gave them a call, knowing that they’d also be preparing dinner just about now.

The phone rang for a minute before Jim picked up, “Hi you’ve reached the Brown residence, Jim speaking. Who is it?”

“Hi Jim, its Carla.” I said, idly stirring the soup as it heated up.

“Oh, hi Carla! How’re things going? Maria and I are looking forward to dinner tomorrow.” Jim enthused.

“Yeah, I’m actually calling about that. Jean’s gotten sick, and I doubt she’ll be up for dinner tomorrow night, so I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel.”

“That’s too bad,” Jim said, “Is there anything we can do to help out? I know it’s always hard when your partner falls ill.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ve got it under control. Any idea when you might be available to have dinner again? I want to make sure to get this rescheduled.” I said, returning to the main point of the call.

“How does next Thursday sound?” Jim asked, “Do you think Jean will be well enough by then?”

“Hopefully! Let’s go ahead and plan on it, and I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

After that, I put the date and on the calendar and we chatted for a bit, until the soup was finally ready.

“Oh, I’ve got to go! Dinner’s finally ready, and I need to wake Jean up so she can eat.”

“You go ahead and do that then! I hope Jean feels better soon.” Jim replied, his voice warm.

“Thanks for the concern! I’ll make sure to let her know you hope she feels better.”

Maria shouted her farewell, having tangentially joined the conversation after the first few minutes. “Make sure she eats some soup! I know it’s no fun, but it’ll be easy enough to keep down.”

I laughed a bit before replying, “Yeah, I’ll feed her plenty of soup! Don’t worry about us.”

“We’ll try not to worry too much, but make sure you’re checking in with us! Bye!” Jim’s voice rang through the phone.

“Bye! I’ll talk to you again soon!” I responded, finally hanging up.

I started walking towards the bedroom, and I sped up when I heard Jean start coughing. When I opened the door, her face was flushed red and she was shaking with the force of her coughs. I sat down next to her and started rubbing my hand in circles on her back, hoping to soothe some of her pain. Finally, her coughs slowed, finally stopping. Then, several emotions flickered across her face, indecipherable due to the speed which with they passed.

Jean seemed to settle on shame, stuttering out “I-I’m sorry you have to see me like this.” before she even had her breath back. Then she looked up at me, going off on a whole new apologetic tangent.

“Oh no I’m gonna get you sick aren’t I! You shouldn’t be in here with me. It’s not nearly as easy for you to take time off as it is for me, and this cold is absolutely miserable.”

I figured now was not the right moment to broach the fact that, as I saw it, it wouldn’t be too bad to catch Jean’s cold, my body being overrun with the contagious germs that had infected her sniffling body. Instead, I took a more serious route. “Jean, I’m in this relationship to be your partner. And that means being with you when you’re sick, regardless of what the consequences of that may be. I’m going to be here with you, even if I might get sick. I lo- care about you too much to be worried about myself when you’re hurting so much.” Just barely, I stopped myself from outright saying “I love you” to Jean. Now wasn’t really the time or the place, and I worried she wasn’t ready to reciprocate, given how miserably ill she was at the moment.

I pulled her into a hug, continuing to rub my hand against her back even as it started to tingle a bit from the static and the continuous motion. “Have you had any cold medicine?” I asked, worried about how severe her coughs had sounded.

It took Jean a moment to respond, as if she was struggling to put together her thoughts in a coherent manner. “No, not since this morning. I had some DayQuil around 9, but nothing since then.”

Well, at least I didn’t have to do any math to figure out if she needed more medicine then. I smiled softly, trying to project calmness for Jean, and said “Ok, You’re due for some then. I’ve made soup in the kitchen, and after you eat that you can take some NyQuil and go to bed.”

I passed Jean a cup of water, knowing that she had almost certainly not been hydrating enough. Before I started cooking, I’d put a whole variety of stuff on her night stand, ready to take care of her there if she couldn’t quite get out of bed. There were some handkerchiefs, every relevant medication I could find in our bathroom, tissues, the thermometer, everything I could think of.

After Jean finished sipping at the water, I helped her stand up. She was unsteady on her feet, and felt a bit too warm as she leaned against me. Once we reached the kitchen, Jean slipped into her normal seat at the table, shivering slightly. Her eyes drooped a bit as if she still wasn’t quite awake, and she rested her head on her hands as she sat.

The egg drop soup was still warm, and I poured it into two mugs, one for each of it. I thought it might be asking a bit too much of Jean at this point to use a spoon, and honestly it was a bit fun to drink soup from a mug regardless.

“It’s egg drop soup. I know that’s your favorite soup.” I explained, passing the mug I’d poured for Jean to her.

“Thanks, Carla” Jean responded, her voice scratchy from all her coughing. We sat and drank our soup in silence. After a minute, Jean started to glance around, looking more desperate by the moment. A drip of snot had gathered at the base of her nose, revealing the reason for her desperation. I leaned over Jean, grabbing a box I had left on the counter just behind her seat.

“Here you go, hon.” I said, passing Jean the box of tissues.

Jean pulled a tissue, wiping at her bright red nose. I tried not to feel too weird, watching Jean wipe her nose like that. I pushed down against the part of me that insisted it was incredibly attractive.

Then, her breath started to hitch, and I knew I was screwed. “ah- Ah- AH-“ Her eyelids fluttered, a look of tense build-up on her face. Jean slowly raised a tissue to her face, ready to cover the second her sneeze fully appeared. All of a sudden, though, she groaned and lowered the tissue, leaning down until her head rested on her hands once more.

“Lost it?” I asked, trying not to think too hard about how I might help her sneeze, kissing the tip of her nose or blowing gently in her face.

“Yeah.” Jean answered, a look of slight disappointment appearing on her face, before her features suddenly screwed up again, and she released a tense “-CHOOO!”, sneezing right in my face. I felt the mist from her sneeze drift over me, heavy droplets landing onto my face, neck, and the very top of my chest. I tried to keep any noticeable expression from my face, even as I felt myself start to blush a bit. That was the single most sensual thing I had ever experienced.

“Oh god!” Jean squeaked, quickly wiping the remaining mess from her sudden sneeze from her face.

I reached towards Jean, pulling a tissue from the box on the table and wiping her sneeze off of my face.

“I am so sorry!” Jean exclaimed, her face flushed with embarrassment rather than illness.

“It’s ok, if I’m going to catch this cold I probably already have” I responded, well aware that colds were most contagious right as symptoms first appeared, and that I’d been sleeping in the same room as Jean for days. Not to mention my… ulterior motives. The thought of how absolutely addictive the feeling of Jean’s spray on my face was replayed through my mind.

Jean moaned, “Still… you’re the best partner ever, cooking me dinner when I’m sick and bringing me tissues and all, and I repay you by sneezing on you!”

My motives weren’t exactly pure, and I impulsively decided to go ahead and let on to Jean just how much I enjoyed her messy sneezing.

I leaned towards Jean, trying to use the sexiest voice I could, “Well, you’ll just have to repay the favor if I do get sick. And if I don’t, no harm done!”

Somehow, Jean’s blush got even deeper, and she croaked out, her voice thick from her cold, “Carla, did you… like that?”

I felt my face grow hot, despite my attempts at nonchalance. I had never admitted this to a partner before, but if I was going to get what I wanted from this illness, I needed Jean to know.

“A bit. It was… kinda sexy?” I answered the question, before hurriedly clarifying, “Not that I want you to be sick, or anything!”

“Oh” There was a look of shock on Jean’s face, and she was silent. I held my breath, expecting she would call me gross or something.

Then, Jean continued, “If you want, I could always… try to sneeze on you?” The volume of Jean’s words dropped on the last phrase, leaving it almost indecipherable. I held still for a moment longer, wondering if I was really doing this, before I nodded, reaching out my hand with a tissue clutched in it to Jean’s nose.

“Your nose is still running,” I commented, an almost commanding tone to my voice, “go ahead and blow.”

Jean looked a bit embarrassed, before she began to blow her nose. This was the stuff of dreams for me, the feeling of her mucus bubbling against my hand as she fruitlessly tried to clear her nose of thick, contagious snot. The tissue was entirely wrecked by the time I pulled back from Jean, pinching her nose tightly before I drew back to stop the snot from remaining connected. I tried to do it with just the right amount of force to avoid triggering another sneeze, and it seemed like I succeeded. We both smiled, finishing our soup over the next few minutes.

“Want to head back to the bedroom?” Jean asked, her voice still sounding raw from her cold. “I can take some NyQuil and then we can cuddle and watch some TV?”

I could hear the nerves in Jean’s voice, the way she phrased everything as a question. To reassure her, I responded with as much confidence as I could in my voice, “Sounds great.”

To prepare to leave the kitchen, I stood and cleared the table, loading all the dishes into the dishwasher and putting the leftover soup into the fridge. When I looked back over at Jean, she had stood up, both hands pressing against the table for support. Jean swayed slightly, and I hurried over to offer her my support. I wrapped my arm around Jean’s waist, and together we walked slowly to the bedroom, her leaning heavily on me for support. I’m not sure she realized just how unsteady she was, and I considered staying home the next day to make sure she didn’t try to overdo it while I wasn’t there. Ultimately, I decided to leave that decision for the morning, and focused all my attention on Jean.

I helped Jean into bed, pulling back the covers and acting as an extra support. It was no wonder her boss had sent her home from work; she could hardly stand up straight and that was after a few hours of sleep. I passed a dose of NyQuil to Jean along with the cup of water before slipping into the bed myself. A bit of excitement stirred within me at the thought of more contagious sneezes being thrown my way, and I distracted myself by focusing on turning on the TV.

After I put on a documentary about space, one of my favorite topics, I turned my attention to Jean. Her head was in my lap, and I started to run my fingers through her hair. One of Jean’s hands desperately clutched a handkerchief, and the other was draped across my legs. Jean would swipe at or blow her nose with the hanky every couple of minutes, and it steadily grew soggier as time went on. Eventually, Jean’s face twitched, a sneeze overpowering what little control she still had over her body. She looked straight up at me, her eyes meeting mine before they squeezed shut and she sneezed, uncovered, right at me. “aha- AH- Shew!” I felt the mist soak my face, filling the air I breathed. Then, I leaned down and pressed a kiss to Jean’s mouth, showing my appreciation for her germ-filled sneezes.

The cycle continued, Jean rubbing her nose and putting off her sneezes as long as possible before ultimately surrendering and letting loose a spray of germs onto my unprotected face. By the time Jean fell asleep, I was certain that I’d have this cold by the end of the week, sneezing and coughing from the extended contact with such a beautiful, sick woman. I finished the documentary, only half paying attention as my mind replayed all the incredible moments with Jean that night. I pulled her handkerchief from her still clenched hand, inhaling deeply as I pressed it to my face, ensuring just that little bit more that I would catch this cold. Finally, I turned off the TV and went to sleep, Jean curled up and snoring between my arms.

              When I woke up, I felt exhausted. The sheets pressed down on me, and it felt like an almost insurmountable task to push them up and get out of bed. All the same, I pushed through, turning off my alarm and stretching a bit to loosen my muscles. I took a hot shower, and the pressure felt absolutely fabulous. After I got dressed, I sorted the cold medicine a bit in an effort to make the day easier for Jean, leaving a note for her on her bedside table. For breakfast, I made scrambled eggs, and I drank coffee from a thermos as I walked to work, bundled up against the cold.

              Despite all the layers I wore – a heavy coat over a lighter cardigan, my thickest scarf, a warm set of gloves, and a hat Jean had made for me one year when she was learning to knit – my exposed nose still ran as I walked to work. Every minute or two, I would press my nose against the palm of my glove, dabbing the watery snot away before it could begin to drip down my face. That, combined with the barest hints of a sore throat developing, let me know that I had indeed caught Jean’s delectably sneezy cold. Either one alone could have been dismissed, but together? A virus had definitely worked its way into my system.

              Eventually, I got to work, gloved hands wrapped around my travel mug of coffee as if it was a lifeline. I resolved to simply take the car to work the next day, assuming Jean was still in no condition to head out herself. This long walk in the chilly autumn air would do me no good if I ended up as torn up as Jean was. I taught my classes, snorting and sniffling away my runny nose as much as possible. We had been working on stoichiometry, and given that the manipulation of chemical equations and the math that arose from them would be the basis of all our work moving forward in the semester, I needed to make sure they understood. I assigned another set of worksheets on the topic, walking around the classroom and reteaching the concepts as many times as the students needed, feeling my throat burn worse with every conversation.

              I texted Jean between classes, filling my mug, formerly filled with coffee, with water from the fountain just outside the classroom to try to soothe my throat during the upcoming class period.

              “Morning hun! Hope you’re not feeling too bad.”

              Then, 45 minutes later, another text – “I’m guessing you’re still sleeping lol – text me whenever you get up.”

              Another class went by, and I texted Jean twice more. “Are you ok? Besides being sick of course.”

              “I can come home if you need me to, no problem at all!”

              During the next class, the last one before lunch, I looked at my phone, texting Jean a few more times.

              “Sorry I’m seeming like such a worrywart – it’s a bit silly, I know!”

              Then, a heart emoji, and the simple words “I really do hope that you’re doing ok.”

              Finally, my last class before lunch ended, and I texted Jean once more. “Taking my lunch break now – do you want me to come home and check in?”

              A minute later, just as I started pulling on my layers to go home and see how Jean was doing, my phone buzzed. A text from Jean – “Don’t bother – just laying in bed watching reruns. Took some DayQuil earlier, so the symptoms aren’t even too bad right now.”

              I smiled, responding with a couple of emojis to let Jean know that her message was received. I was glad she was up and at it, though I still wanted to go home just to see how she was doing. I sniffed a bit more, before finally giving in and blowing my nose in a snotty gurgle into a tissue. I could hardly believe how quickly I had gotten sick! I almost certainly must have already been infected even before our activities last night, or else it would still be a while yet before I started to show symptoms.

              The snot-filled tissue disposed of in the trash, I washed my hands thoroughly before grabbing my packed lunch from underneath my desk and heading to the break room to eat with my coworkers. Several of them had looked to be on their last legs yesterday, so I wondered if there would be many substitutes in today. To my surprise, when I stepped into the breakroom, everyone who had been there the day before was present again, although some of them would clearly have rather been in bed. I sat across from Paul, he taught algebra 1 and 2. Yesterday, he had already been sneezing and coughing, and today his head was resting on his folded arms, his breathing shallow and uneven.

              “What’re you doing here, Paul?” I asked, unpacking my lunch. “I thought for sure you’d have gotten a sub for the day.”

              Paul coughed, the sound wet and uncomfortable. “Ugh, I wish. I asked Marge, and she said the whole district had a shortage of substitutes. They’re odly giving subs to people with fevers right dow.” Paul’s voice was barely intelligible from the thick congestion blocking his nose, and I wondered how he was even teaching today. When I asked that question, he simply laughed a bit and said “YouTube”. I figured I’d probably have to go to that resource as well some time in the next few days, and nodded a bit, taking a bite of my sandwich.

              Paul and I chatted throughout lunch. When I reached up to rub at my runny nose, he noticed quickly. “Oh ndo, are you catching sobethig too?”

              “Unfortunately, I think so. Jean came home sick last night, and I’ve been feeling off all morning.” I replied before I sniffed thickly, a liquid slurping sound emerging from my nose. With that, lunch ended, and we both hurried back to our classrooms.

              “HUHRASHOO!” I heard Paul sneeze behind me, and I blushed a bit as I stepped back into the chemistry room.

              I had a break period now, and then two more classes to teach before the end of the day. I made some lesson plans and put them in the very top desk drawer, just in case I did end up with a fever and get a substitute while I was sick. Then, I got to work on grading, dabbing my nose with a tissue as I worked to avoid dripping onto my students’ papers. When the bell rang signaling the start of my second to last class, and students poured in from the hallways, I was a bit surprised that the period had already ended.

              The students sat down and looked at me, so I began handing out worksheets again, the familiar routine keeping me grounded. As the period went on, it became harder and harder to keep my nose from visibly running, and eventually I stepped out into the hall and gave my nose a snotty blow. When I stepped back into the room, I threw away the tissue and rubbed sanitizer all over my hands. I may be sick, but I certainly did not want to spread my illness to anyone else.

              The period finally ended, and my last group of students filed into the room. Just one more hour and then I would be free to leave and go home. Normally I would stay and do more work, but after a long day with a runny nose, I just wanted to be back with Jean. I struggled through the last period, avoiding leaning over my students’ desks in case my nose started dripping mid-explanation. I sipped water from my mug every few minutes, trying in vain to reduce the scratchy feeling in my throat.

              Finally, the students ran out as the last bell sounded, and I packed up my desk and got ready to leave. I pulled a dozen or so tissues from the box at my desk, folding them into my jacket pocket for the walk home. As I walked outside, I felt my nose begin to run in response to the change in temperature. My snot was still clear and liquid, indicating that this cold was only just beginning. I pinched my nose with a tissue what felt like every few seconds in an attempt to keep myself looking clean, although it seemed to be mostly a fruitless battle.

              As I walked home, I passed the grocery store, and decided to walk in and stock up in case neither of us were quite up to going out tomorrow. I bought decongestants, cough drops, tissues, and tea. Then, after stocking up in the pharmacy section, I walked over to the soup aisle, intent on getting plenty of soup to get us through this. After grabbing a quart each of ready to eat tomato soup and butternut squash soup, I went to the deli section, purchasing a quart of the chicken broth that was made in-store. I could hardly smell the soup, my nose was too stuffy, but I knew from past experience that it smelled heavenly.

              Shopping done, I exited the store, my arms full of treatments and food for Jean and I. Unfortunately, with my arms full, I was reduced to rubbing my nose against my shoulder and sniffing to try to stop it from running, which was entirely insufficient. By the time I walked in the door at home and set down the groceries, there was snot pooled on my upper lip, and the rims of my nostrils were beginning to feel chapped.

              The first thing I did after setting down the groceries was bury my nose in a fistful of tissues and blow, sighing in relief as the pressure in my nose receded. Tossing the wet clump of tissues, I crossed to the sink and washed my hands. Then, I put away the groceries and slipped the cold medicine I’d bought at the store into my work bag for the next day. The tissues were placed into the cabinet above the microwave, where we kept paper products like paper towels and napkins.

              I peaked into the bedroom, and was glad to see that Jean was sleeping soundly. The TV was running still, so I turned it off before heading back to the kitchen. It was now already 5, and I wanted to drink a cup of tea before starting to reheat the chicken broth from the grocery store. The tea soothed my throat far more than the water I’d been drinking all day had, and I relaxed into the chair I sat in as I felt the warmth of it fill my chest. Once the tea was gone, I made a sandwich for myself, warmed up the broth, and went to go wake up Jean.

              She was still fast asleep, her mouth open as she snored. I crouched next to the bed and rubbed my hand on Jean’s shoulder. “Jean, hun? It’s time to wake up.”

              “Carla? Why’re you home so early?” Jean’s voice was rough and scratchy, and she seemed disoriented, more than I would expect from just having woken up from a nap.

              “Early? Jean it’s almost 6 o’clock. I’m waking you up for dinner!” I moved to feel her forehead, which thankfully didn’t seem too warm at the moment.

              “Oh…” Jean still looked half asleep. “I fell asleep before I even had lunch… sorry about that.”

              I sighed, but wasn’t too surprised. Jean didn’t remember to eat at the best of times. I smiled at her, trying to be reassuring. “There’s no need to apologize, honey. You’re sick, it’s out of your control right now. Anyway, dinner’s important for helping your body heal.”

              Jean started to get out of bed, and I did my best to support her and help her into the kitchen. While it seemed like Jean was starting to wake up, she still leaned heavily on me, unable to fully support her own weight.

              “What did you make tonight?” Jean asked, some excitement audible in her voice. I was glad to hear that she seemed more with it than when she first woke up.

              “It’s just some chicken broth I picked up from the store. I wasn’t sure you’d be up for anything more than that.” Truthfully, I was barely up for more than simple broth.

              Jean smiled from her seat at the table, “Perfect.”

              I poured some soup into a mug for Jean, and grabbed the sandwich I had made for myself. As I walked over, I saw on Jean’s face that she was about to sneeze, and heard her breath begin to hitch in build-up. “ah- AH- HUH-“ Jean was struggling not to give in, and when I bent over the table I discovered why. “-CHOOOO!” She sneezed just as my face was closest to hers, drenching me all of a sudden in contagious mist. Some even landed on her mug and my sandwich.  I blinked a bit, relishing the feeling of Jean’s sneeze, before leaning in to kiss her. As we kissed, I felt the thick, wetness of her snot running onto my lip. Somehow, it made the kiss even more attractive. I had caught Jean’s cold, but she was still sharing her messy sneezes and runny nose with me. After a minute, Jean pulled away, gasping for breath. I was also a bit short of breath after such a long, sneeze, and I stared at her for a moment after I finally sat down at my seat.

              Jean muttered, just audible, “Wow – If you keep that up you’re definitely going to catch my cold!” before blowing her nose loudly into a tissue.

              I wiped Jean’s sneeze off my face with my napkin, taking the opportunity to wipe my own runny nose a bit as well. For some reason, I decided not to mention that I thought I already had caught Jean’s cold. I guess I wanted to see when she’d notice my undeniable cold symptoms on her own. Instead, I looked pointedly at her soup before taking a bite of my sandwich.

              Jean quickly started sipping at her soup, although it was slow going for her to ingest it all. She seemed to relish the feeling of the warmth in her hands and sliding down her throat, which I could relate to after my cup of tea just a few minutes earlier. Once my sandwich was done, I started rambling about my day to fill in the silence, leaving out anything about my sore throat and runny nose. No point in giving Jean too many hints, after all.

              Eventually, Jean put down her mug and started coughing. She seemed desperate for air, barely able to breathe between coughs. I got out of my chair and leaned down next to Jean, rubbing her back again as she struggled to catch her breath. Once her coughing ceased, she looked at me and asked for a cup of water, her breathing still shallow as if she feared causing another coughing fit. I filled one up quickly and passed it to her.

              Jean sipped at the water for a few minutes, eventually asking hesitantly, “Can we head to bed now?”

              She must’ve really been exhausted if she wanted to head right back to bed after just a few minutes out of it. I held out my hand and helped Jean to the bedroom, wondering if she’d even managed to get out of bed while I was gone. When we made it to the bedroom, Jean sat unsteadily on the edge of the bed, and I sat down next to her. Jean leaned against me for a moment before sneezing “huh… ah…. AHSCHOO!” She fell forward from the force of the sneeze, almost tumbling to the floor before I caught her. After a whispered “thank you”, Jean sneezed again “TISHOO!” The look of desperation on her face as she sneezed was simply gorgeous, although I worried a bit as she gasped for breath afterwards.

Jean took a dose of NyQuil, still leaning against me as she sat in bed. All of a sudden, Jean looked at me, asking “Any chance you could turn the shower on high for me? Yesterday the steam really helped with the congestion I had then, and I’m sure it would help again today.”

              I studied Jean’s face, looking at her slightly unfocused eyes and chapped nostrils before agreeing, “Sure thing hun.”

              She leaned against me all the way into the bathroom before sliding down the wall and sitting next to the shower. I reached over her to turn it on full blast, allowing steam to slowly fill the room. Then, as steam filled the room, I pulled some tissues from a box on the back of the toilet before sitting down across from Jean in the cramped bathroom. I pushed myself up towards her runny nose, holding tissues up to it as it started to drip, and told her to blow. She struggled a bit at first, before her nose started to gurgle and snot poured out into the tissues. After only a moment, they were effectively useless, and I felt the moist snot splattering against my hand.

              After a minute, Jean leaned back and groaned. I tossed the dirty tissues and pulled the box onto the ground next to us, seeing that Jean’s nose was still wet and irritated. I pulled a handful more tissues and then leaned into Jean again. She pressed forward into my hand, barely taking a moment to breath before deep, gurgling blows. Eventually, Jean stopped blowing and I pulled back again. Then, Jean’s head suddenly shot forward, “SCHIEW!” Another mist of cold germs left Jean’s nose and mouth, brushing over me. I wiped beneath Jean’s nose, cleaning up the snot gathered under her nose before she sneezed once more, “ahCKIEW!”

              This sneeze was directed towards the ground, coating both our thighs where they bent together. I threw away the handful of tissues and grabbed some more, wiping my nose and giving a light blow to my own nose. Jean was distracted by her own cold, grabbing a few tissues from the box and leaning her head on my shoulder as she coughed, a handful of tissues growing more and more damp in her hand as the congestion in her chest loosened.

              Eventually, Jean’s coughs slowed, finally stopping their torture of my sneezy, sick girlfriend. The tissues she had clutched to her mouth for the entirety of the fit fell from her hand to the floor, making a nasty squelching sound. I picked them up and threw them away, and then we both headed to bed, shower turned off and Jean’s cold abating for the moment.

              Once we were curled together in bed, Jean asked me to keep talking about what I’d done at work, and I acquiesced, rambling on until she fell asleep about the students’ relationships and drama, always her favorite topic to hear about. After she started snoring, I did my best to fall asleep quickly, and succeeded, pulled to sleep by my body’s desperate need for rest in the face of the cold I had caught from Jean.

              The blaring of my alarm jerked me awake, and my head ached from the sound. I dragged myself out of bed, swallowing dryly and feeling my throat ache. Jean was fast asleep still, and I turned off the alarm. Today was Thursday, so I was getting closer to the weekend, at least. I pulled on some clothes for work, wishing I didn’t have to go in. I remembered what Paul had said about needing a fever to qualify for a sub right now, and decided impulsively to take both our temperatures before I left that morning. Maybe I’d get lucky and one or both of us would be running just hot enough to allow me to stay home and rest.

              I took the thermometer from Jean’s night stand, walking into the bathroom and shutting the door. When I turned the light on, my eyes burned from the sudden light, and all of a sudden, I sneezed, “AH-shumph!” I was glad the sneeze wasn’t too loud, muffled by an arm I had swiftly pressed to my face. When I pulled my arm away, there was a smear of snot on it, glistening and wet under the bright lights in the bathroom. I slipped the thermometer under my tongue, waiting for the tell-tale beep that would tell me the measurement was done.

              “Beep! Beep!” I pulled the thermometer out from under my tongue. Damn – only 99.2. Not nearly high enough to get a substitute. I resigned myself to having to wake Jean up and check hers. That was probably a good idea anyway, given how sick she’d been the night before.

              I walked into the bedroom and gave a tap to Jean’s shoulder.

              “Honey, I need to take your temperature,” I whispered.

              Jean, looking exhausted, opened her mouth. When the thermometer finally beeped, I checked the display. Jean’s temperature was up to 99.9, but I doubted anything less than 101 would be enough to relieve me of my duties as a teacher. I tried to hide my mixed emotions – relief at Jean’s lack of a fever, worry about how I’d make it through the long day at work. I passed Jean a dose of DayQuil and some water before gently running my hand across her forehead.

              “You don’t have a fever, so I’m still going to head into work. I’ll write down the time you can take some more cold medicine for you, and please remember to eat lunch today. Text me if anything goes wrong, ok?” I said, scribbling some notes onto a sticky note from the drawer of Jean’s night stand. Lord knows why she keeps them in there, but it is sometimes convenient.

              Jean responded with a smile, “Don’t worry so much. I’ll be right here when you get home. Go and blow them all away. Just not with actual explosions.”

              I chuckled a bit at her joke – today wasn’t even going to be a lab day, there was no chance of any chemical reactions happening in my classroom. “Well, at least your terrible sense of humor is intact!” Then, I leaned down to Jean and we kissed briefly.

              “I love you.” Jean mumbled. I was a bit shook – was she really ready? Now? Was I even ready?

              I swallowed my nerves, smiling and responding, “I love you too.” Before hurrying out the bedroom door to finish getting ready for work.

              In the kitchen, I ate a granola bar and filled my thermos with lemon tea with honey. I knew I would have to try to preserve my voice if I wanted to make it through two more days of work. I loaded Jean’s car up with a box of tissues for while I made the short drive up to the school, putting my bag filled with cold medicine and ungraded worksheets from the day before into the trunk with a Tupperware filled with leftover pasta for my lunch.

              Impulsively, I crept back into the bedroom before I left, adding a scribbled “I love you” to the note. Then, I was on my way to a long day at work.

              When I stepped out of the car at work, a dry, painful cough tore its way out of my throat. The cough left my throat stinging, and I took a sip of the tea I’d brough with me in an attempt to soothe it somewhat.

After I made it to my classroom, I unpacked, taking a dose of decongestant and a general cold medicine, slipping a couple cough drops in my pocket to suck on as I taught. For today, I’d be giving a lecture for my classes, discussing the uses for stoichiometry and running through some practice with the class.

              While the first class of the day filed in, I stifled a few sneezes into a tissue as the decongestant started to work. “NGXT! KNNT!” The students politely didn’t say anything about my symptoms, even as I blew my nose every few words during my first lecture, waiting for the combination of medications to dry up the faucet that was my nose. Luckily, the cough drops at least were fast acting enough to completely mask that symptom. Towards the end of the lesson, my nose’s running slowed to a meager drip, and during the passing period I blew my nose until it felt dry and empty.

              The students came in, and I sipped on my tea throughout my second run through the lecture, running out just as class came to an end. With the tea gone, I worried a bit about how the remaining classes would go, and I resolved to see what I could make over lunch with the supplies in the teacher’s lounge to help. Surely, with how many people were teaching with brutal colds this week, someone would have brought in a box of tea or a bottle of honey.

              For my third class, I was starting to feel a bit dizzy, so I sat down for most of the lecture rather than standing and pacing as I typically would. I sucked on a cough drop at the start of class, feeling the sharp mint flavor of it clearing my sinuses and the soothing syrup it produced reduce the ache in my throat.

              The fourth class, unfortunately, was somewhat of a mess. My nose started running again as the medications I had taken apparently wore off, and I even sneezed a few times, barely able to stifle the powerful, messy sneezes. “huhKXT! ihhhTCHuh!” The interruptions to the class from the sneezes and my need to wipe my nose somewhat reduced the amount of content I was able to get through, and I was relieved when the bell went off, signaling the start of lunch.

              In the break room, Paul had finally been replaced by a substitute, although said woman wasn’t looking too healthy herself. I actually don’t think there was a single teacher left in the school who wasn’t either sneezing and coughing in the break room, or nursing a more severe illness back home. I tossed my pasta in the microwave and rummaged through the cabinets looking for something to soothe my throat. I finally found some honey and tea – perfect for what I planned to do – and started heating up some water in the electric kettle on the counter. While I waited for my pasta to finish microwaving and the water to boil, I sent a quick text to Jean.

              “Good morning hun! 😊 Starting lunch now. Have you been taking care of yourself?”

              I set the tea to steep and then noticed a reply had come in from Jean – “I’m starting to feel a bit better, which a relief. This cold hits hard, but seems to get past the worst of the symptoms quickly. I’m just finishing up lunch, and am doing just fine. How are your classes going today?”

              Glad that Jean at least was starting to feel better, I responded “Classes are fine, although I’d rather be home with you 😉”

Finally, I sat at one of the two tables in the staff room, next to the sneezing substitute, my pasta and tea in front of me. Another text from Jean came in, “At least tomorrow is Friday, and after that we’ll have all weekend together!”

              I sent her a smiley face, feeling too tired from work to continue putting up a front and socializing. Jean responded with a smiley face, and I focused on swallowing the pasta I’d brought for lunch. Something in the sauce was irritating my throat, and I found myself even coughing some, head tightly bent into my elbow to hide my face, and stop the illness from spreading to my already-sick coworkers.

              “huh…” At the familiar sound of someone’s breath hitching in build-up to a sneeze, I looked at the substitute sitting beside me, a woman named Rebecca if I recalled correctly. “ahTCHIEUU!” She sneezed into a handkerchief she’d pulled from her pocket, her eyes squeezed shut and her wide nose twitching.

              “Bless you.” I said, blushing a bit. It felt like such an intrusion, to watch someone else sneeze without their permission. The bell rang, and we both fled to our classrooms. I was glad to have a prep period, as that would hopefully allow me to take some more medicine and rest for a bit. After dosing myself with the same mix of medications as I had earlier, I laid my head on the desk and tried to take just a short nap before the next class started.

              The sound of the bell shocked me awake, and I hurried to make myself presentable before the 6^th period class arrived, blowing my nose and popping a cough drop into my mouth. The students once again flowed into the classroom, and I launched into the lecture. About halfway through, I was interrupted by a persistent tickly in my nose, and sneezed a quick double into a tissue, “ihKXT! huhhhNGk!” Unperturbed, I continued the lecture, not addressing my sickness to the class.

              Finally, the last group of students came in. By this point, I was exhausted, so I decided abruptly to change the lesson plan, putting on a documentary about vaccine development and turning off the lights. The darkness hid me from my students as I wiped my nose every few minutes, the tissues scraping against my already raw nose. The bell eventually rang, and everyone filed out. Then, I was surprised as several other students started to trickle into the room, before I ultimately remembered that there was a Robotics club meeting scheduled for today.

              The students were grouped into teams, developing robots to put into a maze in a competition that was two weeks away. By this point, they were mostly self-sufficient, just making the final tweaks to make sure they were perfectly operational when the day-of came. I decided to take a more hands-off approach to this meeting, letting the students run the show unless they asked for help.

              When the time came for the start of the meeting, I made a short announcement – “Welcombe everyode.” Noticing the congestion in my voice, I blew my nose into a tissue before continuing. “We’re getting close to the competition, so you all know what you need to be working on. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.” – before sitting at my desk and pulling out some worksheets that needed to be graded.

              I tried my best to stay awake while the students experimented with their robots, focusing on the worksheets in front of me and trying to power through. However, ultimately, I drifted off, no match for the cold that I’d caught from Jean.

              “Ms. Myers?” One of the club members asked, and I woke up startled that I had actually fallen asleep at work.

              Snkkk I sniffed deeply, trying to ascertain what was going on, before responding “Yes, Izzie?” Izzie had come to every meeting this year, and was always excited to get to work on the robots. I looked around a bit, and noticed that there were only a few students left in the room.

              “I just wanted to let you know that the meeting’s over.” Izzie responded.

              I coughed a bit before responding, “Yes, thank you Izzie. You all have a good evening, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

              After the students left, I gathered my stuff, noticing that there were some small drips of snot drying on one of the worksheets I had been grading. Why did I think it was a good idea to come to work today? I saw how quickly Jean got sick with this bug.

              I blew my nose vigorously, hoping that I’d manage to not seem too sick when I got home to Jean. I didn’t want to worry her, and she was already so sick. As I headed to the car, I noticed a text from Jean, “Hope the robotics meeting is going well!” I blushed a bit, still embarrassed that I had fallen asleep mid-meeting. The car was chilly when I got in, so I blasted the air as high as it would go until I got home, my body feeling heavier by the minute.

              When I walked into the house, I saw Jean in the kitchen, and I tied to smile, but mostly I think I just managed to come off as exhausted. Jean pulled me into a hug, and I let my body relax into her arms. Eventually, I pulled away and noticed something was cooking in a pan on the stove.

              “What’re you making” I asked, hopeful that it would be something easy to swallow.

              Jean grinned, and dragged out her answer, “Well… Tonight I’ll be serving grilled cheese with a side of sliced cucumber, followed by a delicious dessert of apple pie.”

              I smiled and leaned against the counter, commenting “I see you’re feeling better then.” I internally was a bit worried, thinking that the grilled cheese would not be smooth at all on my throat.

              “The cold medicine is finally enough to mostly stop my symptoms, so definitely!” Jean exclaimed before coughing for a moment.

              Then, she continued “So, how was robotics?”

              My face dropped, but Jean didn’t see, as she still was facing the stove. I wiped my nose really quick, taking advantage of the moment, before replying “Great! We’re making real progress on the rovers for the upcoming competition!” No way was I admitting to anyone that I had no idea how the competition preparations had gone, and I’d fallen asleep pretty much the second the meeting began.

              Jean continued to focus on the sandwiches, responding, “That’s awesome, glad the kids are having fun.”

              Once the sandwiches were done, Jean brought them over to the table, and we both sat down. Neither one of us were much up to conversation, unfortunately, so we both just ate. However, as had become our routine the past two days, we did experiment a bit with Jean’s sneezes.

              Every so often, “huhSCHOO!” Jean would sneeze straight at me, spray coating my face and tickling my nose. Once in a while, I even decided to play with her nose a bit, kissing it and setting off even more sneezes. “ahCHOO- huhKIEW-!” Jean would sneeze, still uncovered, all over me. I would always wipe my face off after Jean sneezed, and we both giggled at how silly it was.

              Jean pulled out the apple pie after dinner, serving me a huge slice and herself a more reasonably sized one for someone who was getting over a cold. It looked like nearly a fourth of the pie she had served me! I had no idea how I’d eat it all. Jean and I watched a movie and cuddled on the couch while we at the pie, and I struggled to not just admit that I was feeling under the weather. There was no way she didn’t know, my nose had been fire-engine red for two days now. Jean must want me to admit to it, but I wanted her to call me out on it instead, so I powered through and kept eating.

              The pie, much like the grilled cheese, scratched my throat as I swallowed, leaving me hard pressed to avoid coughing then and there. Eventually, Jean and I both finished our slices, and we cuddled under a blanket while we watched the movie. At some point late, Jean woke me up and we walked to bed, hand in hand. Jean took some NyQuil before bed, and I struggled to stay up late enough for her to fall asleep so I could take some too, unnoticed. Luckily for me she swiftly fell asleep, and I could take a dose before dropping off just as quickly.

              My alarm once more dragged me into consciousness, with Jean barely even stirring from the noise. When I checked my temperature, it was 100.5, so I called the office and checked to see if there was any way someone could cover for me today. Unfortunately, they had already had too many people call out, some with fevers far higher than mine, so I accepted that I’d just have to go and struggle through the day. Small consolations, at least it was a Friday.

              I ate a banana for breakfast, though even that soft fruit hurt my throat. Then, I swallowed a dose of each of the medicines in my bag, hopeful that they might manage to do something for me before I got to work.

              “Good bornding” Jean said, shuffling into the kitchen as I drank a cup of the lemon tea I’d been so dependent on the previous day.

              I struggled to avoid sneezing, managing to keep my running nose contained with a strong knffff.

              Jean turned around from her contemplation of the fridge, asking worriedly, “Are you getting my cold?”

              Maybe she hadn’t realized last night then…

              “Probably,” I said, deciding to play it off a bit since I already knew there was no way I’d manage to get off of work today. “My nose has been running a bit all morning.”

              Jean came over and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly.

              “If you start to feel too sick, go ahead and come home. I probably shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did on Tuesday, I’m sure it made my symptoms worse.”

              When I thought about it, that would explain why I was running a low fever, since I’d already stayed at work all day yesterday as I struggled through the cold. “Gotcha!” I cheerily replied, despite a sick feeling in my stomach telling me that that wasn’t going to be an option. I spun around, kissing Jean square on the lips.

              Once I pulled away, Jean whispered, “I love you.” And I kissed her again, feeling a bit glad that she’d gotten sick so that we could bond like this.

              “I love you too, honey” I said, grinning as I got up to leave. Just as I left the room, I head Jean sneeze behind me, “huRASCHIEW!”

              “Bless you! See you tonight” I called, opening the door and smiling over my shoulder at Jean, whose flushed face and chapped nostrils looked absolutely gorgeous.

              “See you then!” Jean responded, and I could hear the congestion just at the edges of her words.

              When I shut the door to the garage behind me, I felt my breath hitch, “hih- ihhh- TSCHUU!” I normally preferred to stifle, but all alone like this it was easier to just let myself sneeze. The force of the sneeze had left me bent over, leaning forward onto the car a bit for balance. I climbed in, work bag and lunch still clutched in my right hand. I threw them into the backseat, and blew my nose vigorously into a tissue from the box next to me before dropping it into the cup holder to deal with when I got to work. The heat was still set to high from the pervious night, and I felt it warming me up as I drove the car to school. Even though I knew I had a low fever, I just felt so cold.

              Arriving at the school, I pulled into a parking space before stifling a sneeze into a tissue, “ihhh’chhhh” When I got out of the car, dirty tissues and bags in hand, I coughed and swayed a bit. Why oh why couldn’t there be any available subs today.

              When I arrived to my classroom, I decided to just have all the classes today watch the same documentary I’d put on for seventh period the day before. I’m not sure most of them got much out of it, though, given that the narration was constantly interrupted by my explosive sneezes. Even though I tried to stifle them like usual, there were still some that slipped through.

              “As important part of vaccine development is test-“ huhTSHOO! “-ing, which must be carried out such that –“ a cough tumbled from my throat “-FDA approval is based on-“ and so on, my illness hardly letting me have a spare moment to rest despite the heavy dosage of cold medicine I’d taken just that morning before coming in.

              When lunch came around, I took another dose of cold medicine before heading to the break room to heat up some of that chicken broth I’d gotten at the store for Jean the other day. Paul was back again, looking much better than he had on Wednesday, though not fully recovered. I slumped in the chair next to his as I waited for my broth to warm up.

              “Holy shit, Carla. What are you doing here? You look like death warmed over.” Paul said, only a trace of congestion left in his voice.

              “Whed I called id this bordig…” I blew my nose, hearing how my words could scarcely be understood, before continuing “Marge said there aren’t any subs available, even though I’m got a temperature of 100.5.”

              “That sucks.” Paul said, grimacing before continuing. “Any idea if they might manage to find you someone for the afternoon?”

              I got up and grabbed my broth before responding, “Don’t think so. I have prep for fifth period anyway, so it’s just two periods left, really.”

              A text came in from Jean – “How is school going? Runny nose not giving you too much trouble?”

              I replied quickly before taking another sip of my soup, “I’m fine lol – just sniffing a bit during my lectures. The students are paying attention, so today’s a pretty good day.”

              Jean sent a few more texts, and I responded with a heart and a kiss emoji.

Paul and I ate in silence for a few minutes, him munching on a sandwich and me sipping weakly at my broth, before I felt a tickle in my throat and abruptly started coughing, and once I started, I felt like I couldn’t stop. I struggled to breathe, overwhelmed by the vicious coughs. My head was tucked into my elbow, covering my mouth, and my body shuddered with each cough. I felt Paul’s hand on my back, and I worried I would start retching if this coughing kept up. Mercifully, though, it eventually came to an end, leaving me gasping for air, tears running down my face.

              Once I had my breathing under control again, I slipped a lid onto my soup, feeling too nauseous to continue trying to drink it. I looked at Paul, and his eyes were filled with concern as he gazed back at me.

              “Sorry.” I managed to say, “Dod’t kdow what cabe over be,” before my cold reared its ugly head again “huhKNXXXT!” I barely managed to stifle, and my ears popped painfully from the pressure.

              “Look, Carla.” Paul said. “I’ll cover your sixth period, that’s when my prep is. That way, you can sleep through fifth and sixth and just have to deal with seventh.”

              “Are you sure?” I asked, “Aren’t you still sick as well?”

              “I’m certain,” Paul replied, hand still rubbing the space between my shoulder blades. “I’m not nearly as sick as you are right now, and I’m worried about you.”

              “ok…” I said, my voice weak as I gave in to my exhaustion.

              Paul helped me walk to the nurse’s office, empty today since we only had an actual nurse on Monday and Wednesday, and I lay down on one of the two cots that were set up in there. Paul put a tissue box next to the cot I was laying on, and draped his coat over me as a blanket. I swiftly fell asleep, grateful for the help.

              I slept through the bells for passing period, only waking up when Paul came and called my name, turning on the lights.

              “Carla? You up?” Paul called, stepping into the room.

              I answered his question by sitting up and sneezing, “huhNGXT!”

              He came over and helped me stand from the cot, and I swayed a bit as we walked to my classroom. “Goddamn underfunded school districts.” Paul muttered, looking on edge.

              We reached my classroom a minute or so after the bell rang, and I walked in under my own power, wanting to look well enough to be there for the students. “Thank you,” I texted Paul after I sat down at my desk, receiving a thumbs up in response.

              Then, I put on the same documentary we’d been watching the day before, starting where we’d been cut off at the end of the school day.

              Once again, all I could focus on during the video was my cold, and I doubted it was much different for my students. Thank goodness there was less than an hour left of this. Finally, the day ended, and the students left, leaving me to pack my bag and leave, which I did as quickly as I could.

              I held a wad of tissues in my hand as I walked to the card, wiping my nose as it ran and occasionally having to stop to cough. When I made it to the car, I turned it on, relishing once more in the heat it put out. I drove home, glad that I didn’t have to try to walk all the way back. When I pulled into the garage, I sneezed quickly, “huh-SCHOO!”, before blowing my nose and trying to make myself look somewhat better before I walked in. Eventually, I gave it up as a lost cause and just went inside.

              “Welcome home!” I heard Jean call, and I went and sat down next to her on the couch, my nose already dripping again.

              Jean reached out with a tissue and cleaned off my face, carefully avoiding the raw skin around my nose. Then, she asked, almost whispering “How was work?”

              I groaned and mumbled, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

              “h’ngxt!” I stifled, my ears popping once more. Jean shifted until I was more laying down then sitting up, and pulled a blanket up over my shivering body. We cuddled for a few minutes before “hah… ahSCHIEW!” Jean sneezed.

              “ahhhhh-kxt! N’chzzzzt!” I stifled two more sneezes, making a mess of my hands at the same time. I wiped off my hand with tissues from the box on the table and then blew my nose into a whole handful of them, and by the time I was done blowing they were dripping and soggy. I dropped the tissues on the coffee table and snuggled into Jean’s shoulder. Then, I felt myself begin to drift away, and allowed myself to fall asleep.

              “Sweetie? I need you to get up for dinner.” I was woken up by Jean’s soft voice and the press of her hand against my shoulder. I sat up slowly, blew my nose again, and then got up to go to the kitchen. Jean walked beside me, pulling out my chair for me once I got close enough to sit down.

“What’d you make?” I asked, noticing that the bowls were full of a stew of some sort.

              “Chili and corn bread.” Came the answer from Jean. Ah, so she was going for using spice to empty our noses. Should be interesting.

              Jean set a hanky next to her bowl, and I pulled the box of tissues on the table a bit closer to my seat, knowing it would be used very shortly. Jean and I ate quietly for a minute, our noses running like crazy from the first bite. Eventually, Jean started telling me about what had played on the TV while she rested, carrying the conversation for both of us. This was good, because I was focused entirely on the burning in my throat and how it contributed to the snot streaming from my nose. For most of the meal, I alternated between bites and dabbing at my nose, occasionally breaking the pattern to sneeze, “k’chngt!”, or cough. Jean still had a fairly bad cough as well, breaking off from her stories to cough aggressively into her handkerchief. When I finished about half the chili, though, I gave up on eating, resting my head on my hands and struggling not to cough.

              At some point, I felt Jean’s hands begin to rub against my back, and her voice asked “You want to go cuddle in bed?”

              I answered in the affirmative, and somehow, we both made it to the bedroom without any disasters occurring. We both pulled on our PJs, and Jean passed me a dose of NyQuil, which I gratefully swallowed. Then, I turned on a documentary and curled into Jean’s side once she got into bed.

              “You know, Carla,” Jean said after a few minutes of cuddling, “I would also like it if you… you know, sneezed at me a bit.”

              I looked up at Jean, feeling my whole face burn. She was also blushing, and I scrambled for a second thinking of what to say. At no point had I expected her to say that to me. Finally, I composed myself to respond, and said, “Oh, uh, OK.” Before burying my nose in another tissue and blowing it. Then, a few minutes later, when my nose began to itch, I directed the building sneeze towards Jean, “hahhhhhhAHHHHHHH-NXIEW!” my snot splattered across her face, mist filling the air between us.

              “Bless you.” Jean whispered; her voice was rough but not in a way that suggested illness so much as a deep wanting.

              Quickly after that, though, I felt myself falling asleep, and I drifted away from the waking world, warm and safe in Jean’s arms.

              “Carla?” It was Jean’s voice that stirred me to consciousness once again, soft and warm. Good lord, I loved her. So much more that I thought I’d ever loved anyone before.

              It was midmorning, and Jean insisted on taking my temperature before I ate breakfast. She looked worried and had me take some aspirin in addition to some DayQuil, so I guess I was still running a fever. I managed to eat about half of the oatmeal Jean brought me for breakfast, but ultimately, I couldn’t finish, my stomach just got more and more unruly with each bite.

              Jean took the bowl back to the kitchen, and then we cuddled a bit in bed as we waited for the medicine I’d taken to start to reduce the fever. Every few minutes, Jean would cough or I would sneeze, the room was full of the sounds of illness. A few times, I even managed to sneeze straight at Jean, covering her in the germs she’d originally passed to me.

              “huh…. Ah-ahhhhKIEW!” I sneezed straight at Jean, a slight splatter of germs covering her face.

              Eventually, Jean went to the kitchen to get us some more tea. I tried to sit up as she left, but the motion left me coughing in another horrible fit like the one at work the day before, barely able to breathe at all. Jean hugged me and rubbed my back until the coughing finally stopped, and then she went on to get us both tea to soothe our throats. Once Jean came back, I managed a few sips of the, frankly heavenly, tea before laying my head on Jean’s lap and falling right to sleep.

              I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking it lightly. “What is it?” I mumbled, barely even cracking open my eyes.

              “Lunchtime,” came the reply from Jean. With that que, I struggled into a seated position, and Jean reached behind me and fluffed my pillow a bit while I coughed, lungs and throat aching from how sick I felt. Was my cold developing into something else? I dismissed the idea, and started to get out of bed before I felt Jean’s hand pressing down against my shoulder.

              “Don’t worry about getting out of bed! I brought you some soup.” With those words, I slumped back against the pillow, and reached out my hands. Jean swiftly set the mug into my waiting palms, and I took a tentative sip, realizing that it was a thick and creamy butternut squash soup. Every few minutes, my nose would threaten to drip into the mug, so I’d take a quick break from sipping at the soup to blow my nose.

By the time I was halfway through the soup, my stomach was threatening to revolt again, and not one to tempt fate I grimaced, telling Jean “I don’t thigk I can eat any mbore.” And being passed a dose of cold meds in response. Thank goodness for helpful partners.

My symptoms were, unsurprisingly, even worse than yesterday. My ears ached, likely due to all the stifling I’d been doing. My nose ran, but never both nostrils at once. Always, one side was completely blocked and the other just wouldn’t stop running, leaving me unable to even effectively sniff to combat the running. I could barely move without coughing, and it seemed like I was sneezing every five minutes! Jean, thankfully, seemed to be doing better. Her temperature had dropped back to a normal temperature, and she mostly just seemed to have a cough she couldn’t shake quite yet.

Eventually, I heard the door creak back open, startling me from my thoughts. “Jean?” I asked.

“I’m here darling,” Jean responded, sliding into bed with me and wrapping my hand with hers.

“Can you just… stay with me for a while?” I asked, feeling a bit dizzy and hoping that Jean could watch over me until I fell asleep.

Jean laid down next to me, and we curled together as I fell asleep.

              “huh-TSHIEW!” A sudden sneeze startled me awake, and I realized that the spot in the bed beside me was cold. I climbed out of bed, pausing as I stood to endure a brutal coughing fit. Then, I stumbled towards the kitchen, leaning heavily against the wall. All I could think about was finding out where Jean had gone. I was a bit confused, and relieved when I finally reached the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe for support.

              “Jean, hun?” I called to her, my head feeling like it was full of stuffing.

              “Well, good morning sweetheart. Sleep well?” Jean’s voice was… odd, but I couldn’t put together just what was going on.

              “I woke up and you were gone…” I tried to explain why I was in the kitchen. Jean came over and helped me to the table before bringing a bowl and a mug to the table.

              “I heated up some of that broth you bought for us. You didn’t have to get up, though. I would have brought it in for you.” Jean looked at me with worry in her eyes, and I tried to put together a story that made sense even to me, since I couldn’t quite explain why I’d gotten up besides wanting to see Jean.

              ““I wanted to get up, I was tired of –NGXT!” I sneezed before continuing, “I was tired of laying in bed all day, wanted to get up and spend some time sitting upright.”

              “That’s fair” Jean responded, having accepted the half put together explanation.

              I quickly found myself distracted from any hope of conversation by my running nose. The entire time I sipped at the soup, I had to blow my nose every other sip, which only served to irritate the skin around my nose more. A pile of tissues grew on the table to my left, where I placed the tissues when they were too wet to really be usable. I felt more and more exhausted as dinner went on, although I had just gotten out of bed a few minutes ago.

              “huhSCHIEW!” Jean sneezed, filling the air with mist.

              My nose twitched, and I gasped before – “ahhhSHOO! huhhhhAHTCHIEW! KCHEW!” – I sprayed the table with snot and saliva, a fine mist settled over everything as I finally opened my eyes and finished sneezing. I blushed deeply, and blew my nose again.

              After I finished cleaning myself up, Jean leaned in and kissed me deeply. We were locked together until eventually, desperate for air, I broke away from the kiss and gasped. A few minutes later, Jean helped me back to the bedroom, where we cuddled more together.

              Jean checked my temperature, and told me it had dropped half a degree from earlier, which seemed good. Then, I dosed myself with some NyQuil, grateful that we hadn’t quite run out of the medication yet. I took one of Jean’s hanky’s, clutching it in my hand like some sort of security blanket as we cuddled, blowing my nose into it every so often, happy to avoid reaching to the tissue box for the sweet release of a freshly blown nose. Finally, I fell asleep, the sound of the TV and of Jean’s breathing fading to the background.

              The next morning, when I woke, Jean was still snoring next to me. I relaxed for a moment, before – “tchNGT! huhNXT! ahhhhhCKT!” Somehow, I was even sneezier than the day before, and my nose felt completely stopped up with snot. I felt Jean’s arm brush across me and noticed that her snores had ceased. Then, all of a sudden, Jean pressed some tissues to my face.

              “Can you blow?” She asked, and blow I did. Snot spilled out of my nose into Jean’s cupped hand, and when I stopped blowing Jean cleaned off my face. Then, I leaned in towards Jean, kissing her lips for just a moment.

              Jean sat up, coughing. Then, she took a dose of cough syrup and passed me some DayQuil. I thought it would probably do practically nothing, given how sick I’d felt so far even with cold medicine, but I took it anyway. I followed Jean to the kitchen, stopping in the doorway of the bedroom. Jean looked back at me, wondering why I stopped when “huuuuuuRASHOO! K’TCHIEWWW!” I answered the question.

              Once we were in the kitchen, Jean made us both toast. She also brewed some coffee for me, and I was glad to get a chance to drink some caffeine. I was, admittedly, a bit out of it. I remember looking down at my coffee and just drifting away from the kitchen within my mind. Eventually, I heard Jean cough, and my thoughts stopped wandering, returning to the present moment.

              We moved into the living room and cuddled on the couch. Jean read on her phone, and I rested my head on her lap. The feeling of her hand running through my hair was soothing to my aching head, my sinuses filled with pressure and pain. It wasn’t that her touch did anything to stop the pain, but that her presence and touch made me feel safe and loved.

“ihHHXIEW!” A sneeze snuck up on me, barely a tickle beforehand to warn me that it was coming. I pulled a tissue from the table to wipe my nose, long strands of snot dangling from my aching nostrils. Then, I blew my nose into yet another tissue, somewhat ineffectively from how congested I was. Even trying to blow my nose left my ears popping from the pressure, and I was too tired to really put any effort into it.

I started to drift off, and then Jean spasmed behind me, coughing fiercely into her hand. We really made a pair the two of us, me with a full-blown, raging cold and her just getting over the very same illness. Jean’s cough, at least, sounded drier than it had earlier in her cold, which I took as a sign that she was getting better. A few minutes later, I started coughing again, curling into myself as the productive coughs shook phlegm loose from my lungs up into my mouth. After the fit, I spit into a tissue, clearing my mouth of the slimy discharge.

Jean and I cuddled more, minutes turning into hours. Eventually, I fell asleep, stretched out across the couch. “huhhSCHIEW!” a sneeze shook me awake, quickly followed by a string of coughs that made my throat burn.

“Good morning, sleepyhead” Jean smiled down at me once the coughs finally ceased.

“What tibe is it?” I asked, sniffing thickly at the end of the sentence.

“About 5, so probably time for me to get started on dinner.”

I worried about Jean; she’d been taking care of everything for me all weekend. Jean was still not fully recovered, and her lingering cough, while better than it had been earlier that week, was still clearly painful and all-consuming. “I’ll help,” I offered, struggling to a seated position.

Unfortunately, the shift in position triggered yet another set of coughs, spilling out of my mouth as I leaned against Jean’s steady frame.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jean hummed, “Just worry about feeling better.”

I honestly didn’t have much will to fight left, my whole head ached and I was exhausted, despite having just woken up from a long nap. “Ok,” I acquiesced, pushing down my worries about Jean relapsing. I stayed sitting upright as Jean cooked, although the support of the arm rest was a large part of how I managed to do that.

Jean once again brought the meal she prepared to me rather than having me come to the kitchen. I assumed she was worried about tiring me out by having me sit in a regular chair and, honestly, that wouldn’t have been an entirely unfounded concern. I wasn’t sure that I’d manage to sit in one of the hard wooden chairs we kept in the kitchen for a whole meal at this point either.

“ahCHUUH-! ihhKIEW!” I sneezed twice as Jean put the soup that she’d heated up for us on the table. As tired as I was of soup, my aching throat was grateful as I swallowed the warm, smooth liquid. Once I had eaten as much soup as I could, I put the bowl down on the table, leaning against Jean as she finished her own serving of soup. It struck me as a bit odd that she was still going along with eating mostly soup. Surely, she could stomach more than that by now? I let the matter drop though, filing it away as something to check in with Jean about when we were both a bit healthier.

Finally, Jean finished her serving of soup and we walked to the bedroom together, hands intertwined. Despite what Jean seemed to think, I was in fact perfectly capable of walking the short distance to our room from the couch (Probably not much further, though, I internally admitted). Jean fell asleep quickly after handing me a dose of NyQuil and turning off the lights, but I struggled to find rest.

“huhSHOO!” I sneezed messily before wiping my nose on the sheets, not even willing to reach the foot or so to the tissue box. Jean clutching a hanky as she slept a few days ago suddenly made sense. I rolled over onto my side, and tried in vain to breathe smoothly and relax. I coughed a few times, luckily not as wetly as earlier.

The cycle continued, a sneeze or cough rousing me from whatever light sleep I had managed to achieve in the time since the last interruption.

There was no way I was going to work the next day, even if they had no subs in the whole district. Screw it, I would just stay in bed. Working on this little rest was a recipe for disaster. Throughout the night, I rested as much as I could, eventually even taking a second dose of NyQuil around 2 am in hopes that it might help me find some uninterrupted rest. No such luck for me, though.

              Half-asleep, I complied as Jean pushed a thermometer beneath my tongue at what felt like the crack of dawn. After my temperature was taken, she pressed a chaste kiss to my lips, and practically cooed, “I’ll see you tonight.”

              “See you thend,” I forced my voice to cooperate, breaking into another fit of coughs pretty much the minute Jean left the room. I drifted in and out for a few more hours, finally stumbling into the bathroom around 11. My nose was flushed red, my face pale except for that shock of color and two puffy, dark circles under my eyes. There was salt crusted on my face around my eyes from how they watered when I coughed, and there was a trail of dried snot on the sleeve of my pajama shirt.

              A shower sounded like a fantastic idea – when had the last one I’d taken been, even? A few days, at least. I turned the shower on, letting it heat up before I slipped into it. Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel. I hurried through my shower routine, relishing the warmth of the water pounding against my back. “hehhhh-“ I gasped, my breath hitching as the steam finally started to loosen the cement filling my nose. “huhKChieuuuu!” A mess of snot splattered against the floor of the shower, and I wiped my nose with my hands before rinsing them off in the spray from the shower head.

              “ahCHUH!” Another sneeze tumbled out of my irritated nose as I turned off the shower head. I pulled my towel from the hook, before feeling a wave of dizziness wash over me. It was always at the worst times that this happened! Sometimes after a hot shower, I would feel flushed and dizzy, even when there was nothing wrong with me. With a cold, though, I felt incredibly unwell, shivering and overheated at the same time. I laid down on the floor of the bathroom, pushing past the shock of the cold tiles against my hot skin and allowing them to cool me down as my dizziness slowly eased.

              After a few minutes, I judged it safe to get up, and pulled myself into a seated position, back now resting against the wall. Slowly, I progressed to standing, finally pulling on a clean set of pajamas and running a brush quickly through my hair. I sat on the edge of the bed and coughed; a hanky I’d taken from Jean pressed to my mouth to catch any mucus that was forced from my lungs. I felt grateful that I hadn’t started coughing like this in the shower, as I’d almost certainly have slipped on the wet floor.

              Once the coughing ceased, I swallowed a dose of cold medicine and some cough syrup for good measure. All of a sudden, I realized that I’d never remembered to call into work this morning, and I lunged for my phone, dialing the number of the school’s main office.

              “Hello, this is Larry speaking. How may I help you?”

              I sighed with relief that Larry was working today, he was always the most sympathetic of the handful of staff who worked in administration to sick employees.

              “Hi Larry, It’s Carla. I just woke up add realized that I hadd’t called id to work today.”

              “Oh, it’s all fine!” Larry said, “Jean called in for you this morning. We’ve got a sub in your room and everything’s going fine.”

              “Thagk Gooddess” I said, relieved that she had taken care of that for me.

              “Now go back to bed, you sound like you’re barely breathing!” Larry said, his voice light but a note of concern still shining through.

              “ahSHIH!” I sneezed quickly, moving the phone away from my head in hopes that the sound wouldn’t be too loud on Larry’s end.

              “Dod’t worry about that, it seebs like all I cad do right dow is sleep.”

              “Alrighty, well I’ll see you when you’re better, Carla.”

              “See you thed, Larry. Hope your day goes well.” With that farewell, I hung up, flopping back onto the bed in relief. God bless Jean’s forethought.

              After a minute or so of processing the adrenaline from worrying about calling in to work, I got up and headed into the kitchen. There were still plenty of eggs in the fridge, so I made some scrambled eggs, hoping that the protein would give me some more energy. I ate slowly, although I swallowed pretty quickly once I put the eggs into my mouth. They tasted odd with such a limited sense of smell, and the feeling of them in my mouth was somewhat unsettling, although I usually loved scrambled eggs.

              Breakfast eaten, I went back to the bedroom and tried to salvage a few more hours of sleep to make up for what I’d missed when I was up sneezing up a storm the night before. Thankfully, I did have more success falling asleep than I’d had the past who knows how many hours.

              I woke up slowly, feeling the warmth of the bed and breathing shallowly through my mouth. After a few minutes, I sat up, coughing a few times into my upper arm. I crawled out of bed before shuffling into the kitchen. Tonight, I would be cooking again. I was almost four, so I had a few hours until Jean would be home. I choked down another dose of cold medicine and pulled my hair into a bun on top of my head. There, ready to cook.

              The fridge, on the other hand, was not ready for pretty much anything besides soup to be made. After a few minutes of searching, I found some vegetables nearing the end of their life and a chicken breast that I’d let thaw out a day or so before I got sick. The soy sauce was at the front of the top shelf, and I decided to make a stir fry. It wasn’t soup, and that’s what mattered.

              I pulled more seasonings, rice, the rice cooker, and everything else I thought might be useful for this from the pantry. I washed the rice and started it cooking – I’d just leave the lid closed until whenever we started eating, and it should stay well enough. Then, I got to work chopping. Veggies first, then chicken. When cooking, on the other hand, I did the chicken first, wanting to make sure the raw meat didn’t just sit on the counter while I prepped the rest of the meal.

              While I was mixing the chicken in with the vegetables, almost done with the stir fry, I heard the door from the garage open. I spun around, hearing footsteps coming towards the kitchen.

              “Welcombe home” I said, pulling Jean into a tight hug.

              She leaned down to press a kiss to my cheek and whispered, “Hey there sweetheart.” A few moments passed like that. I forgot the stir fry, simply relishing Jean’s presence and the warmth of her touch.

              My nose burned for a second, and then – “ahhhhtchiew!” I sneezed into Jean’s shoulder, leaving a wet patch on her blazer once she pulled away from the hug. Jean split the stir fry onto a couple of plates, and we chatted as she served the food.

              “You feeling any better?” Jean asked.

              “Yeah,” I said, despite having spend most of the day sleeping. And it was true – Despite my dizzy spell earlier, I was feeling steadier on my feet. Not to mention that my nose wasn’t dripping constantly anymore, slowing to a point I could pretty much ignore it. “I’m still not at my best, but I think I’ll be good for work tomorrow. I’ll just put on a clip of Bill Nye and pass out a worksheet, the day will go by quick.” That may have been wishful thinking, but I also wasn’t sure I’d get a sub for a second day. Better to just plan to go back to work.

Jean and I sat at the table, and the texture of the vegetables was a nice change from the monotony of all the soup I’d been eating. I’d put ginger in it, and the strong flavor came through even through I could barely taste anything at all.

“huhTISH! Ah-huuuuSHOO!” – a pair of harsh sneezes left me, misting the table with a fine spray of germs.

“Bless you.” Jean said, eyes fixed on me as if I were the most beautiful and interesting thing in the room.

Our plates were slowly emptied, and we ended up just heading straight to bed. I’d only been up for a few hours, really, but maybe the sleep would help me be ready for work tomorrow. After I took a dose of NyQuil, Jean pulled me into her arms and we snuggled under the covers, the room lit by the warmth of the setting sun peeking around the edges of the blinds. Blessedly, I fell asleep quickly, a deep sleep dragging me under for the whole night.

              The sound of my alarm was distinctly unwelcome, waking me up well before the sun rose. I stumbled to the bathroom and went through my morning routine in a bit of a daze. The steam from the shower left me coughing, and my nose ran as I drank my coffee. I’d swallowed a dose of cold meds and packed plenty of options for the rest of the day in my bag.

              Jean made breakfast, oatmeal with some berries she’d pulled from the freezer. We’d definitely have to go shopping soon. I slipped out the door right on time, thermos of coffee in hand and several more layers than normal wrapped around me. The walk to the school was chilly, and I resorted to wiping my nose on my sleeve as I hurried, having completely forgotten to bring any tissues with me. At least there would be some in my classroom.

              I made it to my classroom about fifteen minutes before the start of classes for the day, which was late for me but still a few minutes ahead of when students started to come into the room. I blew my nose into a tissue, my congestion reduced for the first time in days by the action. Quickly, before the first bell rang, I skimmed the notes from the substitute the day before. Ok, they basically just had a study hall. Not bad at all.

              The bell rang, and I pulled a pre-printed set of worksheets that corresponded to a Crash Course Chemistry video out of my desk. This would work, for today at least. I passed out the worksheets, announcing that we’d be watching a video today. The class was, as usual, excited to watch Crash Course – it was nearly as popular as Bill Nye.

While the video played, I tried my best to keep my symptoms unobtrusive. “h’NGXT” I stifled a sneeze before blowing my nose. As long as I could avoid a painful, loud coughing fit, this should all go well. Between cough syrup and cough drops, I would be all set.

Second and third period went smoothy, but fourth period on the other hand was a mess. I didn’t even manage to start the video for the first several minutes of class, distracted by a long fit of coughing from the time that the late bell rang.

When I finally managed to get my breathing under control, the whole class was looking at me, eyes wide. I cleared my throat before attempting to bring the class to the topic at hand. “Sorry for the disruption. Today, we’ll be watching a -knXt!- sorry, a Crash Course video and completing a worksheet.”

I handed out the worksheet and started the video without incident, but a minute or so into the video, I felt a familiar tickle in my nose. “tch’NGGK” I pinched my nose, and my eardrums popped from the pressure. Ugghh. I loved watching Jean sneeze, but sneezing like this at work was just uncomfortable.

There was a rustling noise as I pulled out a cough drop, and I sucked on it for the remainder of the video, dabbing at my nose as it ran a bit. Once the video ended, the students kept filling out the worksheet, and as, one by one, they finished the sound of teenage chatter filled the room. The bell finally rang signaling the start of lunch, and I swallowed another dose of cold medicine. At this point, it might be too much, but I was determined to not seem too sick to my students.

I went to the staff room and sank into a chair next to Paul.

“Hey Paul,” I said, exhaustion seeping into my voice.

“Welcome back, Carla. Glad to have you back.” He said, smiling a bit. “Although, I am surprised you made it in today – Larry said you seemed pretty out of it when you called him yesterday.”

I laughed a bit, “Yeah, I was a bit panicky. Doing ok now, though.”

We chatted for a bit, eating the lunches we’d brought and enjoying the break from work. Once I finished my meal, I rested my head on my arms, although I continued to carry on a conversation with Paul. When lunch ended, I went back to my classroom, determined to do some planning to make up for the plans that I’d burned through while feeling ill. I needed to come up with a new video and worksheet set for any future sick days, not to mention I would need to grade all the worksheets that students had completed thus far.

Another set of hacking coughs spilled out of me, and I bent over the desk, eyes watering as I gasped for air. When the coughs eased, I pressed the palms of my hands into my eyes, groaning from exasperation.

Luckily, for sixth and seventh periods my cold was mostly under control, save a few isolated coughs and sneezes over the two hours I taught those students. Once the final bell rang, I rushed through my remaining grading before starting to pull on all the layers that I’d bundled myself in to some to work. I pulled my scarf up over my mouth and nose, relishing the warmth and protection from wind as I stepped outside.

              By the time I made it home, despite the warmth of my scarf my nose was dripping yellow, practically liquid snot. I kept my coat on as I shuffled around the house, trying to warm up. I blew my nose into one of Jean’s handkerchiefs before tucking it into my back pocket to use later. A few minutes later, I realized that while I didn’t feel any warmer, I was starting to sweat, so I reluctantly pulled off my layers.

              I started to make some homemade potato soup, hoping the warmth of it would let me kick the last dregs of this cold. While the soup simmered, I leaned against the counter, coughing with my mouth pressed into the handkerchief I’d now claimed as my own. At some point, my eyes had pressed shut as I coughed, and when I opened them, I saw Jean anxiously standing in front of me.

              “Welcome home!” I said, startled to see that she’d already made it back.

              “Glad to be home,” Jean said, pulling me into a hug. “I’ll take over the soup, you go ahead and sit down.”

              I rolled my eyes before acquiescing, taking a seat and watching Jean stir a few times at the soup.

              “So, how was work today?” Jean asked.

              “Not bad at all, I even managed to get a bit of lesson planning done. What about you?”

              Jean smiled, “Oh, work went well. I only had to troubleshoot for a few people from the update. I think I missed most of the hubbub from it.”

              “ihhhTchiEW!” I sneezed and rubbed at my nose. “Ugh, I just can’t quite seem to shake the symptoms of this cold.”

              “Don’t worry darling, I’m sure you’ll be feeling better soon.” Jean reassured me, scooping the finished soup into a bowl for each of us.

              “Thanks, hun. I love you.” I said, looking happily at the soup.

              “Love you too. Thank you for going through all the effort of cooking it.” A grin spread across Jean’s face, and she sat down next to me at the table.

              Once we both finished eating, I put the leftovers into the fridge and we went to the bedroom to watch some TV. Normally, we would just watch TV on the couch, but it just seemed easier to anticipate one or both of us falling asleep while we watched.

              Jean wrapped her arms around me as we lay in bed, and I relished the warmth of her arms. The night dragged on, and I drifted off long before the show ended, ready for a good night of sleep. When I work up, I was no longer sneezing at all, just a hoarse cough remaining from the cold I’d caught from Jean. Jean didn’t have any symptoms left, and I figured I’d be fully recovered as well in a day or so. We were back to our regular routine, and I was glad for how much closer we’d grown over the past week.

              Our house was now sneeze-free, until the next bug came around.

And that’s a wrap on Jean’s perspective! It’ll probably take me a bit to decide just what I’m going to go for with the third person, so expect it to be a week or two until the next update. This one is over 17 thousand words, though, so it should tide you over! Hope everyone had a great weekend, and I’ll see you next time!

[z8]

It's incredible, I love everything about this story 😍 Thanks for taking the time to write all of this,  you must have written at least 30k words at this point. 

[Bilo0618]

15 hours ago, z8 said:

It's incredible, I love everything about this story 😍 Thanks for taking the time to write all of this,  you must have written at least 30k words at this point. 

Yeah, it’s pretty long 😅 I’m glad you enjoyed it! 😁

[Likesn]

Man, you sure are productive! I had to split reading this latest part into 3 separate times to cover it all. Once again - it was worth it. I'm curious to see what you're gonna do with the third person perspective. Good job 👌

[djm4991]

I loved this story. I think my favorite part was when Carla and Jean were in the bathroom, with the shower steam running. All the care taking, nose blowing, coughing and tissues on the bathroom floor was perfect. As well as:

Spoiler

Carla subtly dealing with her own nose while Jean was distracted was awesome to read.

Great stuff!