Hope Springs

Upon waking in the hospital I looked around for my family, who was supposed to be in my room. Mom and May were gone but Dad and Maria were still here and I was curious as to why Mom and May had left. Some time when I had been asleep they must have gone to change because Maria was wearing a dress and she had been wearing sweatpants and a jersey yesterday.

“Where is Mom,” I asked and Dad looked up from the game of checkers that he was playing with Maria. Surprisingly he was losing, and I knew that he didn’t let Maria win. With May, you have to let her win or she throws a temper tantrum but with Maria it’s all about the challenge and learning. Maria thinks that if you just let her win she isn’t learning anything, and since Maria was only about six the fact that she was beating Dad was a little surprising.

“She’s with May,” Dad said, moving one of his pieces and Maria used her king to jump his piece.

“May wants to join gymnastics,” Maria elaborated, moving one of her pieces and then adding, “I think she was just jealous that all the attention was on you.”

“You do not speak like how a six year old should,” I murmured, a smile on my face. Out of the twins Maria was my favorite. Not only was she not a drama queen like May, but she was also more mature than most six year olds and her maturity and intelligence were adorable, especially for someone of her age.

Maria pouted at me and then looked towards the door which had been cracked open slightly. I followed her gaze and saw that Hadley and Rhea were both outside of the door and I grinned, waving at them. They took my wave as the cue for them to come in. Hadley was wearing skinny jeans and a purple peplum top and her hair was put into two buns. Rhea looked less fashionable than Hadley, wearing only a sweatshirt and yoga pants.

“Rhea here was very worried about you,” Hadley murmured and Rhea shot a look at her. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” I answered, “Where’s everyone else?”

“Raven and Keith are on a date,” Hadley murmured, playing with her phone that was in her hands, “Anya and Josh are in the cafeteria and they kind of feel like they wouldn’t be welcome since they don’t seem to know you that well, and Alex is waiting in the hallway and Max is on his way.”

“Anya and Josh know me about as much as you two do,” I pointed out and Hadley rolled her eyes before grinning and agreeing with me.

“That may be so, but Anya is also a lot more shy than Hadley and I, and Josh doesn’t want to do anything that would make her uncomfortable so it’s only us,” Rhea explained and I furrowed my brows.

“Then what about Alexander,” I asked and Hadley smiled.

“Alex is...Alex. He’s kind of throwing a fit because you keep calling him Alexander,” Hadley explained, “It’s strange....But,” Hadley shrugged, “What are you going to do?”

“Make him come in here, obviously,” Rhea answered before exiting my room and coming back in with Alex who was pouting and refusing to look at me. I didn’t understand what his big deal was with being called Alexander, but if it bothered him that much I wouldn’t call him Alexander. “Alex, say hi to Trinity,” Rhea, nudged him and when he didn’t say anything she punched him in the arm causing him to flinch and glare at her.

He then turned to me and sighed, “Hi.”

I sighed, glancing at Rhea who rolled her eyes and made a face at him. Hadley too, had made a face at him and I knew that they both understood that he didn’t like being called Alexander but they didn’t understand why he seemed to be kind of mad at me.

“Hi Alex,” I answered back making my voice light and he seemed to do a double take that I hadn’t called him Alexander. “Where’s Max?”

Rhea smiled, “We just told you that he was on his way, Trinity. Calm down, he’ll be here.”

I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest, “I am calm Rhea, I was just curious that’s all.” I wasn’t sure if they believed me and by the looks they gave each other, they definitely didn’t but I was just curious. Sure I found Max attractive, how could you not? But I still didn’t really know him so pursuing a relationship would be pointless until I got to know him more.

We fell into a silence for a few moments. Hadley could not stand the silence and she broke it by commenting how Miranda and Sheri had both taken to wearing as little clothing as possible and Rhea quickly launched into how the two were making the female gender look bad, and how they were bad examples for the kids around the school. After that Hadley brought up to me how Claire had been understanding about the situation and just wanted to make sure that I was okay. I was relieved, I had thought the worse and had thought that I definitely wouldn’t get the job at the diner even though getting sick wasn’t something that I could control. I was so happy that Claire still seemed to want to give me a chance and that she wasn’t really upset at all, that I hadn’t been able to come in.

Hadley and Rhea were the drivers of most of the conversation. They kept the conversation going and changed it to a variety of subjects. We talked for over an hour about various things, from celebrity gossip (which I didn’t really know much about) to how hard AP American History was going to be.

“Speaking of AP American History, Ms.Anderson assigned a lot of homework for the class,” Hadley said and I groaned.

“But it’s only the third day of school, how can she already assign a lot of homework?” I almost whined and there was a chuckle from the door, causing Hadley and Rhea to turn around and my eyes to widen.

Max was here. He smiled at me and entered more into the room and Rhea turned back around wiggling her brows at me.

“It’s because she’s evil Trin,” Max commented, “Ms. Anderson always assigns a lot of homework at the beginning of the year and as the year goes on it starts to dwindle but near the end of the year you once again get assigned a lot of homework and she purposely tries to make the assignments really hard.”

“Yeah we have to write two pages about American Settlement and Colonization,” Hadley murmured, “We also have to take at least a page or two of notes.”

“Wow,” I groaned, leaning back in the hospital bed, “That is quite a bit to do.”

“Yeah but you can do it,” Max said before adding, “If the wolves don’t distract you.”

My cheeks flushed and I stared at him for a moment before saying, “The wolves don’t distract me.”

“Really?”

“Really,” I muttered, “I don’t get distracted by the wolves. I just find them fascinating and want to see them, but I do not get distracted.”

Max smiled, “Sure, sure.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and Hadley laughed. “You live near the forest then,” Rhea murmured and I nodded. “The wolves are really beautiful.”

“You’ve seen them,” I asked excitedly.

Rhea nodded, “Yeah my favorite wolf is the biggest black wolf.”

Max’s head snapped towards her and he said something under his breath that caused Rhea to sigh and lower her head. I wondered what the big deal was, about Rhea talking about the wolves? They were wolves, it wasn’t like they were anything really special about the wolves. I mean, they were wolves.

“Anyways, do you know when you are getting out of the hospital,” Hadley asked, shifting on her feet and I looked over at Dad who had been watching our exchange for some time.

“She gets out in half an hour,” Dad finally said, “Then she is going home and getting started on her homework.”

I kept silent knowing that was probably wise. If I just got out of the hospital I guess I couldn’t just go out or spend time with Hadley and Rhea especially if there had been a lot of homework. Hadley and Rhea both pouted but nodded their understanding.

“Well, we’ll see you on Thursday then,” Rhea said, moving forward and hugging me. “Bye Trinity,” She waved and walked out of the room. Hadley hugged me as well before walking out of the room hand in hand with Alex.

Max sighed, glancing at my Dad before looking back at me, his eyes seemed to be a darker color as he looked at me. “I’ll see you tomorrow belle petite,” He murmured giving me a wink and a smile before he exited the room. I felt my cheeks flush knowing exactly what he had said, and I glanced at Dad to make sure that he didn’t know exactly what Max said.

I was relieved when half an hour later, I was able to change out of the hospital gown and into actual clothes. I brushed through my hair as quickly as I could and put it into a ponytail. I changed into a longsleeved white sweater and blue denim shorts. I walked out to meet Dad and Maria in the hallway. The walk to the lobby was quiet, with Maria occasionally asking for us to teach her new games. The one that she was most interested in right now was chess, and I wasn’t quite sure how to play that so I would leave it up to Dad to teach her.

Soon we arrived at the discharge area and I hardly paid attention as Dad spoke with the people who were discharging me. Maria yawned and I glanced down at her.

“Are you tired Ria?”

Maria nodded, “Yeah....I wanna go to sleep Rin.”

I picked her up and Maria wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face in my shoulder. “Go to sleep now, Ria.”

Dad finished signing all the discharge papers and we headed down to the first floor and to the entrance of the hospital, where our car was already waiting at the entrance. I was glad to be getting away from the cleanliness of the hospital and the smell of disinfectant. I placed Maria in the back of the car in her car seat and climbed into the front. As we started on our way home I decided that I would once again ask Dad what they thought was wrong with me.

“Did they ever figure out what was wrong, or do they still not know,” I asked, “Do they even have an idea of what caused me to get so sick?”

“They think that you might have gotten into a substance that you didn’t know you were allergic to and I find that a good enough theory but you do know what you are allergic to so I don’t see how you got a substance that you were allergic to since you know what you are allergic to,” Dad answered and I sighed.

“Yeah but there is always the off chance that I got something that I didn’t know I was allergic too,” I shrugged, “I don’t know, I don’t remember eating anything that I was allergic to. I’m not really allergic to foods.”

“Try to figure it out when we get home,” he suggested, “That way it can’t happen again.”

I nodded. That sounded like a plan. Maybe it had been the Aconitum noveboracense bottle that I had touched, though I hadn’t had a pill or anything but there might have been some residue on it.