A sleepy Carmen came in to find out what the noise was about, she was surprised to find Shane throwing up in front of the toilet.  Shane held her hand up, indicating her to stand back. 

“Don’t come near me, it’s disgusting.”  She flushed the toilet as she said.

Carmen left the bathroom while Shane rinsed her mouth to get rid of the foul taste in her mouth.  A few minutes later, she reappeared with some hot tea. 

“Drink this, it will make you feel better.”  She handed the cup over to Shane whom was sitting next to the bathroom wall.  She took a sip and a few deep breaths to recover from the shock.

“Thanks for the oysters, by the way.” Shane joked weakly.

“I am sorry, I didn’t know that you really couldn’t take it.”  She apologized. Shane did not believe Carmen actually apologized to her. . That’s a first, but she was too weak to have a come back. She got up slowly and walked back to the bedroom.  Carmen came to her side and supported her. 

Shane went back to bed but she threw up a couple of times more throughout the night.  Her stomach was burning when she woke up, she struggled to walk to the kitchen for some water.  To her surprised, she found Carmen in front of the stove cooking.  She turned round when she saw Shane standing at the doorway.

“Hey, you should be lying now!  Sit down.”  Carmen ordered her.  She poured a bowl of soup in front of Shane. 

“Now, drink this.” Shane was shocked to see her cooking.

“You made this yourself?” She asked in disbelief.

“Yes, do you want me to feed you too?”  She laughed.

“If you don’t mind!” She joked.  Carmen lifted up a spoon of soup and blew it a few times to cool the liquid.  She then held it in front of Shane’s mouth.

“Come on, open your mouth.”  She said.  This wasn’t what Shane was expecting, she half expected a hot bowl of soup flying to her head by now, but this gentle and caring Carmen was new to her.  She opened her mouth as told.

“It’s really nice.  Thanks.  I can do it myself actually.”  Shane wasn’t used to being treated like this and took the spoon back. “I didn’t know you could cook.”  She smiled.

“Why would you?” She paused then continued, “This is my mother’s recipe, she used to make this when me or my brother was sick – when we were little.”  She smiled back, her voice was sweet, yet with a hint of sadness.  At this moment, Shane thought she could fall in love with this girl.  

“Hey!  I don’t want to sleep yet, can we watch a DVD?”  Shane said looking at Carmen with her puppy dog eyes.  She was using her sickness to her full advantage.

“Ok, I bought some new ones the other day. I will go and get it!”   Carmen ran out of the room.

A minute later, Carmen was back with a whole load of DVDs in her hands.   Shane picked Ghost Rider.

“There is no TV in this room!”  Shane said as Carmen was making herself comfortable next to her. 

“You are wrong! See!”  Carmen took a remote control out from the bedside drawer and pressed a button and a widescreen TV came out at the end of the bedstand!

Carmen fell asleep half way through the movie, Shane pulled up the blankets to cover her and turned the lights off to sleep herself.

Shane was feeling a lot better now, she was wondering if it was Carmen or the soup. Just when she thought she got Carmen figured out, she discovered yet another side of her.

tbc…