Hate That I Love You

BRING… BRING

“Bryan! Could you get that!?” called Robert from the kitchen. Bryan huffed, his chest sinking. He eventually got up to answer the phone, allowing my lifeless body to limply fall onto the couch.

“Hello?” he answered, staring back at me as my sleeping form grew to life. He smiled at me as I awoken.

“Hey!” he mouthed, his hand up to his ear, listening to the person on the other end of the phone.
he paused, and looked at me.

I rubbed my eyes and stretched, before the phone was placed in my lap. I looked up at Bryan who winked.

“It’s the Hospital?” he said, walking away, I watched him go before putting the receiver to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Rory Talyor?”

I paused, who the hell was this?

“Yes?”

Her breath was heavy, I could hear her exhaling.

“I know its late, but…. You need to come in, its an emergency” she spoke, her voice wracked with grief.

I froze on the spot, my breath hitched in my throat and my heart stopped. I panicked.

“What for? Is there something wrong?”

She paused, her breathing stopped, and she spoke quietly.

“There’s been an accident.”

Bryan entered the room, placing my dinner in front of me. I looked up at him worryingly. He turned his head to the side, trying to understand my expression.

“Whats wrong?” he mouthed, rubbing my thigh.

I just shrugged. My face was pale, and my heart was in my throat.

“What sort of accident?”

“ACCIDENT!?” screeched Bryan, his expression drooping into a frown. I pushed him away with my hand, and told him to be quiet.

“Alexandria Rhodes your friend? There’s been a head on collision, we need you down here now.”

My blood ran cold, like ice through my veins. I froze as I heard the nurse put down the phone. I stared, shocked, at Bryan, who looked at me, surprised.

“What? Who was in the accident?”

I stared at the ground, things were moving to fast. I lifted my gaze back to Bryan.

“Where is Mike?” I asked, turning my head to the side.

“He went out with Alex, they left me a message.”

My heart sank deeper. It fell into the pit of my stomach, fizzed and melted away. I shot from my position on the couch, over to a hanging jacket which held the car keys, and ran past Bryan, who was still astounded by my actions.

“Rory? Slow down? Whats the rush.”

I ran out the door, bounding quickly towards the car, leaping over the gate, and plummeting onto the cement, my face hit the cement hard.

“Shit, Rory….” Bryan ran to me, my face ached, and the blood in my veins was frozen stiff.

“Where are you off to in such a rush?”

I jumped to my feet, grasping his shoulder to stabilize myself, and I looked him straight in the face. I was on the verge of tears and my heart wracked with grief.

“The hospital… Alex…accident… go now” I muttered, my head buried in my hands. He rubbed my shoulders politely, before helping me onto the car and jumping in himself. He raced along towards the hospital, his foot never lifted from the accelerator. His hands shuffled along the steering wheel. My eyes furiously darted along the roadside, taking in glimpses of the street lights and the small grass that decorated the side of the road. The lights passed my eyes like flickering bugs caught in the headlights. I wavered in and out of consciousness, unable to believe what was actually happening. I was forced back into the seat as Bryan sped up, approaching the gateway to the hospital.

Once there, he frantically pulled me from the car, and helpfully walked me in through the hospital doors, where we met the very ‘un-attractive’ receptionist. Her make up was put on so thickly that it made her face seem as though it had two different levels of skin. It made my own skin crawl. Her eye lashes were that fake that they actually looked real, and her lipstick was smudged from one side to the other of her lip. He had been in a rush when she put it on. Her creamy white dress had a few stains smudges here and there, but the only stain that stood out was the awful crimson stain that covered her shoulder. I took a glimpse of it, and felt my stomach turn, uncomfortably. She looked up at us and batter her eyelashes, her fake, smudged smile beamed at us.

“How can I help you?”

She looked me up and down, searching for a form of injury, I stared evilly back at her. My hair was messed into a bun, and my shirt was twisted where Bryan had helped me from the car. The hair band in my hair was firmly buried into my mass of hair. He smiled weakly at me, and turned back to Bryan.

“Alex Rhodes, the doctor called us, concerning her.” Bryan spoke proudly, pulling me under his wing. Kissing the top of his head as the woman turned away.

“Do you think she’s alright?” I whimpered, burying my head deeper into the crook of this armpit.

“She will be fine, she’s a fighter.” He smiled, and led me to the waiting room.

The room was small, and littered with tiny chairs that looked like specs on the floor. I stared for a while. The blue walls seemed to merge in with one another, lined by a white skirting board. The blue-ness made me sick; it was related too much to hospitals and sickness. I felt my head spin.

Couldn’t they have made it pink? Or even violet? Why blue and white?

I sat down next to Bryan, who seemingly, had taken a seat in the middle of the room. He grasped my hand as I laid it on the handles of the chair. I hadn’t realized how stressed I was until he pulled my hand away from the hand rest and I saw that it was littered with small white indents that were identical to the marks in the chair.

Bryan looked at my hand, then at me.

“She will be fine, just relax.”

I tried to take his advice, and just relax. But I couldn’t, I had to move, I hade to see Alex, I wanted to know she was alright.

A man sun around the corner, he seemed busy. He approached us fast. His tiny coat couldn’t keep up with him, it blew out from behind him, making the coat bend in at the waist. He hurried along to us. His glasses were half way down his face before he got to us.

Bryan and I just glanced at each other.

He shuffled his glasses and straightened up his coat in front of us. Before bending down and thoroughly staring at us.

“Rory, Right?”

I jumped a little in the seat, fireworks happening in my hands. He smiled, his eyes squinting when he did. He turned to Bryan, extending a hand for him to shake.

“Bryan Money, Rory’s partner.”

The little doctor nodded, spinning on his heel and walking away. Bryan and I looked at each other again, and decided to follow him close behind.

“She isn’t quite awake yet… and her boyfriend is worse off.”

Bryan froze on the spot.

Realization finally hit him, Alex wasn’t the only one hurt.

I felt Bryan’s body stiffen, I turned to him. His face was drained of all colour, and his lips trembled. He looked as though he was ready to drop dead. I waved a hand in front of his eyes, which were glued to an unknown source. He didn’t move a muscle, his entire body was solid.

“Bryan?”

He glared over at the doctor.

“Mike was in the crash?”

I turned to the doctor, wanting a negative answer.

“Mike? The woman’s Boyfriend? Yes, he is worse off than she is, I’m not sure he will survive.”

I turned, that space that Bryan was filling, was now a void. I searched around me, frantically spinning in circles. I must have looked like a fool. He had left me. He had just run off, and left me to deal with the mess.

“Bryan?” I continued to look around, still not finding him.

“Who are you looking for?” The little doctor tapped my shoulder, drawing my attention to him.

“My partner, he’s gone?”

“He left out that door before I finished my sentence, I watched him go.” The little man smiled, turning back to his desk, shuffling a few papers around.

I glanced back at the door the doctor had described, watching it lifelessly flail in the wind.

Why had he left?

How badly was Mike hurt?