The following morning is the first time I feel somewhat normal. I faintly remember Aiden giving me a kiss on the cheek and telling me that he has to go to work, but that was hours ago. Now, it’s way past ten. I stretch and slowly get out of bed. The sun is shining and birds are singing outside. I climb into the shower and enjoy the way the hot water runs down my body. For a few minutes there, I feel okay. Actually, more than okay. My thoughts go back to last night and a warm sensation starts to pool in between my legs. Okay, okay. You need to calm down, I say to myself. You can’t get aroused again. At least, not yet. You have all that work to catch up on.

After getting out of the shower, I sit down at his desk and check my emails. I’ve been browsing through them every day, but to say that I was actually checking them would be a bold-faced lie. When I check my email this morning, I have over two-hundred unopened ones and another hundred or so which I’ve read but still need replies. This is just too big of a problem to tackle right now. No, I can’t do this. Instead, I turn my attention to the latest installment of my Auction series. I was about a third of the way through it before that happened. I carefully review my notes to try to figure out where I was in the writing process. Much to my surprise, I discover that I was in the middle of a very exciting chapter.

I can do this, I decide. I jot down a few notes of where I want the story to go and then set the timer. I always write in twenty minute intervals. I start the time on my phone and then write according to the outline that I wrote down. Sometimes, I stick to it. Other times, I go off script. The characters talk to me and become their own people and I let them. I don’t constrain them, I let them go. It’s when I decided to let them be free, and become the people that they are meant to be, that my writing got so much better than it ever was before.

When I start to type, the words just flow out of me and the twenty minutes expire in what seems like only five minutes. The timer goes off when I’m in the middle of a scene, so I press return a few times to continue the sentence a little further down the page and get back to work. The next twenty minutes flies by just as fast as the first and I’m still not done. I haven’t written in a long time and the words just keep pouring out of me. I guess last night’s escapades invigorated me much more than I had previously thought. When the timer goes off for the third time, I decide to take a break. I count up the words that each session produced. Seven hundred fifty, eight hundred sixty-seven, and nine hundred ninety-eight. That’s a total of two thousand six hundred and fifteen words. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Perhaps, I should keep this streak going. I pick up a pen and start to write down my ideas for the next scene. But then…oh, no. I press my hand to my stomach. Oh my God. No, no, no.

I run to the bathroom. Luckily, the lid to the toilet is already open because I wouldn’t be able to make it otherwise. Before I’m even able to kneel down, I start vomiting. I puke until I can’t puke anymore, and when it feels like I’ve flushed all of my insides down the toilet, then I puke some more.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, wiping the tears running down my cheeks. I’m not crying, they just come with the process. Somewhere in between the gags, my thoughts turn back to Caroline. I haven’t thought of her this whole morning. This was the first morning in weeks that was, by all accounts, normal. And now, suddenly, it’s not. I’m throwing up and I have no idea why. It has something to do with Caroline. I haven’t thought about her for some time and now I have to make amends. This is my punishment for forgetting her.

I barf again. And again. In between, I lie down on the tile floor and try to cool off. I’m not particularly cold. But I am covered in sweat. My entire body is out of whack. One minute my teeth are chattering and the next I’m perspiring as if I had just gone on a two mile hike through the Mohave Desert in the middle of summer. What the hell is going on? This can’t all have to do with Caroline, can it? No, maybe I ate something bad. I try to think. The last time I ate anything was last night. But then I would’ve gotten sick last night, right? Isn’t that how stomach flu works? I don’t actually know. I very rarely get sick and I hardly ever throw up.

I drape myself over the toilet and wait for more to come. But this time, it doesn’t. I flush the toilet and stare at the water as it fills up the bowl. Gathering some strength, I pull myself up to my feet and wash my face in the sink. The shakes have subsided a bit, but I still feel like I’m freezing. I change out of the sweat-drenched clothes and climb into bed. No, this has to do with Caroline. I threw up when I first learned about her death and here I am throwing up now as well. Is this how it’s going to be now? I’m going to go hours without thinking about her and then have this violent reaction at the end? Is this my way of not forgetting her?