They Could Care Less

9: Rumors Spread Faster than Fire

The doctor closed his bag for the night, and looked at Thea with a concerned smile.

"How you got injured is none of my business, but do know that you have a light concussion. It's nothing severe and will not affect your daily life, you can return to school tomorrow. But don't do anything too intense. You're lucky that you didn't get stitches. I've done my best and if you take it easy for the rest of the week, it shall heal easily, but if you somehow open the wound again I suggest you go to the hospital and get stitches," the doctor talked with a slow, serious but somewhat soothing voice. Thea thought about how his voice could calm the patients as the doctor said goodbye and left the Meyers' house.

"Do you need anything? Water? Food?" Jackson suddenly asked and Thea had forgotten that he was in the room. A bit of color had returned to his face, but he was still quite pale.

"I have to text someone, can you get my phone from my backpack on the floor?"  Thea kindly requested and they locked eyes for a few seconds, but they both quickly looked away once they realized they had both gone soft and kind for each other suddenly. They were supposed to be enemies and so they both suddenly turned cold against one another.

"Why won't you do it yourself?" he muttered coldly.

"Gladly," Thea sputtered back as she stood up and walked out. "Jerk..." she mumbled to herself and grabbed her backpack. She walked back out into the hallway, she opened the door into the guest room, and walked in. She closed the door behind her before she knelt down to her backpack on the floor, fished up her phone and unlocked it. She pressed the text icon and started to type a short message to Christina about her whereabouts.

To: Christina

Thea: Hey, sorry to bother you at this time. I won't be coming back to the apartment tonight. I'll explain more tomorrow. I'm okay.

Only a few minutes later Thea's phone buzzed, telling her that she had gotten a reply.

From: Christina

Christina: Hi, no need to apologize. I wasn't even sleeping, I was up being worried about you. I don't know if you used to do this back in Texas, so I decided to wait for a while before I text or call you. Glad you're okay, good night.

Thea then crawled under the blankets and fell asleep, lying on her side as she didn't want to sleep on her back due to the injury at the back of her head. The next morning's weather wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worse it either. It had stopped raining. Still, grey, threathening clouds were still in the air and when Thea opened her eyes, she wasn't sure if it was night or morning yet since it was so dark outside. But a quick check on her phone told her that it was 05:56 am. She had woken up four minutes before her alarm was set to go off, she sat up and felt the massive migraine she had. She let out a quiet moan of pain as she stood up on shaky legs with the whole room spinning and white dots in her vision. She shook her head quickly, and the dots soon disappeared. She walked into the bathroom and saw that a note along with a toothbrush and toothpaste had been placed on the counter. She picked up the note and read:

Thea, here you have some toothpaste and a toothbrush. If you need anything, don't be shy to come and knock on our door. You can just ask one of the maids where it is, no matter the time. Hope you get better.

Sincerely,

Mrs. & Mr. Meyers

She picked up the toothbrush and toothpaste, squeezed out a good amount on the toothbrush and then started to brush her teeth. When she was done she quickly rinsed her mouth with water, did her toilet business and then washed her hands.  As she looked at herself in the mirror she realized just how horrible she looked. She quickly splashed some water onto her face and tried her best to tame her hair with her wet hands. She pulled out a hair tie from her back pocket and loosely tied her hair up into a ponytail. Mid-way into her ponytail she heard her phone's loud alarm go off. The alarm signal was a theme song from one of her favorite movies, and it almost echoed in the room as she quickly ran to the bed and turned it off. She silently prayed that the sound of her obsession with science-fiction hadn't woken anyone up. She walked back to the bathroom and continued her ponytail.