Spotlight

39

He momentarily came back and reached out for my arm – when I flinched and pulled my arm away from him.

"Do you know how stupid you were to run into that burning building Mae? You nearly died," he argued softly. I did not attempt to make eye contact with him.

"No Tate. I had no idea that running into a burning inferno would potentially kill me. I had no idea," I sarcastically groaned. How dare he. He defensively raised his hands. I could feel the heat of an argument pervading from his body. He rested against the counter island and folded his arms over his body.

"I wasn't trying to start an argument Mae," he argued again. When I didn't reply, he pushed himself off the bench and returned back to the bedroom area of the apartment, and chucked a different set of pants on. I could hear him button up a shirt behind me.

"Whatever," he groaned. He traced back to where I was sitting and left a long kiss on my hairline. "I'm going to film today. I will be back later in the afternoon."

I nodded my head ever so softly. When I heard the sound of the door closing behind me, I attempted to lift myself from my wheelchair. Although it was hard, I had to push through the pain otherwise I'd never walk again.

Once I walked on my feet properly, I'd never look back.

*************************

The lady at the front desk barely recognized me when I entered in through the guest entry. She had probably been on shift since six a.m. and neither recognized me as Mae Parker, nor a relatively recent patient of the hospital.

I signed my name into the brief book at her desk, and smiled when I handed it back to her. I signed off as Macy Jones, which was an occasional name I went under when I didn't want to be recognized for who I was. The last thing I needed was someone reading through the registry and seeing that I had come back a day after being released, or worse – photographing it and plastering it to social media.

I wondered if she noticed a limp in my walk, but my open toed shoes held me from crippling in pain as I walked to the elevator that I was travelling towards this floor in yesterday. I pressed the up button and patiently waited for it to arrive on the ground floor. I looked back towards the front desk and noticed that the lady working was looking in my direction, almost as if she was figuring out if she recognized me or not.

As soon as the doors opened I quickly entered the elevator and slammed my fingers on the closing buttons. For what felt like an eternity, the doors stayed open. When they slowly began to close, someone shoved their hand in between the two doors and they re-opened. A young girl, perhaps fourteen entered the elevator.

Both of us motioned towards one another to smile as she entered. I still had my sunglasses on, so she was unable to see my eyes. I looked down at her feet and noticed she was wearing black flats over her tights. She was wearing a pale yellow sundress. She had a pair of glasses sitting on her nose that magnified her eyes.

As she stood on the opposite side of the elevator I noticed she momentarily took a few looks at me and I continued to look away. The ride to the level that I was getting off was nearly agony with this girl momentarily looking at me.

When we arrived at the level, she followed me out the door although she had pressed the button for a higher level. I wondered to myself if she was perhaps just a fan that was too shy to say hello, or maybe she was visiting someone else that she knew here.

I continued down the enclosed hallway of the wing until I reached the room I was discharged from yesterday. I took a sharp turn and the girl continued to walk down the wing, so I assumed she had nothing to do with me and it was purely coincidental that she was following me.

When I entered the room I noticed that the bed was empty and the nurse was pulling the sheets up to the head of the bed.

"Where is he, may I ask?" I politely asked. She turned around in a flash.

"He's at rehabilitation for the afternoon. He will be back around five," she smiled. I looked at my watch and noted that it was nearly four. Tate was going to arrive back to the apartment and wonder where I was sooner or later. The last thing I needed was for him to follow me here. The last thing I needed was for more attention to be brought to the situation.

"You're welcome to wait!" she motioned towards the chair as she left the room. I limped over to the chair that was sitting against the warm window and crossed my legs over one another. I pulled out my phone in the mean time and searched up Tristan on the internet. I wondered what the world was saying about his absence.

Some articles listed that he was injured in a fire and recovering in hospital, while others stated that he fled the scene of a fire and was now hiding in an apartment on the West Side of the city. I questioned where his band mates were, or why they hadn't bothered to show up to visit him.

Perhaps they too were in their own turmoil in hospital.

*************************

I was drifting off to sleep when he entered the room. He walked over to the bed by himself, and his face had been removed of the bandage. My mouth dropped agape when I noticed the extreme work that had been done to his face from the burns. He looked entirely and perfectly normal, as if he was never burned by the fire. I'd assumed the treatment had been working well, although when he came closer I noticed a few red areas on his exterior.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, stopping as he got to his bed. His hand was a ball of bandage, and his fingers were wrapped up too. I stood up.

"Why didn't you tell me that it was you?" I asked, putting my hands in the back of my jean pockets. My feet were aching.

"I didn't want you to feel obliged for me. You've already done plenty enough for me," he said as he sat down on his bed.

"What do you mean?"

"You pulled me out of a burning building. You saved my life, I didn't want you to feel like you had to come back to see if I was still in one piece."

I didn't know if he was referring to his state before or after the fire. He was wrong.

"I was always going to come back for you Tristan. I wasn't going to leave you in that building. I didn't even know it was you."

He sat on the opposite side of the room on his bed although I felt like he was so close, he could have been breathing down my neck. He was staring down at his hand that was barely functioning, and refused to look up at me.

When he looked up, my eyes drew to the tears falling down his cheeks in streams.

"I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to play guitar again," he broke down. I leaped to the bed alongside him and placed my head on his back as he leaned over nursing his hand.

"It's going to be okay," I whispered. When I thought about his love for playing his guitar and how much it made him happy, a tear even came to my eye. For a young guy with so much talent, it was crazy how quickly it had been thrown away.

I could feel his body shuddering as he sat on the edge of the bed. I wrapped my arms around him and rested my head on his shoulder. He covered his face with his left hand as he attempted to wipe away the constant flow of tears on his cheek.

My heart broke at the feeling of him falling apart in my arms. I wanted to tell him that it was going to be okay and that he was going to play guitar again, but I did not want to lie to him.

We sat there for god knows how long.