Tummy-Bubbles

Phoebe Adams - Is an African American young woman who has long and wild curly black hair with light green eyes that sometimes look more blue than green. She has a little mole on the left side of her face just slightly under her eye that she is incredibly insecure about, but if you ask her girlfriend Veronica, that is the most beautiful part of her body that she likes. She is about 5’0, but with her hair wild and out she can just make it to 5’2. She is very shy, but once you get past her shell she is just a little goofball that has a really big heart. She is 23 and completed nursing school fairly recently and is currently working as a pediatric gastro nurse at the Berlin-Hyde Hospital in Michigan.

Veronica Miller- Is a young 24 year old woman who has green eyes with undertones of brown in them with long light- to medium brown hair. She wears thick black square framed glasses as she has terrible sight, and light freckles dust across her cheeks and nose. She is 5’6 with a small frame, probably due to her stomach issues or as she tends to skip meals when she has found inspiration for a new song or can't be pried away from her precious guitar “Babe Rouge”. She has a tendency to look like she is brooding and unapproachable, when really she just has a permanent RBF she can't seem to take off. She is actually really caring and loves giving lessons to children at the music store-Music and Treble- that she works at on the weekends. Some will say it's hard to get her to smile, but they may not have seen her when she is with Phoebe, who has a way of brightening up even the most souress of people, including her.

All I could feel as I made my way back to my girlfriend and I's apartment in downtown Grand Rapids was the slow churning of my stomach as the organ worked to digest my cold brew and granola bar I thought would help the nagging nausea I had felt when I was just about to teach Tessa, a young teen who was just learning to play guitar at the music store I worked at regularly.

“You know it's a bad habit to work on an empty stomach!” The words of Phoebe, my girlfriend echo in my head as a harsh cramp hits me unexpectedly as I just make it to the door of our apartment.  I hesitantly place a shaking hand to my stomach as I look around the seemingly empty hallway nervously. “Almost inside, please god give me the strength to not puke right here right now, not when the neighbors could possibly see me!” I think to myself as I begin to fumble with my keys to open the door, swallowing back the rising sudden nausea that rushes through me. 

Like some unknown angel, and I seriously think she may be most times, the door suddenly opens giving view to my beautiful girlfriend who was still wearing her pink work  scrubs.

“Took you long enough to get home babe, had me worried that you were kidnapped!” Phoebe exclaims as she rushes to pull me into our home to give me one of her big bear hugs that usually leave me feeling all the love from her, but now has me grimacing away from her as I feel my clammy band tee rub uncomfortably against my sensitive skin. “Nice to know a fever has set in too now,” I think to myself as I feel Phoebe pull back to take a good look at me. Her light green eyes are scanning my body as if she is a literal scanner for sickness. I would usually smile endearingly at her for this, but with how crummy I have begun feeling I couldn't find it in me to even give her a soft laugh.

“You're not feeling well, are you love?” She states rather than asks as she brings a delicate hand to my forehead to check for fever, having to step on her tiptoes a bit because of our height differences. I groan in agreement with her as I unabashedly wrap my arms around my stomach, fully seeking the caring my girlfriend exudes when I fall sick which- unfortunately for me is quite often.

“Oh, you poor thing! Go lay down in our bed and I'll be back with your Pepto bottle.” She fuss’ as she gives me a gentle nudge in the direction of our room. I mope to our room with the sinking feeling I'm going to lose my lunch( if I could even call it that) real soon and that no amount of Pepto could help the storm that was inside me.

I sluggishly pull my black skinny jeans off and crawl into our bed with just my band tee and boyshorts. Finally laying horizontally on the bed is only briefly helpful before that pesky nausea strikes up again.

I'm laying still as ever on the bed with an arm over my eyes doing some deep breathing when I hear some rustling getting closer to me.

“I have some water on your nightstand here for after you take this Pepto, and don't worry I have our trusty puke bucket here too just in case,” Phoebe tells me as I hear her place the said items down. The bed dips near my torso and I feel a cool hand grab my arm that's over my eyes.

“I think we are well past Pepto, babe,” I nauseously breath out, as the previously slow churn of my stomach has now begun to feel as if it's a bubbling cauldron of mess. I hear a small tsk sound pass her lips as her cool hand moved from my arm to my rocky tummy.

“Aww, I'm so sorry you're feeling that bad. I swear before I left for work you weren't this crummy looking… you were feeling alright before I left, right?” She probes as the small circles she was rubbing on my stomach slow at her question to my being. I audibly gulp as my clouded mind tries to come up with a good reason to lie to my sweet girlfriend why I didn't tell her I was feeling so poorly. 

“And from that grimace on your face, I can already tell you're trying to come up with an excuse, so I am advising you now if you want there to be cuddles in your future, you tell me the truth now,” Phoebe warns. 

“I swear it wasn't this bad before you left for work! I just had a bit of a sore stomach, but I thought that was just my normal stomach issues I have. Nothing to concern you about!” 

“Babes, I'm always concerned about you, no matter what! You know I hate it when you hide that shit from me, I'm a nurse damn it! I deal with far worse things at work than you could possibly do!” she exclaims as her hand picks up rubbing my tummy again. I sigh in both relief from her actions and at my own stupidity of the situation. You would think that being together for 4 years now I would have learned by now to not lie to my girlfriend about this kind of stuff, but with the amount of times she's had to care for me throughout our relationship, I couldn't  help but feel like a burden with all the countless ailments she's had to help me through. For once I just wanted to show her I could be strong on my own without her having to worry about me being another one of her patients.

“Im sorry…” I start to say but get interrupted by a sudden hiccup. I bring a shaky hand to hold over my lips as another one shakes my body. For a moment everything is eerily quiet in the room between us, before the gurgling twisting sound of my insides could be heard clearly through the air. Her hand drops to my lap as I suddenly sit up feeling all the color drain from already pale face. Fighting back the surge of excess saliva building up in my mouth, I groan as I blearily reach out for the puke bucket beside the bed.

“Oh god, I feel so sick,” I whimper pathetically. Phoebe places the bucket in my lap as my hands never quite find the bucket. My long medium-light brown locks are swept up into a messy bun as I feel a hand between my shoulder blades rubbing up and down methodically. 

“Shhh… your okay…” Phoebe's soft voice assures next to my ear as I take a shaky breath in trying to calm my racing heart. 

I hated throwing up. You would think with the amount of times I've had to throw up with my stomach issues I'd at least be a bit chill by this point, but each time I got that queasy feeling building in my gut, it was paired with the anxiety of what was to come next.

“Sweetie, you're going to be just fine. There is nothing to worry about,” she continues to comfort as my back arches with an aborted heave, I stifle back stubbornly. I stare into the empty bucket determined not to have to use it despite how awful I was feeling. 

At this point I couldn't even block out the noises my stomach was making. Gurgling could be heard as my stomach fought to bring up its contents. I kept swallowing it down still thinking I could get through this without puking my brains out.

“Lovely, you need to get it up! You're just making yourself sicker by keeping that stuff in. From the fever I can feel radiating off of you I have no doubt you caught that awful bug that's been going around. We've had kids coming to our clinic thinking it was just their normal conditions acting up, when really it was this blasted bug!” I hear Phoebe rant as her hand that was rubbing my back begins to give gentle but firm pats.

I whine as it jostles my already fragile stomach into trying to bring up its contents again, this time being successful.

A burp passes my lips shortly followed by a spray of my coffee into the awaiting bucket. I gasp sickly before convulsively trying to swallow back the feeling of another round.

“There you go, loves! Let's get another one out and hopefully we can finally get you some rest!” My girlfriend encourages me as she gives my back some more pats.

“No more… Please,” I dizzily gasp out trying in a vain attempt to will my body not to throw up any more despite the small amount that has already come up. I can hear Phoebe cooing to me as my body gives up on trying to hold this sickness in any longer. With a guttural burp, my stomach brings up the rest of the coffee and my granola bar that I thought would help me from this outcome. A dry heave can be heard past my lips after a tentative breath in, causing tears to slip down my cheeks from the effort. 

I cough a bit, my body making me release another burp into the barely filled bucket in my lap. I feel a heave wretch up my throat bringing with it the bitter taste of my bile. I'm breathing heavily over the bucket still as I hear Phoebe murmur a “good girl” to my ear while simultaneously lifting my head from the bucket and wiping a damp cloth over my lips and chin. When the threat of more puke has lessened, she takes the bucket from my hands and wordlessly leaves the room to empty it. I'm left sitting up in bed feeling slightly out of it and mildly still queasy as I wait for my girlfriend to come back to bed. 

“Don't worry, your queen is here to grant you cuddles and a nice place to rest that feverish head of yours,” she lightly jokes, gesturing to her ample bosoms before crawling onto her side of the bed and opening her arms to me. I give a slight scoff as I slowly ease my body towards her, resting my head on her chest and wrapping my arms around her middle as I wait for sleep to overcome me.

“The queen does have some nice pillows to rest on,” I murmur as I feel her body shake with laughter. Her hand is lightly drawing patterns on my back as my body finally succumbs to the much needed rest.