To sum up how I was feeling at the moment, crap was a pretty good word to use.
“Go away,” I groaned at whoever just opened the bedroom door.
I heard the someone sigh and close the door.
Finally, I thought, grateful that I could finally sleep without any interruptions.
The door opened again.
Crap, I thought.
“How are you feeling?”
Even the voice of my husband couldn’t make me smile. Smiling required me to move, something I was trying to avoid at all costs with everything I had.
I had the flu. It was horrible. Every muscle in my body ached to high hell. I was extremely exhausted, I had a horrible headache, and I was currently drugged up to my eyeballs with cold medicine and cough drops.
I felt a big hand on my forehead and shivered at the coldness of it.
“Your fever is pretty high,” Will murmured.
I kept my mouth shut and buried myself further into my layers of blankets; I just wanted to sleep.
I felt the bed rock slightly and then Will’s arms wrapped around me and I instantly felt bad about snapping at him once I felt so comforted.
“I brought your school work,” he whispered gently. I moaned at the thought of grading more papers. “And the kids are at my mom’s with Alex and James.”
My eyes snapped open.
He laughed softly. “Don’t worry, I made sure Ryan and Kevin were there.”
The only bad thing about having kids the same age as your in-laws’ kids was the whole love prospect. Our kids grew up together and now that they were in high school, they were falling for each other. Only Ryan and Kevin could keep them from making out on the couch. Will and I’s son and daughter ended up with Dawn and Ryan’s daughter Alexandra, and Kirsten and Kevin’s son, James.
“The sub you called in is also sick so they had to call me,” Will told me.
I moaned again; I would face all hell when I got back to my classes. After out twins were old enough to be in school, Will and I started college. I had become a high school English teacher and Will was now a substitute teacher in English. We tried to avoid having him sub for my classes as much as possible since my kids tended to tease me about it when I got back to them. But sometimes, it just couldn’t be helped; like when the sub I called in was sick and he was the only one left.
“Did they say anything about it?” I asked quietly, yet it almost sounded like a croak.
Suddenly, I started laughing hysterically at how funny that word sounded. Croak. Croak. CROAK! I’m a frog! I thought.
Then I grabbed my stomach, groaned in pain, and stopped laughing immediately; it hurt my sore muscles to laugh.
“Morgan?” Will asked warily. “Are you okay?”
I sighed and nodded dejectedly. If I couldn’t laugh, what was the point of trying to stay awake?
I let my heavy eyelids close over my light green eyes and felt myself drifting off to sleep.
“Don’t fall asleep yet,” Will told me firmly.
“Why?” I whined, rolling over—and wincing---to face him.
“You need to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Well then you need to drink something. You know what? I’ll get you some soup,” he decided, getting up and making me even colder from the lack of his body heat. “Don’t fall asleep.”
I struggled to keep my eyes open until he left for the kitchen. Then I let them close again and was asleep in a matter of seconds.

“Morgan,” someone whispered annoyingly in my ear. I rolled over and swatted my hand in the direction I thought the person was in.
“Baby, wake up.”
I opened my eyes reluctantly. Will was kneeling on the floor next to the bed so that his face was level with mine.
“You have to get up now,” he murmured.
“Why?” I asked, not awake enough to get mad at him yet.
“You have to eat breakfast.”
Okay, now I was really confused. The last time I checked, it was the afternoon.
Will chuckled lightly at the look on my face. “I left for five minutes to make you some soup and when I came back, you were sleeping so peacefully. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you up,” he explained. “But now you really have to get up. A shower and some food in your stomach will make you feel so much better.”
Without giving me any time to object, he tucked the blankets tightly around me and lifted me into his arms effortlessly. I meant to protest, but I was still waking up. All that medicine must have been the drowsy formula. He carried me down the stairs and into the living room, where he laid me down on the couch, put a tray in front of me, and set two pieces of French toast and syrup in front of me with a glass of orange juice.
Will stayed to make sure I ate everything and then helped me into the bathroom to take a shower. When I got out, I was actually feeling a lot better than I had been.
“Can I go back to bed now?” I begged him, sitting down on the couch on his lap.
“If you want,” he said.
He picked me up again and carried me back upstairs to set me down on the bed.
“I’ll let you sleep for a while,” he said with a smile, kissing my forehead. “Your fever is going down.”
I smiled at him as he left the room. It gave me time to reflect upon how good of a husband I really had. He even knew how to make me feel less sick when I had the flu.
And suddenly, the flu wasn’t all that bad. At least, it wasn’t as long as I got to keep an angel with me.