“Please listen – ”

“I’m sick.”

Spencer’s head, her hair still a little bit damp and sticking to the back of her neck, flew up to meet those eyes that held so much sadness now. Not completely understanding the meaning of the words, the blonde replied simply, not giving it a second thought.

“Alright, um, I’m sure we could find some family doctor in town, we just have to wait for – ”

“No.” Ashley’s voice cracked, “Spencer, I’m sick.”

She stared into confused blue eyes and knew she needed to go on. She brought her head back down again, not sure if she could do this without crying if she had to look at Spencer.

“Seven years ago I was a sophomore in college having the time of my life. I was doing well enough in school, started my own band which began getting amazing word of mouth around South Cali, and had an amazing girlfriend whom I loved very much.”

Spencer’s eyes enlarged slightly with the end of that sentence, but said nothing, afraid of scaring Ashley back into silence.

“Everything was going great until one winter I got the flu – or what I thought was the flu. It started out with nothing too bad. I was tired a lot, really weak. Then I started getting a fever and I lost all of my appetite. I went to the on-campus clinic, a mistake in itself, and was sent home with a pack of Tylenol and an excused note to miss a day of classes. They said it should go away within a week, but it didn’t. Two weeks later I was just getting worse so I went back and they reluctantly sent me to a nearby hospital to get checked out.”

Spencer noticed the girl beginning to shake and she wasn’t sure if it was because of fatigue or nervousness, but either way she scooted over on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. Without verbally responding, Ashley took the seat and continued on, her voice a little steadier now.

“I got checked out by one doctor and then another was brought in. They pointed out a few bruises on me that I didn’t even notice. They took some blood and made me stay overnight, hooking me up on an IV to keep me hydrated. The lab work came back the next day and they told me that my white blood cell count was abnormally low. I wasn’t pre-med, but I knew the associations with a low count, and they were never good.”