Tired and Whiny
"That feels nice," I mutter as I open my eyes and look up at
Donna.
Oh, get your minds out of the gutter.
We are so not doing *that*.
She just brushed back my hair and put a cool washcloth on my forehead.
But we are on my bed, which is something, I suppose.
Yeah, it would be something if I weren't in the current state I am in.
And no, I haven't been drinking.
Apparently the emotions of the last month, coupled with my forgetfulness
when it comes to eating and well, taking care of myself, have just caught up
with me. And I spent the better part of the last half an hour, uh, how do I put
it nicely...
Tossing my cookies.
Donna came in the room just as I was making the mad dash for the
bathroom. She had stopped by to see if I
was hungry.
Not exactly.
I tried to close and lock the door when it was clear she had every
intention of following me. But this old,
or as Donna puts it, quaint, hotel doesn't have locks on the bathroom
door. So she followed me in, sat quietly
next to me, held my head and rubbed my back.
Part of me should have been embarrassed but it wasn't the first time
Donna's had to hold my head while I puked.
OK, so most of the times have been the result of my sensitive system but
others were due to my, ya know, near fatal gunshot wound.
Anyway, she stayed with me, got me cleaned up and helped me to bed, which
is where I am now. Tired, cranky and in
pain. I mean, puking up your guts is
painful enough but factor in a scar that runs down the length of your chest and
that pain is greatly magnified.
Guess I look pretty bad cause Donna's got that adorable, worried look on
her face.
"Josh, you ok? You need a bowl
or something?"
"No, I'm not gonna be sick, again. My chest hurts, my head is pounding
and I can't get comfortable."
Wow, do I sound whiny.
She reaches out and takes the cloth off of my forehead, refolds it so it's
cool again and puts it back.
"You wanna try to drink something?"
I just nod, not wanting to actually expend the energy it would take to
speak right now.
"Ginger ale?"
Another nod.
"I'll be right back." she says as she reaches out to squeeze my
hand.
Bad idea, that's the hand I slammed into the doorframe this morning. I try not to flinch but as usually happens in
situations such as this, I am unsuccessful.
She turns my hand over slowly and traces the bruise that runs along the
pinky side of my palm.
"Joshua, Josh, Josh, what am I going to do with you?"
I can think of about a million ways to answer that but I keep my mouth shut
and just smile and shrug my shoulders instead.
"I'll get some ice. Don't go
anywhere." she calls over her shoulder as she leaves the room.
Like I'm gonna go anywhere in my t-shirt and boxers.
While she's gone let's review the events of the day, since a lot happened
in the past uh, I don't know how many hours, my eyes are closed and I can't see
my watch.
Started the day in the wee hours of the morning by moping around my hotel
room, unable to sleep. I was just about
to get into the shower when Donna knocked on the door. I knew she would come looking for me sooner
or later. The fact that I was in my
underwear didn't faze either of us a bit.
I kind of enjoyed watching her flit around the room, gathering my
clothes and stuff.
Bet you're wondering how she knew where everything was.
I think you can guess.
Yeah, she's the one who put everything away when we got here.
I think I may have scared her when I slammed my hand into the wall. I'm sure she's worried about a PTSD
episode. Frankly, so am I. Donna knew something had been bothering me
for a couple of weeks now, but she didn't push me to tell her what. She's great that way. She's the master of generic comfort, always
knows how to make things better, even when she doesn't know what is wrong.
Even after I told her that I had blown the tobacco thing she didn't pester
me for the details. But I eventually
gave them to her anyway, after I got out of the shower.
Yeah, she was still in the room. She
tossed my clothes in to me and I explained things through the closed bathroom
door. I came out and she went to get me
coffee and a bagel. I drank the coffee
and pretended to eat the bagel while she made sense of the mess of papers on
the table and then straightened my tie.
Onto the next event of the day.
The announcement ceremony.
But first we got a, in my opinion, long overdue apology from President
Bartlet. As Bruno, Doug and Connie left
I looked around the room and it occurred to me that other than Charlie, who is
always with the President, Donna was the only one in the room who wasn't a
member of the Senior Staff. I guess I
was struck with some sort of pride at that moment, can't exactly explain it,
but, whatever.
The speech went over great.
Then it was a few hours of meet and greet with the locals. It was nice actually. It was a beautiful day and I don't get to
spend a whole lot of time outside so it was fun. Donna was never far away from me and as usual
I found that comforting.
We headed back to the farmhouse for something to eat and a couple hours of
downtime. Donna and I managed to sneak
away for a walk. We petted the horses,
fed the ducks and walked hand in hand around the pond. Probably wasn't a good idea but we didn't
particularly care.
As usual, the staff set out enough food for an army. I tried to eat, I really did, but nothing
appealed to me so Donna ate her food as well as most of mine.
Somewhere around 6 I was starting to fade fast. Leo noticed it and sent Donna and I back to
the hotel. She sent me to bed and went
to get some work done. I was surprised
she didn't bring her work into my room but then again if she had, I wouldn't
have slept at all. So I did end up
getting a few hours sleep before waking up, feeling like crap.
And so that brings us up to about 45 minutes ago when I made my dash to the
bathroom.
So today had its bad points, slamming my hand into the doorframe, puking my
guts up. But it also had some good
points, the speech, the weather and most of all spending time with Donna.
I'm not sure where all of this is heading but I do know that for now, I'm
just going to sit back and enjoy the ride.
Speaking of enjoying things, I hear Donna whistling down the hall, sounds
like "The Wells Fargo Wagon" from The Music Man. I think my love of musical theater is rubbing
off on her.
I close my eyes as she comes in, but she's not buying it.
"Joshua, I know you're awake."
I crack an eye open and smile.
"Here, drink some of this." she says as she opens the can of
soda.
I manage to get down a few sips before my stomach starts to protest.
"Here" she says as she hands me a bag of ice.
I try and settle myself face down but my chest is protesting that idea.
"Owww!!"
Again with the whining.
"You want the heating pad?"
I nod my head and grin at the fact Donna brought the heating pad in the
first place. She knows that when I get
too tired and run down my right side acts up and gets stiff. So where ever we go she usually travels with
a huge bottle of Advil and the heating pad.
Five minutes later I'm curled up on my right side facing Donna. The heating
pad and a pillow clutched to my chest with my left hand. Donna's holding my right hand in her lap,
gently pressing the ice against my palm with her one hand while the other is
rubbing my back.
A small part of my brain is telling me that I should send her back to her
room and just go to sleep.
But that would involve both speaking and moving. And I'm too tired and too whiny to do either
right now. So I'll let myself relax and
enjoy the moment. Cause you never know
how long it will last.
THE END
