Chapter 8

It was barely 9pm when Angel felt her entire collection of voluntary muscles screaming for rest. She said her goodnights, turned off her lights and crawled into bed. Having found herself in the most relaxing posture, she closed her eyes and feel sleep take over almost immediately. Suddenly, her room phone rang. She groaned and cursed, but she still mustered up all of her remaining cooperating muscles to get to the phone. Only her most important friends know the number to her room phone. Still, she was going to kill whoever it was.

“Hello?” Angel croaked miserably, intending to guilt the caller for imposing on her get-well sleep.

“Angel? Are you alright? You sound horrible!” a deep soothing voice drifted into her ears and chased away any sleepiness she had.

“Andrew! Why did you call at this time?” Angel’s voice brightened up by fifty fold. She was pleasantly surprised, because he usually called at 11pm.

“I didn’t see you in school today and thought that maybe you’re ill, so I’d call early tonight in case you’ll be sleeping early,” Andrew said with an apparent concern in his voice.

“Wow, it’s as though you can read my mind. I was just about to go to sleep when ---” Angel disengaged from the conversation when a series of cough forced their way out. She tried to calm her cough down before speaking again.

“Excuse me, bad cough. I was saying, I was just going to bed when you called, but I suppose I can spare a few minutes.”

“That was a nasty cough! Did you see the doctor?” he asked, sounding really skeptical of an affirmative.

“Erm… I just need a rest. The doctor can’t do much for a cold, you should know that as well,” Angel shifted into a fetal position in her bed.

“You could have at least gotten something for that hell of a cough!” he said in a more demanding tone.

Angel burst out laughing, but couldn’t sustain it due to another session of violent coughing.

“Are you okay? What are you laughing at anyway?” his voice oozed with worry and indignation. The two made a very usually emotional combination and elicited another giggle from Angel.

“It’s just that you sounded just like Grace when you said that,” Angel’s smile could be heard through the phone, “so what’s up?”

“Nothing much, just wanted to check up on you. I think you really need to rest well tonight, so I’ll call you again some other time?” Andrew paused for a while before e continued, “say, could you meet me for a minute tomorrow after biochemistry lecture? I want to pass you this cough syrup that always works for me.”

“I… I really shouldn’t. Thanks anyway,”

“I insist,” Andrew said authoritatively. There was no way he’d just stand by and watch her cough like that.

“Erm. Alright, so I’ll see you in school tomorrow?” the shyness was so thick that even Andrew could “hear” it, because he gave a chuckle.

“Yup! Take care of that cough alright? Goodnight!” he said tenderly.

“Goodnight,” Angel replied, feeling like her cough was better already.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*