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Therese caught a really lucky break. Only barely taking the time to bundle up, playing around in the snow with Rindy and falling flat on her ass on the New York streets, time and time again… It’s a wonder that she didn’t get sick and that somehow, Carol did. Call it a bit of unfortunate luck, she supposed.
“This is the absolute worst,” Carol complained from the couch. “Feel useless.” Her nose was stuffed (perhaps the most annoying part of the whole sickness business), she spent a better part of yesterday curled up in her room sleeping. Rindy didn’t exactly want to go near her, thanks to Harge’s germophobic disposition. Instead, Therese had been taking care of her up until now. In fact, even now, Therese was in the kitchen making soup that Carol could only half-smell.
“Don’t stress yourself out too much,” Therese said with a distracted voice. Carol felt her heart jump just slightly at the thought. Therese, who always sounded so distracted, focusing on small things, little things. Carol realized at some point that Therese could focus on nothing she did, simply going through life as she would, but even the little things could suddenly mean everything. Carol’s sickness-addled brain could only comprehend parts of it, but her heart felt warm.
“You’re not worried that you’re going to get sick?” she called out suddenly, hating the stringy tone of her voice. Though Carol did not get sick often, when she did, it had a tendency to hit hard. Back when she’d been living with Harge and Rindy, it usually ended with the entire household getting sick as well.
Therese reached over to turn off the stove. “Well, if I’m going to eventually get hit with this, then it best be sooner rather than later, right?” Carol listened to the clink and clank of the porcelain plates being placed on the counter and closed her eyes. Therese pulled up a seat from the kitchen table up next to the couch. “And then when I get sick, you’ll have to take care of me, and I won’t have to deal with Dannie’s bullshit for a good four days. That sounds lovely, doesn’t it?”
Carol laughed and opened her eyes, only to see Therese smiling lovingly down at her. “I thought the worst part about this was that I couldn’t actually breathe, but I think it really sucks that I don’t get to kiss you.” It was meant as a jest, though Carol wondered if it sounded bad the moment the words came out of her mouth.
Therese, however, didn’t seem to mind. “Watch me,” she said simply, and began to lean forward with an exaggerated pucker to her lips. Carol halfheartedly pushed Therese away with a laugh.
“You’re going to get sick, you nitwit!”
Pulling back with a little giggle of her own, Therese finally began to direct attention to the soup. “I’m already sick,” she said. “On my love for you, of course.”
“Absolutely ridiculous,” Carol breathed with a little sigh. How Therese loved to say such things, if only to get a small laugh out of her. And Carol loved it, loved being with Therese, and even a sick day could be made better just by being around her. “It’s funny how that works.”
“Hm?” Therese looked into her lap and stirred. Carol sat up and accepted the soup bowl from her girlfriend. Chicken noodle, it looked like.
She was expecting a response, and although it was easy for Carol to wave it off with a simple ‘nevermind me’, she was overcome with a desire to speak. “Life in general, I mean. It’s just, there!” Carol paused to spoon a bit of broth into her mouth. “I could have performed the same actions with any number of the same people and I still wouldn’t have fallen in love with them the way I did with you. The way I continue to love you. And, there’s so many variables to account for when thinking about this sort of thing too, right? Some people could ‘love’ and repeat the same actions, having dull sex and having dull, domestic reactions simply because that’s what people do when people think of love. Going through the motions, doing everything on autopilot and it’s just not…” Her trail of thought ended there.
Instead of perhaps the ‘you’re sick’ that Carol expected, Therese listened with that thinking look of hers. When Carol spoke, Therese would hang on every word and overthink every possible word and it was just so Therese in a way that Carol loved. She wouldn’t ever know how to articulate it, and especially not in her current state, but to love like this… Was this not divinity in itself?
“I think you’re right,” Therese said with a smile. Typically when Carol liked to delve into philosophy and other such semantics, Therese might say something that would further the conversation, or even contradict Carol’s point immediately. Yet. They sat in silence for a moment. Then, “Can I say that I love you? Wholeheartedly, I mean. I don’t really—know, I guess. I say it a lot but I don’t… It’s never any less sincere when I say it, but I just want to let you know. That I do.”
Carol smiled up at Therese with a hint of knowing. “You’re more rambly than I am, and I’m the one who’s sick.”
“Don’t forget, we’re both sick, prisoners to the throes of love…” Ah, and there she was with her most amusing antics yet again. Therese and Carol could really only laugh.
(Only, Therese wasn’t really laughing when she came down with the cold three days later.)