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Chapter Seven

"We need to get you to the emergency room," I said.

Lauren wasn't the sweaty type. Not even when she worked out. That's why the beads of sweat dripping down her cheeks was alarming. She reached a shaking arm out and flushed the contents of her stomach down the drain.

"It's just the stomach flu," she said weakly.

I knew what the stomach flu looked like; hell, I fell victim to it anytime we went overseas. It was always just a game of 'What Country is Nick Gonna Crap His Pants In This Year?'

"I don't care if that's all it is," I said. I knew better than to argue with her. No matter what, she always won the argument whether she was right or wrong. That was a piece of relationship logic I had finally learned. I touched her arm. It was hot to my touch. "Let's go," I said gently.

Thankfully, she didn't argue. She got to her feet, her nightgown floating around her ankles. A dangerous belch almost had her turning back to the porcelain bowl, but she took a couple deep breaths through her nose and headed into the bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, I had the top down on my convertible and we were headed to the emergency room. Lauren was dressed in baggy sweats; the shirt was one of my favorites. The red sign loomed up ahead, when she flung herself over the edge of the door and projectile vomited with me going fifteen miles an hour. The wind picked up that unmistakable blood smell once more. I refrained from looking like a freak and sniffing greedily. Instead, I swung into the nearest available parking space, and, hopping around the puddles of ick, opened the door and took Lauren's arm.

The ER was swamped, as always. I tossed up the hood on my own sweatshirt and hovered by the nurse's desk until an attendant sat down. In a low whisper, I identified myself and Lauren.

There's a definite 'celebrity tier' when it comes to ER access. BIG celebrities never even see the ER. They're whisked away to a private room and a doctor is paged ASAP. Middling celebrities are rushed immediately back into an ER room that can be locked away from any prying eyes.

Then there was me. A year ago, I was listed under the 'celebrity, but not a security threat' category. I wouldn't have to sit among the masses in the hard plastic chairs, but triage was as far as I got.

Now that the whole NKOTBSB thing had hit, my status must have slightly gone up. We were brought into an ER room (with a door!).

But we had to endure a wait.

Lauren hopped up on the exam table and lay back. She shook her head at the ceiling. I pressed my hand to her forehead and winced. She was burning.

As almost everyone knows, I'm not a patient person. The first five minutes were bareable. The next five minutes, I began to pace. By the time we had been in the room fifteen minutes, I was opening the door and peeking out.

"Excuse me."

The shortest woman I had ever seen walked under me and towards the bed. After identifying herself as one of the nurses, she went through the normal steps: taking down information, taking blood pressure...

"Let's get a temp," she said. She hopped up on a stool by the exam table. Lauren took the thermometer and gave me an unmistakable eye roll. I smiled.

It seemed to take forever for the thermometer to beep. When it did, the nurse took one look at it, popped the plastic covering, and put it back in Lauren's mouth.

"This thing must have had a rough night," she joked.

Again, the thermomter didn't beep for an extremely long time. And yet again, the nurse saw the display and popped the covering. She shook her head.

"Let me go get another thermometer."

"Why?" I asked.

The nurse laughed. "It's reading a 108. Crazy, right? I'll be right back."

She turned and walked out of the room, studying the display in her hands. Lauren looked at me. I looked down at the floor.

The bad feeling that I had been pushing to the back of my mind was growing faster and faster. I shoved my hands into my hoodie pocket and focused on the pattern of my breathing.

"Okay, let's try this again," the nurse said a minute later. She slid the thermometer into a slot, came out with a covering, and for the third time Lauren held the object under her tongue.

The result? 108.

"I think we better wait for the doctor," the nurse said nervously. She did, for her credit, give Lauren a wink. "But rest assured, this has to be wrong. If it was 108 you'd be brain dead."

"I'm not there yet," Lauren said softly. She flashed me a little smile and I've got to admit, the big romantic in me melted a little. Even feeling like shit she could toss out a little sarcasm.

And that's why we had been together so long.

The nurse left soon after. It was another fifteen minute wait before the doctor came in. I don't even remember if he introduced himself. The guy was like a human cyclone. He tried Lauren's temperature once more, but the number remained static. He listened to Lauren's explanation of the stomach flu, all the while tapping his foot.

"Lay back," he said.

Lauren did as she was told. The doctor pressed under her rib cage, asking if there were any pain. She shook her head no. He went slightly lower, and again the answer was no.

It was when he raised her shirt to press on her abdomen that I noticed for the first time how swollen it was. When he pressed, she jumped.

"Hurt?" he asked.

"Yes," she said through gritted teeth.

"Left or right?"

"All over!" she screamed as he did it again.

"Hmm, maybe gallbladder? Appendictis?" he mused to himself. He turned to the nurse.

"We're going to need labs, ultrasound, urine, yada, yada, yada." The yada's were replaced with things I had never heard of. The nurse nodded and the doctor whisked away without even a backwards glance. I flipped him off to make me feel better.

"What's going on?" Lauren asked.

"The doctor thinks maybe your appendix burst," the nurse explained in normal English. "We're going to rush you through a whole bunch of tests." She looked at me. "We're gonna have to leave you for a bit, okay?"

What choice did I have? I nodded, walked over to Lauren, and kissed her softly. Her eyes were filled with confusion.

"I'll be here when you get back," I promised. "Be good," I added. Lauren laughed.

"When does that ever happen?" she asked.

The nurse kicked off the breaks, and even though she reminded me of an Oompa Loompa or Lollipop Kid, she pushed the bed right out through the door. I sank into a chair and rubbed my hands together, templing them underneath my chin.

It sounds horrible, but I was praying that the answer would be her appendix. The part of me that was trying to block out my own horrible experience was remaining steadfast on that easy, medical textbook explanation.

The other half of me, the half that couldn't forget sensed something much more dangerous. The temperature change, the sweating...I didn't swell, but then again I wasn't female.

Could I have turned Lauren into a...a...werewolf?