by G. Benson
“But then you disappeared on text. Then basically dumped me at the hospital.”
Maybe Taren didn’t mean to sound so sad. Maybe she’d meant to keep the faintly confident, smug tone of voice. The sureness. But that’s not what Joy heard. There was a tick in her jaw. And her tone…it made Joy ache.
“I did, yes,” Joy whispered.
Taren leaned closer. Joy didn’t move away. Perhaps she even moved nearer.
“Why did you do that? Or why didn’t you at least call, after?”
“I wanted to,” Joy murmured. “I really wanted to.”
“You should have,” Taren said, voice low. That gaze so close to her. Lips so close.
Joy breathed in, and she smelled like spearmint chewing gum. Like sweat and fear. They didn’t smell great, but Joy couldn’t have cared less.
“I really should have, yes.”
Taren’s gaze finally dipped. Briefly downwards, to Joy’s lips.
Their kisses had been like fire. Had stoked something deep in Joy’s gut, spread to her toes and fingers. Their kisses were something she missed.
The gaze met hers again, and Joy ran her tongue, almost unnoticeably, along her bottom lip. “I have a lot of pride.”
Taren gave the huffiest of snorts. “Why did you change your mind? I know we hadn’t exactly talked about it, but we seemed on the same page. And then you just…told me when we next met at work that I’d misread and you couldn’t do serious. Or do anything.”
How was Taren not sounding mad? More fed up, than anything.
Joy smiled wryly, and maybe accidentally leaned in more. Their foreheads were nearly pressed together.
“I have a lot of pride. And I was scared. I’d been feeling unwell. And maybe full of…denial. I think I knew, deep down.” Joy wanted to kiss her. To brush this all behind her. But she couldn’t, because she’d known, that when she’d reacted with pride and independence, she’d hurt Taren, and possibly too much. She needed an explanation. “But the night after you left…I had to go to the hospital.” She winced. “Not this one, obviously. I wanted privacy. It turns out it was LADA—latent autoimmune diabetes in adults. Which by that point I wasn’t surprised by. However, it was quite late in the game—many with LADA don’t need to start insulin straight away, but I did. It was…overwhelming. When I got the diagnosis, I knew I would need time to figure it out. We were…new. I didn’t want to put that on you.”
“Was that really it? Or was it that you’re too stubborn to even think about needing someone?”
“Maybe that too.” Joy sighed. “Mostly that. I—I don’t like to need people. And I didn’t want to need someone. Especially someone so new. The idea of a relationship while figuring that all out—I couldn’t do it.”
Taren squinted at her. “You thought it made you look weak.”
Joy clenched her jaw. But didn’t deny it. It all seemed so ridiculous, in the light of all this. “They say doctors make the worst patients. And I was—am—not an exception.”
“Idiot.”
“I am. But as I said, I was so very overwhelmed. I haven’t been in a relationship for a long time. I told you I broke up with my university boyfriend years ago, and seeing someone else was going to take an adjustment.” They’d flirted over that idea, though. The table between them at dinner, the candlelight flickering over Taren’s face as she’d grinned slyly and insinuated she’d reshow Joy the ropes. “The idea of dealing with this and with someone new was too much.”
“You’re an idiot.” Taren tilted her head. “But I guess I kind of get it. Even if it was a little cold.”
It had been. Hindsight showed her that. But even the last two weeks or so, Joy had been regretting her panic. Why couldn’t she have told Taren she needed to take it slow while she figured things out? Instead, she’d pushed her away so hard Joy had thought it was unfixable.
“I’m an idiot, as you said. A few days passed. Maybe a week. And I realised I’d been…rash.”
Taren just quirked an eyebrow.
“Very rash. But then I didn’t know how to fix it, or what to say. I thought I’d made too big a mess of things…”
Taren leaned forward, her breath whispering over Joy’s lips, eyes fluttering closed.
“Stop that!”
They jerked apart so quickly from their bubble it felt like a physical tearing, whipping their heads around to look at Xin, who was standing, white as a sheet, staring beyond them.
“Sorry, but get up. Move.”
They jolted up, peddling backwards towards Xin while peering around.
Someone was peering at them, their head poking from behind the bathroom doors at the back. A shock of curly dark hair. Ruddy skin. A serious appearance.
“Is it over?” they asked.
Xin
Sometime after 6 p.m.
Xin sure as hell wished it were over.
She was supposed to be finishing her graduate program. She was going to be a badass emergency nurse. Then become a clinical nurse, probably. Maybe not, she hated studying. But she loved her job. Adored it. She bounced out of bed each day. Well, she didn’t because mornings sucked always, but she bounced out of bed mentally.
She loved the people. The staff and the patients. She loved helping. She loved the rush of an emergency; she’d been bored in all her practicals in other areas. So. Bored.
Right now, she’d take a job on a boring-as-anything ward forever if things would stop being this exciting.
And of course she was stuck with two idiots who were into each other, then they weren’t, then yes, then no, and now were about to make out in the middle of zombie ground zero? Ground one? Was the lab ground zero?
Anyway. Taren and Joy had been about to kiss.
In the middle of all this.
Seriously?
And now there was some kid staring at them.
“Which part of over do you mean?” Xin asked. “Those two being inappropriate?” She jabbed her thumb in the direction of Joy and Taren. “Or the…zombies?”
The kid took a hesitant step out, half-hidden behind the doorframe still, giving a small smile. “The zombies. I didn’t really notice those two, to be honest.”
Now the kid was standing straight, Xin saw they weren’t really a kid. Maybe seventeen.
“What’s your name?” Xin asked.
“Ro.” Still not stepping out anymore. “They and them pronouns, please.” They gave a little wave.
“What?” Joy asked.
Taren whispered something to her.
“Oh!” Joy’s eyes lit up. “Of course, I’m Joy. She and her.”
“Taren, she and her.”
“Xin, she and her. Why don’t you come and grab something to eat with us?”
Ro didn’t move. “So, uh. Is it over?”
“Not really,” Joy said bluntly. Taren smacked her with the back of her hand. “What? It’s true.”
Ro shuffled a little, still half-hidden. “I figured not, since no help had come. A group of us got shoved here from the other block and left behind. Some of them fought back and…got shot. They’re just lying on the other side of the locked doors. Then a bunch appeared from the wards that way—” they indicated with their hand back the way Joy, Taren, and Xin had come from “—and they were all messed up, some injured.”
“Where are they all now?” Xin asked.
Ro’s arms tightened around themself. “They, uh, told us that people were attacking each other in the wards. Said we’d be next, that they’d make their way here. Everyone decided to go down some stairs and try get out on the ground floor.”
“You didn’t want to go down there?” Taren asked. She ripped open a packet of chips she’d shoved in her pocket and started munching.
Xin’s stomach rumbled, and she grabbed a banana from the sad little fruit bowl always present, but that Xin had never seen anyone touch before right now.
“I didn’t want to leave here, because it felt saf
e. But finally, I followed them down.” Ro paused, fingers running up and down the edge of the door. “I was at the back. Some…some people appeared that were clearly not, well, people. There was a lot of screaming. Some of the ones I was with ran another way. Some didn’t get away. I ran back up here. When I got back, after a bit, I, uh…” Ro looked off to the side towards the windows they’d all avoided. “I heard some shots. There are a bunch of people lying down there. I think some of them were from the group that were with me.”
“Want to hang with us?” Xin asked, taking a huge bite of banana as she said the next part. “Safety in numbers.” It came out thickly. “You can come out, we don’t bite.”
Joy groaned and Taren snorted. Whatever, Xin thought she was hilarious.
Ro nodded. “Yeah. Safety in numbers would be good.”
But they still didn’t move.
Joy took a very small step forward. “Ro, why aren’t you coming out?”
Ro grimaced. “Please don’t freak out.”
Taren and Joy took a step back, and Xin’s grip tightened so hard on her banana that she squashed it.
“Have you been bitten?” Joy asked.
“Not by one of those!” Ro shook their head adamantly, and finally took a hesitant step out. They held their arm up, wrapped in bandages. “I got bitten by a dog last night. I was trying to help my little sister, it attacked her for some reason. I think it was hungry. But it bit me, and they kept me in for some antibiotics in this.” They held up their other hand, waving it about to demonstrate the cannula stuck in the back of it. “I swear, it was a dog. They wouldn’t believe me, I tried to explain.”
All three stared at them.
“You see, Ro,” Taren said. Gently. “Xin over there, and I, we were in A&E with a lot of supposed animal bites. It…didn’t go well for us.”
“But wouldn’t I be sick or something by now? Isn’t that proof? I’m not even feeling sick. Except about everything that’s happened.”
“Owen happened quickly,” Taren muttered.
“But we thought the lab guy had been at least a night. Maybe two,” Xin said, eyes on Ro, who shifted from foot to foot.
They’d thought a lot of things. So much of this was guesswork.
“But look how sick he was by then,” Taren murmured, finally pulling her own gaze away to Xin.
“Was he very sick?” Joy asked.
“Extremely,” Taren said.
“We can’t leave them here,” Joy said.
“Agreed,” Xin said.
Because how could they? But then…they couldn’t deal with another Owen situation. The faces of the other two made Xin think they were thinking the same.
“Okay Ro, you’re with us.” Taren sat back down, then stood back up. “Those bathrooms working? It’s been a while.”
“They are.”
Taren dashed forward, slipping past Ro with a smile.
“Dibs next,” Xin said.
“Damn it.”
The words were muttered from Joy, but Xin still heard them all the same.
“Eat your sandwich,” Xin said. Joy complied, dropping back into her seat. Xin blinked in surprise. “Hey Ro, want to help me pack supplies? We have two other friends waiting for us in a place we are seventy-seven per cent sure is safe.”
“That’s pretty sure,” Ro said, shuffling forward.
“It is.”
“Would be better if it was surer,” they added.
Joy snorted into a bite of her sandwich and Ro threw her a half-smile. They were hunched into themself protectively, edging around the tables and chairs until they joined Xin behind the counter. They were in pyjama pants and a hoody, a mop of unruly dark hair on their head. Probably dragged out of bed when all this was going on. Xin held out a bag and they took it. “There are some boxes behind that door with water bottles and some sugary drinks. Do you mind filling the bag?”
“Sure.”
“Your arm’s not too sore?” Xin glanced at it quickly, trying not to focus on it. There was a tingling feeling of dread creeping up her spine.
“I was given something for the pain this morning. I guess it’s starting to wear off, but it’s not too bad.”
“Well, we can give you something for it later. The others are getting some meds. Well, hopefully they are. Assuming Natalie and Raj make it back to our meeting point and assuming we make it back there too. We didn’t really make proper plans. We really should have. But this was pretty new.”
Was Xin spiralling? Maybe. Thankfully, Ro blinking at her kind of blankly stopped her from continuing.
“I get it. Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Ro said.
Ro walked into the little storeroom, and Xin wandered over to lean against the table where Joy was munching on a biscuit she’d found. Xin crossed her arms, eyes trained on the door through which Ro had disappeared.
“We should get a look at that bite,” Xin murmured.
Joy swallowed, pressing her lips together into a line in thought. “We definitely should.”
“Before we go back?” Xin asked quietly.
“Yes,” Joy said, voice as low as Xin’s, half a biscuit held up. “We can’t take someone back who…well.”
“Does what Owen did?” Xin swallowed heavily. That time in the supply closet with Owen bleeding out on them, breathing so horrendously. The rasping of his breath. The pale look to his face. The desperation in Taren’s. No, Xin didn’t want to do that again.
Joy waved a hand in the air. “Yes, that.”
The door opened at the back of the room and they both swung their heads around.
“Free loo,” Taren announced, walking over.
Joy looked desperately at Xin.
Sighing, Xin said, “You go.”
Joy shot up and walked briskly to the toilet. Taren plopped down in the seat she’d been in before, pulling out a roll of lollies from her pocket that she must have stashed there while they were jamming everything in bags. She held it up for Xin, who took one with a smile.
“So,” Xin started, sing-songing the word and letting a sly smile creep onto her face.
Before she could say anything more, Taren narrowed her eyes. “Not a word.”
“But—”
“No.”
“You take away all my fun,” Xin grumbled. “If we ever get out of here, I want the story.”
Taren’s brow furrowed, and she paused, staring off towards the windows none of them wanted to go near. “We’re getting out of here, right?”
She looked at Xin like their roles were reversed, like Xin was the teacher and had the answers. Which she didn’t, not at all. “Of course we are.”
There wasn’t any other alternative. Xin wouldn’t allow there to be. She had things to do. She wanted to bungee jump. And travel more. She wanted to visit her grandparents in Beijing. She wanted to talk to Scott and figure out how she felt about how he looked at her.
Would Scott even be ali—okay?
They’d only flirted in the hospital. Some fun conversations that had started shy but evolved. A few coffees. She wanted to do more than that.
More so, she very much wanted to do that outside this hospital.
She was not dying here.
They stood in silence until Ro emerged, dragging out the bag of drinks. They let it go and leaned on the counter. “There are some ready-made burgers in the kitchen, and some microwaves. I had one earlier. You want one?”
Xin smiled softly, eyes dropping down to that bandaged arm, where some red had leaked through. The sight of it made her stomach give a weird twist. “Sure.”
Taren stood up. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“Thanks.”
Ro led the way through to the tiny kitchen that pumped out the mediocre pies and sausage rolls, with the odd lasagne and burger. Hunger should be making Xin’s mouth water at the thought of hot food, but there was now only an ashy taste in her mouth, not a trace of the banana she’d eaten. He
r stomach clenched again at the memory of that fruit, and she scanned the room, the sound of that damn humming fridge buzzing in her ears.
Even on her best days, she didn’t like being alone or quiet. And today was definitely not her best day.
She’d say, really, that in the grand scheme of things, this was probably the worst.
She tried to clear her head. But when she clamped her eyes shut, all she saw was that red on Ro’s bandage. Which made her think of all the red she’d seen today. She opened her eyes again.
Ro was moving about, opening cupboards. Neither of them belonged in this kitchen. They should be out there, at the counter, ordering. Bustling canteen staff taking their cash with a smile.
This was all wrong.
Trays littered the abandoned tables, left there to clean later, no doubt. Some with food untouched, some half-eaten. Ketchup was congealing on a plate nearby and the mere sight of that made her stomach heave. That red was too close to the pools of it on the ground, the swipes of it over walls.
Her stomach clenched yet again, and that made her think of her guts, which made her think of other guts she’d actually seen today.
She bolted back out, past Taren, and straight for the bathrooms, hitting the stall in seconds as Joy stepped to the sink, eyes round as Xin raced in, door bouncing open against the wall, she pushed it open so hard.
“Is there one of them—”
She cut off as she clearly heard Xin throw up in the toilet.
“Oh.”
Xin heaved again. The tap went off, the sound of the soap dispenser. Some amount of time in which Joy washed her hands. The image of that ketchup hit Xin again and she heaved into the toilet, nothing left to come up.
Jittery and clammy, she flipped the lid down and reached up to hit the flush button. Her hands shook. Something cold and damp was placed against the back of her neck and Xin sighed in satisfaction.
A hand grazed the back of her head, brushing through her hair. “It’s been an awful day.”
