Book One In The Ahh-Ness Of Things Series: April & Donnie were once inseparable, but now almost six years have passed since she left NYC. What if April O'Neil could set the record straight, once & for all! The only girl down enough to chill with the...
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I stood looking at the wet rag in my hand for a minute or so, waiting for Donatello's current coughing fit to stop. You make your choices, & then life decides to remind you, exactly what that means. He made a heartbreaking whimpering sound from the bed & I looked up just in time to see him stumbling into the bathroom. The things that don't seem to bother you, when you really care for someone: belches, farts, annoying nervous habits, baldness. Still, I would have never imagined yesterday, that tonight; I would be sitting there on his bed listening to horrible yakking sounds. After a few mins of the faucet running, he was leaning over in the doorway; about three shades lighter green than was normal. He struggled to hold his head up & I could see him losing his grip on the frame.
"Donnie!" I reached out to hold him up; "Please lay down, you're gonna fall over."
He was already on his hands & knees trying to get back into the bed, when he apparently decided right where he was; was good enough & he leaned over his knees with his head in my lap. "Donnie..." I sighed, helplessly trying to tug him on to the bed. "C'mon Donnie-boy, you've got to get off the cold floor."
I squeezed my legs out from under him & scoot back on to the bed, coaxing him to follow, until he finally rolled over into the pillows.
"Mmmm no one's called me that in...forever."
"Cuz I'm the only one that calls you that. Are you going to let me put some of this on you? Or are you going to be a butt to me, too."
"Nooo, mmmm I don't want you taking care of me nnnnnrrrggh I'll take the antibiotics & I'll be fine."
"D, you just puked & fell on the floor. Either you're drunk or you need a little help."
"I've been managing just fine on my own...you think they take care of me, when I get sick? This whole time?"
"Stop, you know they try. They do more than most people would...Are we going to argue some more? Because you don't look like you could fight me, right now."
He was holding a pillow against him & he pried his eyes open to look across at me, sympathetically. "I don't ever want to fight with you."
"Yeah? Well you don't have much of a filter."
He reached over & put his hand on my knee. "I'm still....mmm you're here. I still don't, I mean...I wake up & I still can't believe you're back."
"Donnie. Please let me help you."
I straightened the pillows under him & sat on my knees up close next to him; wiping the camphor oil soaked cloth across the front of his shell.
