For You ↠ Alice Cullen ✓

03 ; lives collide

Tate hated hospitals.

He hated them as much as he hated needles. Which were sadly two things he was currently surrounded by.

Nurse Lorry was a middle aged woman with a soft smile and a knack for distracting you whenever she stuck the needle into your arm. Tate liked Lorry mostly since he'd been seeing her for the last few months he'd been getting steroid injections. 

From what he'd gathered, Lorry was a woman with an average level intelligence, a mother or terrible painter - if her sloppily painted nails were anything to go by - and she was also married - the ring on her left ring finger indicated as much.

"This is going to sting a little," Lorry warned, before she was removing the sterile clear cap from the top of the needle. Slowly, Lorry pressed her gloved fingers down onto the inside of his left arm, feeling for a main vein.

"Thanks for the warning," Tate replied, and winced as the needle pierced his skin.

Lorry hummed softly to herself; green eyes set on injecting the steroids into Tate's bloodstream. She then gently took the needle out and placed it in the bright orange containment box for used needles.

"Dr. Monstroe will be here to take you to the X-Ray room," Lorry said, pushing gently on her wheeled chair to send it back into the small sink in the corner of the room. Before removing her gloves, she handed Tate a Band-Aid to place on the small dot of blood on his arm.

"How long is the wait?"

"I'm not sure," Lorry said, looking down at her watch. "Maybe ten minutes give or take. It's snowing pretty bad outside so we've had a lot of walk-in's."

"Great," Tate grumbled, watching as Lorry removed herself from the room.

 Only a few minutes after Lorry left, Tate's mother walked into the room. His mother sighed softly, face a bit pouty as she took the chair in the corner by the main bed.

"How was it?"

"Fine," Tate said, looking at the fabric of his mother's blue jeans. His mother had taken off work to come to the appointment with him. Hence, why she wasn't in her normal business clothes.

Tate knew his mother's only reason for taking off was because she didn't trust him to show up to the appointment by himself. So, in retaliation, Tate had asked her to step out of the room whenever Lorry had came in to give him his injection.

"Fine," His mother repeated, lifting an eyebrow. "That's the only word you can use?"

"How else do you describe steroid injections?" Tate asked, and that earned him a light laugh in reply.

"Tate, baby, you make my life so interesting." Tate could hear his mother's voice waver a bit at the word 'baby'  and bit down on his bottom lip.

It was no secret that he was his parents miracle baby after years of trying to conceive. Now, after all of their years of trying so hard, they'd gotten stuck with a son who had a brain tumor.

Tate wanted to apologize to his parents for only being able to give them seventeen, maybe eighteen years, of his presence before it'd be gone. Along with all of their hopes at looking at college applications with him or playing with their grandchildren.

A month ago he had almost said the words 'I'm sorry'  to them both during diner;  but his mother had snapped at him with tears in her eyes to never say those words in her presence again. Tate had never once again tried to.

"It's snowing outside?" Tate asked, looking at his mother.

"Yes. Your father is going to love shoveling snow," Tate's mother replied, fingers pushing the curls from Tate's face in a lazy movement she'd been doing since he was a toddler.