Learning to Be Little Again(35)

“There’s no need to look in the mirror, little one. You look as cute as ever.”

She jumped and turned around to face me. “I didn’t hear you come back.”

“I realize that. Why don’t you jump into bed? I have a bottle of orange Gatorade for you to drink. If you’ve been sick, we’ve got to get some fluids into you.”

“Gatorade?” she asked with a nasty look on her face. “It’ll hurt my stomach!”

“Sweetie, your tummy is just upset because you haven’t put any food in it. It’ll suck up this Gatorade and be very happy. Come on, hop into bed,” I said, sitting down on the right side of her bed as she got into the left side.

She lay down and just looked at me, and I positioned her so we were perpendicular, cradling her neck in the crook of my left elbow. Basically, I was holding her like a baby as I brought the bottle to her lips. She took it and hesitantly began to suck. After a few seconds, she got the hang of sucking from a bottle and started to drink normally.

She must have been more tired than I thought because she fell sound asleep after only finishing about a fourth of the bottle. I would have really liked her to drink more, but I didn’t want to force her to stay awake.

I pulled the bottle out of her mouth carefully, then placed it on the nightstand and gently shifted her so she was lying on her pillow. I pulled the covers up to her chin and placed a goodnight kiss on the top of her head.

Grabbing the bottle of Gatorade, I walked out of the bedroom, closing the door quietly so she wouldn’t be disturbed by me. Then I went into the kitchen and placed the bottle in the refrigerator. She can drink it later.

I then headed into the family room, sat down on her couch, and dialed Mark’s cell phone number.

“Hey. How’s Juliana? I just got off work and I’m going to run home, change, and I’ll be right over.”

“Hey. Slow down, man. I just put her to sleep for the night, so could you wait to come over until tomorrow?”

“Fine, but can you tell me how she is?”

“Something happened to her. I came over and she looked so sick. She hasn’t been eating or sleeping. I’m about ninety-five percent sure she lost all the weight she gained since I’ve known her.”

I sat back on the couch and pinched the bridge of my nose, as Mark let out several curse words. “Do you know what brought this all on?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to talk about it tonight with her. But if I were a betting man, I’d say it has to have something to do with her ex-boyfriend, Boyle. I won’t know for sure though until I talk to her.”

“I want to be there with you when you do.”

I wasn’t so sure that was a smart idea. All the times I had tried to broach the topic of Boyle with Juliana, she changed the subject so fast. I didn’t want too many people to be there and make her even more skittish about it. But Mark had been the one who found and took care of her, so maybe she would be alright with him there.

“If she’s okay with it, then I’m okay with it too.”

“That’s fair. I’ll be over first thing in the morning.”

“Alright, bye.”

“Bye.”

I hung up and put my cell phone back in my pocket. I closed my eyes, thinking about tonight. I knew in my gut that Juliana’s behavior had something to do with Boyle. She wouldn’t have just decided to stop eating and sleeping for no reason. I decided I could figure it out tomorrow.

I went upstairs, got ready for bed, and headed into the bedroom, then changed into my pajamas and got underneath the covers, pulling Juliana close to me. I gave her another kiss on the forehead right before I closed my eyes and fell asleep.



* * *



I woke up at my usual time, six o’clock, and yawned, feeling like I had barely gotten a wink of sleep last night. My poor baby girl woke up screaming five times from nightmares. Each time I comforted her and got her to go back to sleep. Her last nightmare had been at three thirty in the morning, so I was happy that she was having her longest stretch of sleep now.

I got out of bed, grabbed a new pair of clothes, my razor, shaving cream, and a baby monitor. I placed the baby monitor on Juliana’s nightstand and then carried the other one along with all of my stuff into the bathroom.

I took a long shower, letting the warm water ease my tired muscles. When I finished, I got dressed, shaved, combed my hair, and carried the baby monitor with me towards the kitchen.

“What the hell?” I shouted and jumped when I saw Mark just sitting at the kitchen table and drinking a cup of coffee.

I walked to Juliana’s bedroom door to see that my outburst hadn’t woken her up, thankfully. I shut the door so Mark and I wouldn’t disturb her, then walked across the family room and into the kitchen.