Lingering Worries

The phone buzzed beside me, and her familiar voice broke through the static haze of my fever. 'How are you feeling?' she asked, her tone laced with a quiet urgency, each word a thread trying to hold me together. My temperature had been soaring, and I had barely eaten. She waited patiently, needing my reassurance that I was okay. I mumbled something half-hearted. She hung up, her concern lingering in the silence she left behind. The truth? Her worry wasn’t healing me—it was only making me more sick. Homesick.