15: When hate isn’t hate

Luke

The realization hits me like an asteroid, and I pull away. I know that I was afraid for her, but why did I hug her like that? Physical contact between an Esp nd the patient is only to take place when necessary or perhaps requested.

"I'm sorry. I was just..." I run my hand through my hair. I sigh heavily. "How are you feeling?" I ask. She stares at me like my face is a blank sheet, one that she would want to scribble on. "What happened t-" She coughs. Her voice is rasp, and it's clear that it hurts. "You had an allergic reaction to the almonds in the food you ate." She looks at me like I spoke mandarin. "Since when am I allergic to almonds?" She says on a low tone so as not to irritate her throat. "I could ask you the same thing. Even the HSA doesn't know about that, and it's important so they don't serve you anything harmful to you."

"Well, now that I think about it, I never ate anything with nuts, and I never got served them while staying at the HSA's dorms." She's practically whispering now. I don't want her straining herself, so I'll stop asking questions, so she doesn't speak. "Let me call in the nurse to check up on your vitals." I get up and explain that she's awake to the nurse, and she comes in with me. She gently scrutinizes her and asks her to wait until morning so she can be seen by the doctor. "She's much better and most of the symptoms seem to have been ameliorated." She exits and slowly shuts the door. Now it's just me, her and the light from the lamp, just enough to keep her nyctophobia away. She slowly stands to her feet, almost stumbling on air. "Where do you think you're going?" I rush to her side. She moves past me, still crouched and using the drip-stand as her only support. "I'm not maimed or disabled. And I need to pee."

"Then let me help you."

"Are you crazy?" She snapped. "I mean help you walk." I just realized how that sounded. "I said I'm not maimed. I can walk myself." Said the girl who is basically dragging herself. "Why are you so stubborn?"

"Why are you so annoying?" She hisses. "The only thing you have to help me with is covering your ears."

"What?" I ask. She makes it to the bathroom door finally, after I walked behind her in case she fell over. "Cover. Them." She demands.

"Alright, alright." I really don't want her talking, so I just do as she says and put my hands over my ears. "Now sit as far away from the bathroom as possible." "Tori, it's almost four a.m., there really is no need for all thi-"

"As far away as..."

"Fine." I give up. She's out five minutes later, and I'm sure most of that time was her trying to get out on her own. She sits on the bed and rests her head on the pillow. "Raise the head rest a bit." She says with eyes closed.

"Glas to see commander Tori's back."

"I'm a patient, aren't I?" I shake my head fondly and push the button to raise it. "Is this enough?" I ask. "No, a little more."

"How about now?"

"Just a bit."

"And now??"

"Nah, take it down a little."

"Toriii!" She's enjoying this. "Okay, it's fine this way." She snuggles in and stills. The sound of her breath is the only sound in the room, till it becomes her low voice. "Hey, why didn't you answer any of my texts earlier?"

"I'm really sorry about that."

"The question was why." Just like Xavier.

"I got too carried away with what I was doing."

"Where's Jace?"

"At home. I rushed out of where we were the moment I got a call from the hospital. So, he doesn't know where either of us are."

"Won't he be worried about you?"

"You don't think he wouldn't be more worried about you?" She gives no reply to that. "If you were there, I wouldn't have had to throw up on some innocent guy's shirt." She starts. "...I would've thrown up on yours!"

"Beg your pardon?" I'm all kinds of confused.

"Then beg!" She shouts. Or attempts to. This girl's attitude deserves an award of some sort. "If you had picked up your damn phone, I would've gone to the hospital in your car, not the ambulance."

"But isn't that better?" I don't get what she's even saying.

"If you had just looked at your phone, I wouldn't have eaten that dessert on my own. I would've given you a tiny bite since you would look pitiful watching me enjoy myself alone." But wouldn't I have gotten something too?

"Yeah, but it would've been the same if anyone else was there, right?" I'm just asking dumbfounded questions at this point.

"Wrong, dummy!" I've never heard her use such a word before, and I never though I would in all my days. "I can't throw up on Jace's shirt. And I feel kind of guilty for making him worry. I wouldn't do that to Ivy, either."

"So, you can throw up on my shirt, then?"

"Yes! I can be stubborn, and give you a hard time, and call you names, and, and..." She squeezes the sheets and stares at her knuckles. "I can do that to no one else; it has to be you." Because I'm her ESP?

"Because I hate you, Luke." She flips over and covers up with the blankets.

I don't know if it's just in my head, or because it's so late at night, but those words sounded more like a façade this time. She always used to say, "I hate you", and never let my name—which she loathed saying stand behind it. Almost like she barely saw me as a real person. She used to say, "I hate you", but never with so little hate in it. She said it like I wasn't the object of all that hate. Like 'hate' didn't mean hate anymore.