Okie Doke. Everyone, Summer Break is coming and I'll be able to write so much more. I'm tired of making you all wait a whole week and a half to two weeks at a time. I hate that. So when summer break comes, I should be able to write a whole lot more.
Without further delay…
"Okay, let me see if I heard you right. Did you say you got into a fight with Hayley Ferguson?" I ask. If I see her out on the street, there's no telling what I'd do to her. I'd knock her block off.
"You heard me right. I got into a fight with Hayley." Tori answers, head down, voice low.
"She kicked her ass!" Jade yells.
"And I got my ass kicked. Didn't we already cover this?" She says.
"I know. I- I just never have anything to be really proud of you for, you know. It's just… a weird kind of feeling. It'll take some getting used to." She says, sitting down beside Beck on the couch.
"Tori, are you sure you're okay?" I ask.
She can only nod. Not only is she feeling physical pain, but I'm sure she's feeling some sort of emotional pain, as well. Who wouldn't when someone who is against you and your girlfriend so much that they want to fight you?
This all makes me want to go find Hayley. But I value my face. I don't want it to get crammed in.
"Would you like Jade and I to go to her house and talk to her?" Beck asks.
"No, Dad." Tori says, sarcastically.
"That does sound like something a father would say." Jade says, under her breath.
"I was just trying to show our friend a little compassion." Beck defends himself, only to hear Jade come back with a "Jade-like" comment.
"She doesn't need compassion right now. She needs tough love." Jade punches Tori on the shoulder.
"OW!" Tori yelps. "What was that for?" She asks, rubbing her shoulder.
"Well… I was trying to emphasize the word 'tough' by hitting you in the arm, while maintaining hope that you wouldn't be a big baby about it." She rolls her eyes.
"Do you have any clue of how much pain I'm in? I can barely talk. It hurts to move my jaw from all those left hooks." Tori complains. "Just… take it easy on the tough love for right now. I'm sore. Let me heal up."
"No promises." Jade gets up and walks into the kitchen for some reason. I'm solely focused on Tori right now.
"Do you think you could walk me through what happened?" I ask.
"Cat, I don't know. I'm really tired right now. Can I tell you when we lay down?" She whines.
I exhale loudly, look in her eyes, and kiss her bruised cheek. It was a light kiss, but full of love.
"I guess that's alright." I say.
"Would you two like to have the rest of the night to yourselves?" Beck asks, politely.
"That would be nice. Thank you, Beck." I say.
"Jade! We're going back to the RV." He stands up from the couch and calls for her in the kitchen.
"Why?!" She yells.
"Because I want to." He winks at me. I know why he did that. He didn't want to draw unwanted attention to Tori and me. That's what makes him awesome.
"Do you want sex or something?" She asks.
"I wasn't hinting at that, but if you're offering…"
"Eh, let's just go to sleep. I don't feel like having sex. It just requires too much movement and effort. Plus, you sweat a lot. I just don't like it sometimes.
Beck rolls his eyes, says goodbye, and is dragged out the door by Jade. After we hear Becks GTO drive away, Tori turns to me.
"Totally random thought here: I was just thinking when Jade pulled Beck out the door like a five year old… I mean… she's got him pussy whipped. I mean she has him like…" she makes the "whipped" noise, throwing her arm forward as if using a whip.
"So all this happens to you today and all you can think about is how Beck is whipped?" I ask, laughing slightly.
"I warned you that it was random." She laughs too.
We spend a few more minutes on the couch talking, watching TV, and cuddling. Her parents would be home tomorrow, so we aren't going to have the sort of freedom of flaunting our lesbian-ness around them yet. I'm just taking as much in as I can.
"You ready for bed?" She asks, suddenly.
"You have no idea." I say. "I'm so tired. But you know what I want to hear before we go to sleep."
She rolls her eyes and exhales loudly, showing some sort of anxiety. She then nods and places her hands together. Definitely some anxiety present here.
"Okay, so Jade, Beck, and I were going shopping, as you know, and everything was going great. We had gone into Abercrombie and Fitch and we were having all kinds of fun. Then we saw Hayley." She says.
"Okay, did you initiate contact with her?" I ask. She shakes her head no.
"No, she actually walked passed us at first, but I guess she couldn't help herself. She just had to come back and harass me. We were walking out of the mall and she walked up behind me and hit me in the back of the head."
"So what happened next?"
"Well," she starts, "She said, 'come on you little bitch. Think you're so special? Well show me how special you really are. Let's go!' Then we fought."
"Baby girl, I'm so sorry this happened to you."
"It's fine, Cat, really. It's not your fault."
"NO!" I yell. She jumps back, startled at the volume of my voice. "Tori, this is entirely my fault. For one, I let you go out when there's someone threatening you… and they're serious about. On top of that, I let you go out with Jade, someone who would never help you in a fight. And this is also my fault because of… well, me. If I just had kept my mouth shut about the way I feel about you, you never would have these bruises. You wouldn't have the permanent memory of getting beaten up because you're a lesbian. And you would never have to face the problems we're going to face because we're together. That's why it's my fault." I finish.
She sheds a tear and looks me dead in the eyes."You listen here," she says, her voice very serious and hard, "I don't ever want to hear you blame yourself for what happens to me. Do understand that?"
"But…"
"No buts." Her voice is as serious as I've ever heard it. Frankly, it's a bit scary. "I don't want you to blame yourself for what happens to me."
I nod.
"No… say it. Say you won't." she demands, not harshly, but stern enough that she'll make her point.
"I won't blame myself for what happens to you." I say, quietly.
"Promise me." She says. "Promise me."
"I promise."
"Okay… second thing… I honestly don't care what happens to me. You and I are together for a reason, Cat. And I don't care what happens. Even if you become a vegetable, I won't leave you. And I don't expect that kind of commitment out of you, but I just want you to know that even if I get beaten up and knocked down, I'll get up just for you." She wipes the tears from my eyes and kisses me on the lips with more passion than I've seen her show since her first Big Showcase performance.
We pull apart, but not for long. I move much closer to her, almost straddling her.
"OW! Ow, ow, ow." She screams. "Get off, Cat." She clutches her side.
"Tori, what's wrong?" I ask, worry written all over my face.
"My ribs…" She says, wincing in pain.
Oh my God. "Are they broken?"
"I think so. At least one."
"Okay, let me look up what the symptoms are." I quickly search my phone for an answer. "Okay! Um, are you having trouble breathing?"
"No. But it does hurt to breathe." She says.
"Okay, that's a symptom of a broken rib. I'll tell you what; I'm going to drive you to the emergency room. We should see if they can do anything for you."
"Cat, I can't move. It hurts too bad." She whines.
"Tori, what did you say to me not five minutes ago?" She looks me in the eye, and she remembers. "I need you to get up for me, okay. Even if it hurts, do it for me. Please, Tori." I beg.
She uses every ounce of her strength, I'm sure, to get herself off the couch. I pull her arm around my shoulder and I help her to the car. I carefully set her in the passenger's seat of her beautiful Nissan Murano, and I jump into the driver's seat.
I place my hands on "ten and two" and take a deep breath.
"Cat, can you drive?" She asks.
"I can."
"Do you have a license?"
"I do not." I say. "But I have a learner's permit." I smile.
She rolls her eyes. "Please don't wreck. I'm not in the mood to die, today. Just be careful." She says.
I take one last deep breath and I turn on the car with that button thing on by the radio. I put the car in reverse and back down her steep driveway. I hate houses in the Hollywood Hills sometimes. The driveways are just too steep.
I carefully pull onto the road and begin to forward at a decent pace, around forty-five miles an hour.
"Where's the nearest hospital again? There's exactly 145 in the city."
"There's one down this road. Turn here." She points.
I turn sharply and increase my speed to about fifty miles an hour. Just call me Speed Racer.
"Hey, Cat, how'd you know that fact about hospitals in Los Angeles?" She asks.
I laugh. "You remember when we were on that game show, Brain Squeezers?" She nods. "You remember that trivia app where I learned about the islands of Hawai-i-i?" She rolls her eyes.
"It's Hawaii, Cat."
"Is that not what I said?"
"Not even close." She says.
"Well, I beg to differ." I say, turning my nose up.
"But yes, I remember that trivia app."
"Well that's where I got it." I smile.
After a few more minutes, we reach the hospital and walk in. Tori immediately gets a room and the doctor checks her out.
"Okay, Miss Vega. My name is Doctor Ganz. Would you mind telling me what's going on with you today?" He asks.
"Well, I kinda got into a fight." She says.
"Kinda did or did get into a fight?" He smiles.
"Did. I did get into a fight. A real bad one. I think I broke a rib or two."
"Okay, well, let's check it out. Could you lift your shirt up a little?"
She does so, only to reveal a huge bruise, spanning from her side all the way to her breast. It makes me cringe how dark it is. I'd lose control if I had that on me. I found a tough girl.
"Oh, yeah. I don't even have to take an X-Ray to tell that you've broken a few ribs." Doctor Ganz says. "I have to, though. From the looks of it, it seems like you've broken a short rib on the left side- which won't cause too much pain- and two of your longer ribs on the same side. Whoever was punching you must've had a mean right punch."
"Mean is an understatement." She chuckles, lightly, but winces in pain a second later.
"Now, we aren't required to keep you for twenty-four hours, but we're going to. Not because you're sick or anything, we just want to make sure your ribs being broken didn't puncture a lung or any other vital organs and stuff like that. So, I'll be right back with some medicine to numb the pain." He smiles and leaves the room.
Tori has this look of despair on her face for some reason.
"What's wrong, Tori?" I ask.
"If I stay in this hospital room, they'll… my parents… they'll find out."
"Well, maybe that's good. They can take care of you." I smile.
"No… they'll find out about us and I don't think I'm ready to tell my parents." She says.
"Why not?"
"I- I just don't think I'm ready yet. It's plain and simple." She exhales. "I'm worried about what they'll say… what they'll do… what they'll say to you… whether they'll make us break up or not. I'm just scared, Cat."
I climb into the hospital bed she's lying on and let her rest her head on my shoulder. I run my fingers through her hair, all the while planting small kisses on the top of her head. She calmed down after a while of me doing this, but I could tell she was still tense.
"Listen, Tori… we're going to get through this one way or another. I don't care what gets in our way; my parents, your parents, Hayley Ferguson. I don't care. But they're your parents. And what you want to do… we'll do. We can make something up for the time being or we could come out and tell them. Either one we can do. It's what makes you feel more comfortable that matters." I grip her hand tightly.
"I think at this point in time, it'd be best if we just came up with something. I'm just not ready." She mumbles.
"And that's okay. What should we say?" I ask, quietly.
"I think we should just say that you were being picked on and I took up for you; that the girl messing with you wouldn't back down. So I had to intervene and I did. The girl kicked me in the ribs a few times and broke a few of them. That's what I think we should say. We don't need to say anything about Hayley, though, okay?"
I nod. I'd have no problem with keeping something like this from other people. Like if my aunt and uncle ask about what happened, I could tell them what Tori just said. But we're talking about her parents. These are people- if everything works out the way I want it to- that I'll be seeing practically every day for the rest of my life. And I don't know how comfortable I am with lying to them.
"Okay, that sounds good." I say with a huff.
"It doesn't sound like you think it sounds good. Are you sure you're okay with this?" She asks.
I nod without saying a word. Well that's a dead giveaway that you're lying. Way to go, Cat. She pulls my chin up so that my eyes meet hers.
"You're not okay with it." She says, quietly. "I can see it in your eyes."
I get up off the bed and start going back and forth across the room.
"Tori, maybe I'm not okay with this. I mean, lying to your parents… I just… look, if you and I stay together for a long time, these are people I'm going to see regularly. There's Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, birthdays… or in Trina's case, birth weeks. I just don't know if I'm comfortable lying to your parents."
"Cat, you brought the idea of making something up. Why the sudden change in heart?"
"Because I began to think about lying to your parents. Like I just said, I'm going to be seeing them almost every day for the next… however long we're together… forever, maybe."
"Did you say forever?" She asks, jaw to the floor.
I hadn't really noticed it.
"I… I guess I did. But I was just saying hypothetically, you know. I mean, we haven't ever said we love each other yet. I don't know if we're going to be together forever. Hopefully so."
"Yeah…" She says, quietly.
"Ahem…" Doctor Ganz says, entering the room again.
"Oh, hey, Doctor Ganz." Tori smiles.
"Hello, Tori. Um, may I ask who your friend is?" He asks.
"Oh, this is Cat Valentine. She's… uh… she's my girlfriend." My face reddens at the word "girlfriend".
"Oh, well, I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself when I first came in. My name is…"
"Doctor Ganz, right?"
He laughs. "Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry to take your girlfriend away from you, but we need to begin those X-Rays now. I'd just like to be sure of what you've actually done to yourself. I need to know what kind of medicine to prescribe. So… Cat, I just need to borrow her for a few minutes. Is that okay?" He asks.
"Well, I really don't have a choice. Go ahead." I laugh.
"Thank you. Tori, if you would follow me?" He gestures towards the door with his right hand.
Tori slowly stands up and walks towards the door. "Hey, Cat, could you run down and get me something to eat from the cafeteria so I could have something when I get back to the room?" She asks.
"Of course." I smile. With that, she leaves the room with Doctor Ganz.
The cafeterias in hospitals were always fun to go to for me. And I'm always in the hospital because of Adam. Adam was always in the hospital between ages fifteen and nineteen. I know my way around St. Schneider's Hospital.
But when Adam was in this hospital, I got to sit down here in the cafeteria while my parents helped the doctors give him his "special shots". I'd just sit down here and watch people. Every now and then, a mother would buy her children some chicken fingers. Then they'd always jump around and tell her thank you and show her how happy they were.
Then there could be this old seventy or eighty year old couple that would just sit at a table drinking coffee. They would either laugh at something they said or doze off while listening to each other talk. They were so cute.
But they're different now. They're not happy. They aren't happy places. There are no people there buying their children chicken fingers anymore. There are no seventy or eighty year old couples dozing off or laughing at each other. Now there are just a bunch of sad looking people who look like they hate life.
But, in fact, there is something interesting I see in the cafeteria. From my little table in the corner, I can see someone who came along at the wrong time. Tara. She smiles and runs at me, waving her hands at me.
"Hi, Cat! How are you?" What the hell? This girl is being nice to me?
"Oh, hi there, Tara." I say, awkwardly.
"How have you been? We haven't seen each other since our little… you know…" She says.
"Yeah… Um, I've been alright. What about you?" I ask.
"Oh, I've been fine. I've accepted that I can't sing and you know, I'm a happier person for it." She smiles.
"Well, that's really good for you, Tara."
"Thank you. Can I ask you what you're here for? I mean, I'm sure you don't just like to hang out here in Hospital Cafeterias. Is someone sick?" She asks.
"Oh, Tori broke her ribs." I tell her.
"I'm sorry, who's Tori?" She furrows her brow and squints her eyes.
"What do you mean? You don't- oh! Do you remember Louise Nordoff?" I laugh.
"Yeah, I remember. Was that not her real name?" She asks, astonished.
"No, her real name is Tori Vega. She and I go to a performing arts school together here in Hollywood."
"Oh, okay. So she broke her ribs, huh?" I nod. "Aw, that's tough luck. What did she do? Fall down some stairs? Get punched?"
"Actually, she was punched. She got into a fight." I say.
"Oh my gosh. Who'd she get into a fight with?"
I hesitate for a moment due to the fact that Hayley is Tara's best friend. "Hayley."
She looks stunned. Her eyes go wide and her jaw drops.
"No way. Why did Hayley fight her? Tori didn't do anything to her except beat her in a singing competition. Hayley wouldn't fight her over a loss."
"Well… Tara, Tori and I are dating. We're a couple." I say. "And Tara is acting like she's…"
"Homophobic? I know it seems that way, but it's completely the opposite. Hayley is gay, Cat." She says.
"Are you serious? I never… ever would've even thought about Hayley being gay."
"Yeah, but there's a kicker. She likes me."
"Wait, so… Hayley likes you? Is that why you stopped singing? Because she said that she liked you? Did you really quit because you think you can't sing?" I question.
"Oh, no, I know I can't sing. I recorded myself one night and it just sounded awful. It was so bad. But that was a contributing factor. And it's not that I don't want to be friends with her anymore, it's just that I don't want to be that kind of awkward friend. Close to when we stopped hanging out, the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. So, I decided to move on." She says.
"So… I think I may have figured something out. Tell me if I'm right, because I don't know Hayley as well as you do. Could she have wanted to fight Tori because she's jealous of what we have? Is she kind of… I don't want to say depressed, but… depressed that she doesn't have you?" I ask.
"That could be it. It just doesn't seem like Hayley. She was never the violent type."
"Tori came home and she was a wreck. We stayed up for like… ten minutes after our friends left and then we went to bed." I say.
"I'm really sorry about her." She shakes her head.
"Did I tell you what she said on the Slap?" I ask.
"What's the Slap?"
"It's like a social networking site that our school puts up for us all to use."
"Oh, okay. But what did she say?"
"She just went off, dogging our relationship. She said something like, 'You bitches think I was mean to you at Karaoke Dokie, well think again' or some crap like that. It tore Tori up."
"God, I'm so sorry about that." She says.
"Don't be sorry. It's not your fault."
"I know." She says. "But, I mean, you two are decent enough people. You just didn't deserve that." She says.
"Well, I appreciate it. But enough of this stuff… what are you doing here? Someone from your family here?" I ask.
"Oh, yeah. My dad is."
"What's wrong with him?"
"Oh, a lot of things. Too many to mention." She says.
"Well, I'm sorry about that." I say.
"Oh, it's fine. Cat, it was great seeing you again. Maybe we could catch up. Um… here's my number. Just give me a shout if you and Tori need anything." She smiles. I take the little piece of paper from her hand with her number written on it and stuff it in my pocket.
"Thanks, Tara. Good seeing you." I wave and she walks away.
So with that, I begin to look around the cafeteria at what all I could get Tori to eat. Nothing looks too appetizing. How these cafeterias have changed.
One of the stations said Smoothie King on it, so I figured I'd get her a nice smoothie. I walk over to the store, only to see one of the people I saw all the time when I lived with my parents.
"Hey, Herb!" I yell.
"What's up?" He asks.
"What are you doing here?"
"Working. I need to pay bills." He says.
"Well, cool. Could I get a smoothie?" I ask.
"Sure. What kind?"
"Um… just give me the best one you got." I smile.
He gives me a thumbs up. A few minutes later, I have a smoothie in my hand.
"Thanks, Herb." I say, paying him. "Good seeing you again."
"My life is going great." He smiles.
"That's nice… real nice, Herb." I say, walking away.
When I return to Tori's hospital room, I find her lying in her bed in a gown they gave her. She's got a thin blanket over her.
"Here you go, sweetie." I kiss her cheek.
"I wanted something to eat." She says.
"I know, but a smoothie can quench your thirst and fill you up." I say, smiling. I push the cup toward her mouth. "Drink up."
Doctor Ganz returns to the room with a manila folder. I'm sure it contains Tori's X-Rays.
"Okay, Tori. We have confirmed that you broke three ribs. One of them is a short rib, which is at the bottom, and then there were two more on the same side near the top. Recovery will take around six weeks and…"
"I got you the food you wanted, Daddy." A girl walks in.
Oh damn.
"Thank you, Tara." Doctor Ganz says. "Just sit it there on the table. I'll get it on my way out."
"Oh... Hey, Cat. Hey, Louise… I mean Tori." Tara says.
"Tara, did you just say Doctor Ganz was your father?" I ask.
"Yeah, why?" She asks.
"Did you not say there was something wrong with your dad?"
"Mentally, maybe." He laughs.
"I did say that, and that's exactly what I meant… what he just said. I didn't think you'd take it so literally. My dad is perfectly healthy, except for the occasional common cold." She says.
"I'm sorry, I'm a little lost here." Tori says.
"Tori, I'm Tara's father." Doctor Ganz says.
"Did you tell him how you broke your ribs?" Tara asks.
"No, I just told him I got into a fight." Tori answers.
"Doctor Ganz, Tori got into a fight with Hayley Ferguson, Tara's best friend." I say.
"Oh, really? Why didn't you tell me that?" He asks.
"I didn't think it mattered." Tori says.
"It doesn't really, but you know… Tori, your recovery time will be about six weeks and I'm going to prescribe some Vicodin to you. But I only want you to take it if you're in horrible pain. This stuff can be addicting. Be careful."
"Thank you, Doctor Ganz." Tori and I say.
"No problem. Come on, Tara." He and Tara leave.
After a little silence, I hop back into bed with Tori. I kiss her cheek.
Just as I get comfortable, my phone goes off.
"Text message… sorry." I reach around to my back pocket and pull out my phone. It was a text message from Robbie. There were only three words.
"How could you?"
Boom! How'd you like that one?! I liked this one. Tell me what you think. Or don't. It's whatever. But seriously… tell me what you think.
Guys, Kentucky is in the Final Four in the NCAA Basketball Tournament! I'm so excited! Cheer us on when we play Wisconsin on Saturday to go to the National Championship!