Chapter 9: iSick

Sam's POV:

I was at Carly's, and it was midnight. It wasn't a school night, and Freddie and I were sleeping over. I was in the middle of the two of them, and our eyes were on the TV as we watched the Girly Cow all-night marathon. My eyes were getting heavy and tired. My head was heavy too and it slowly moved and it was about to rest on Freddie's shoulder, but I was scared he would push me away so I leaned it on Carly's shoulder.

We were still eating popcorn. I'd eaten so much. We all had different bowls because Carly and Freddie wanted to be healthy without butter, where as my popcorn was so yellow and greasy with butter. I'd eaten three bowls of the buttery popcorn, and I was almost done with my fourth. Don't worry; I had some soda to wash it down.

Yup. I'm so healthy, eh? The thing that makes me the stupidest for eating so unhealthily was that my stomach was hurting the whole day, even before I ate all of this junk. I'd told Carly that my stomach hurt and she told me to stay away from bad food. I didn't listen. But as I ate the popcorn and drank the soda, Carly was too tired to notice.

But now, my stomach was upset. It turned and I put my arms over my stomach. But suddenly I felt something coming up my throat. Quickly, I stood up, forgetting that the bowl of popcorn was on my lap. But I didn't really care as I quickly stood and ran to the bathroom past Spencer's room and threw up into the toilet.

I heard Carly and Freddie's quick footsteps coming. They both stepped into the bathroom. We'd all been falling asleep before but now we were all wide awake. I frowned, kneeling in front of the toilet. The worst part was that it wasn't the kind of thing where after I threw up once I felt better. My stomach still hurt, and I knew I was going to throw up after.

"Sam, are you okay?" Carly asked, worried. She squatted beside me, putting her hand lightly on the top of my back.

I grabbed a paper towel from the roll she had on the sink counter and wiped my face. "No," I groaned. The pains in my stomach grew and I knew that I was going to throw up again.

"Aw," Carly said sadly, rubbing my back. She surprisingly didn't comment on the fact that she told me not to eat the junk food after my stomach hurt. I guess she felt bad for me. "I'll get you medicine."

"Thanks," I sighed, turning and seeing her leave, but then seeing that Freddie was still in the doorway. I ignored him as I threw up again. I felt tears fill my eyes. It was obvious that I was probably about to cry as I said, "Freddork, you can leave. You don't need to see me barf on everything." My voice cracked in the middle of a sentence because I was about to cry. I then threw up again, but surprisingly felt a hand on my back.

I looked to my left and saw Freddie, and I let a tear roll on my eyelash before I tightly closed my eyes to make it go away. "Ugh," I groaned sadly.

"Shh," he said, now rubbing my back. "It's okay."

I threw up again, and Freddie seemed to get up and he was looking for something. "Got it," I heard him mumble, and then I felt him touching my hair. I then realized that he was attempting to put it in a ponytail to get it to stay away from my face as I threw up. I smiled a bit. It was sweet, but he had no idea what he was doing.

I turned around and smirked. "I can put my hair in a ponytail."

"I know," he said, smirking back. "But I want to be here for you."

I loved how we were sort of friends now. "Thanks, but I got it," I said, smiling a bit as he handed me the scrunchie and I put my hair into a ponytail.

He then kneeled next to me. Wow, how romantic. Freddie and I kneeling in front of a toilet I was about to throw up into.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Oh, amazing," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. "Yeah, throwing up is the bomb."

He chuckled. "Well you're not throwing up anymore."

"But I still feel like crap," I sighed. Soon Carly ran back into the room with some medicine. I took it. I said, "Well, I have medicine and I'm not throwing up anymore but my stomach hurts. But I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night because I have to throw up so I guess I'm sleeping in the bathroom."

Carly laughed. "No, we'll bring a garbage can into my room."

"Thanks guys," I said, standing weakly with my hand on my stomach. They both seemed to be tired too, so we took the elevator up to Carly's room because I didn't want to take the stairs because of my stomach. And what mama says goes.


The next day, I had to go home because Carly had been planning to visit her Granddad on that particular day. My mom wasn't home, so I sat in my bed and watched TV for a while. I was in my pajamas, a black tank top and dark blue shorts. I was hungry but I didn't feel like getting up because my stomach hurt. I looked over to my mirror on the wall, and saw that my face looked paler than usual, but even a little red. My face looked tired and sick and gross.

Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. I was actually sort of scared. No one ever knocked on the door. I wanted to get up and get it, but when I tried to get off of my bed, I ended up just rolling off and plopping on the floor. I was upstairs, but I screamed, "WHO IS IT?" I hoped whoever was at the door would hear it.

And he did. "Sam?" he said, not seeming very loud.

I smiled. It was Freddie. I recognized his sweet voice. "Come in!" I shouted.

I didn't see him but I heard him come in and then close and lock the front door again. I crawled to the stairs but I didn't feel like walking downstairs so I just said: "Hey."

He looked up the stairs at me. He was holding a bag. "Hey, Sam, are you okay?"

"No," I said. "I'm sick. And cold. And why are you here?" I know I seemed mean. But hey, I was in a bad mood.

"Because you're sick and cold," Freddie said, with a small smile. He started walking upstairs and I quickly crawled back into my room and climbed onto my bed. I turned off the TV. I then lied back except I had my head held up by a pillow. Freddie walked into my room.

Freddie's POV:

"Hold on," I said. "Let me do something." I ran downstairs with the bag of stuff I'd brought to Sam's house. I took out some ham-flavored soup and put it in the microwave.

Sam narrowed her eyebrows. "What the heck did you just do?"

"Put something in the microwave," I said with a shrug. I wanted to surprise her. I looked at her sick face and realized that she was so gorgeous, even though she was so obviously sick.

Sam shrugged it off. She pulled the cover over her shoulders. "So like… you're here," she said awkwardly, pulling the covers to her even more tightly, eyeing me with her big blue eyes.

"I'm here," I said, nodding slowly. "Well… Carly probably would've come, but you know. Yakima."

She nodded slowly.

Well, this was awkward.

I felt goosebumps on my arm and my teeth chattering. "Why is your house so cold?"

She shrugged. "Heater doesn't work."

"Ah," I shrugged, envying that she got to be under covers and she was about to be able to have some hot ham-flavored soup.

I heard the microwave beep, and I grinned. "Be right back," I said, and I ran downstairs and took the soup out of the microwave. I poured it into a bowl and smelled it. It smelled good… like ham. I then found a tray and went back upstairs carefully. I walked into Sam's room and put the tray on her lap, over the blanket. I then put the bowl of soup and a spoon on the tray.

"Aw, Freddica," Sam said. She took a spoonful and blew on it slowly, and then she put it in her mouth. After she swallowed the soup, she looked at me with a happy, surprised look. Her eyebrows were raised. "Ham-flavored?" Sam asked excitedly.

I smiled. "Ham-flavored," I agreed.

"Thanks Freddie," Sam said with a grin. "For the soup… for even coming in the first place… and for being so nice last night."

I smiled. "You think I'd be mean to you when you're sick?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, I thought you would," she admitted, using her Sam-like voice. "Oh wow, this is like liquid ham."

"Way to make the soup seem disgusting," I said with a laugh. She laughed too. We were silent for a couple of minutes. She was just eating her soup, and I was shivering and rubbing my arms. Her house was freezing!

"Uh, you want to like, warm up?" Sam asked randomly, sounding more awkward than she ever had, in the history of ever.

"Huh?" I asked, but then noticed she was motioning for me to come under the blanket.

"Oh," I smiled and sat next to Sam on her full-sized bed and pulled her soft blanket over my shoulders. I looked at her, so beautiful, just calmly eating her soup. I was just so glad that she was okay, and I would do anything for her to always be okay. I would do anything just to see her smiling, laughing, and being healthy.

And I eyed her for a long time, staring. I hoped she wouldn't notice. Her face was whiter than ever and had patches of red. Her eyes had red parts in them and they were very heavy with bags under them. And yet, she was still beautiful from my eyes. What, is this girl perfect?