SAD ROBOT: an autobiography of my unfortunate existence

87. HAD IT COMING

87. HAD IT COMING 

Bridget hadn't noticed me at first because I was sitting on the other side of Beth, between her and Natalie with my head down, looking at the floor. She stops abruptly upon getting closer. The funniest look moves across her face, like she'd just had some form of deja vu or something.

She looks at Beth, avoiding any eye contact with me.

"Beth, why's it here?" Well, at least she recognizes me.

"Why's what?" she stands up to meet her older sister.

"It. The thing." Her vocabulary is remarkable.

"Bridge, he's -"

"I thought he was gone. I thought they smashed him up, turned him into spare parts?"

"What?"

"The robot. That's what they said. Milo and his thing were attacked. If it was by bot haters, there's no way he's sitting here in mint condition still."

Beth looked back at me. Nat put her hand on my shoulder.

"Why the hell's he here and how the hell hasn't he been scraped off the ground into the recycle bin?"

Beth stalls for an answer, even though it's probably best to just spill the truth.

"They said he was with it at the time. That's probably why he got attacked, for chrissakes!" She was never one to be labelled as calm by any stretch and it's beginning to show up once again in her rising voice and incredulous expression, eyebrows raised and waiting for Beth's answer as to why I appear to have come back from the dead and put myself back together again, a shattered Humpty-Dumpty who somehow pieced himself back.

I don't blame her for the confusion. If I myself had seen a robot I thought had been dismantled and had reappeared back into my life like everything was just dandy, I too would wonder just what witchcraft and wizardry was at foot.

"Hiram wasn't with Milo, Bridge."

"But they said he was -"

"It wasn't Hiram, Bridge. It was a different -"

"Why would he be with another robot? I don't understand."

"It was his new one..."

"New one? New robot? Why; is this one broken? What the hell? So he just went and got a new one? Goddammit, Milo!" She seems to look for something to fling against the wall before realizing she's in a hospital.

"I'm not broken," I mutter, but only Natalie hears me.

"I don't know, Bridge! I haven't seen Milo in forever!" Which was a lie, of course; Beth and I had seen Milo with his robot girl not all that long ago in a rather unspeakable position that I frenziedly minimize in my memory and stick at the back of the shelf, not wishing to replay it over.

Bridget digs her fingers through her hair, unmindful of mussying it up. She seems to not know who to rage at. I try my best to make myself look small, consider maybe moving Natalie in front of me as a human shield.

"Hiram left Milo almost a week ago. I took him in. He had nowhere to go after Milo abandoned him. You better be civil to him, or else." I'd never heard Beth speak so sharply to anyone like that before. But she could play assertive as well as anyone when she needed to, evidently. And it was to stick up to her big sister for me.

Bridget glares at Beth but doesn't say anything. Her hesitation to launch an all-out attack makes it clear which sibling has garnered more respect from her over the years.

"And you just took him in? Like a lost pet?" At least she is no longer speaking at rising intervals and is approaching the matter more civilly.

"Yes, I did. He's a lot more than what you've ever given him credit for. Give him a chance some time and you'll see."

I like Beth. I think she is just divine.

Bridget gives a huff in response.

"So what about our brother?"

"I don't know," Beth replies. "They won't let us see him. He doesn't want to be seen either."

"I'm not gonna say he didn't deserve this, but he definitely had it coming. Maybe a good ass-kicking was just what he needed."

Bridget's harsh judgement of Milo should come as no surprise to any and she sure didn't mind toeing the line of appropriateness in a given situation.

Beth turns back to us to come sit down beside me, not willing to fight that battle.

Taking a seat next to me, she motions to Bridget. "Well. You can wait here with the rest of us or not. Up to you."

An indecipherable expression plays across Bridget's features when she looks at the three of us. It's true, she could be considered attractive if her eyes weren't always set so hard and it didn't feel like you were about to be turned to stone.

"I'm getting to the bottom of this," she states before setting off at a brisk pace towards the hallway going past the nurse's desk where Milo lay somewhere beyond.

Just when Milo likely thought he'd survived the worst...