Spotlight

41

Straight off the bat when I woke up, it was directly to the hospital. Tate left earlier that morning for filming and I had no idea when he was supposed to come back.

I ate a quick breakfast in the apartment and dressed up in the warmest clothes I had. Today it was supposed to thunderstorm all over the city.

The hospital was busy when I walked in and I couldn't understand the commotion when I walked past the emergency room. I walked to my typical place to sign in and had my typical small morning talk with the lady at the desk.

I ignored the constant commotion coming from the emergency room, and it didn't question me one time to try and discover what was going on at the other end of the lobby. A small gargle in my stomach suggested that it was too early to be out without a coffee, so I made my way to the cafeteria before heading up to Tristan's room.

The line was small. I was only lining up for my typical lactose free latte. It was hard to be in social situations like this because people from the general public not only knew who I was, but were putting two and two together as to why I was visiting the hospital. It was only a matter of time before it was revealed to be me in that photo online.

After paying six dollars for my latte, I ignored the looks that I gained from people sitting at tables in the cafeteria. I didn't want people to stare at me or take my photo because I was truly only visiting a friend.

I made my way to the elevator bay in between the lobby and the emergency room and clicked the up arrow. In a moment that felt like it was slow motion, I heard someone call my name from the direction of the emergency room.

"Mae?" the voice asked again. My stature somewhat froze when I recognized the voice. I slowly turned my head towards the emergency room and saw Tate, with a torn shirt and fake blood covering one side of his face.

I didn't want to know why he was here. Heck, I didn't want to ask why he was here.

The look on his face turned from happy to confused. This is what I was doing in the time while he was filming, and now he knew it.

I felt caught out, and somewhat ashamed. The elevator was taking too long. I did the only thing I knew how to do when I was caught out, and I ran. There was a fire escape closest to the end elevator and I ran towards the door, breaking through the heavy wood and into the dark room.

I pictured the level that Tristan was on in my head and I ran to the first flight of stairs, skipping one step at a time. My body was nearly fatigued by the end of the first flight of stairs.

I heard the door below open and Tate call out my name. I thought about his agility and pictured how long it was going to take for him to reach me. I climbed faster. The pang in the back of my throat was now existent.

I reached the third floor where I needed to be and stopped when I reached the door due to Tate clearing his throat on the level below me.

"Mae..." his voice echoed to me from the bottom of the staircase. I looked down the flight of stairs between us in the dark and felt my heart beating at two hundred beats an hour – preparing to explode. My eyes began to water when I realized I was caught out. You could cut the tension with a knife.

"Tate, it's not what you think," I cried through tears falling onto my cheeks. I'm not quite sure why I was crying, I knew what I did was wrong. I wrapped my fingers around the hand rail that led down to where he was standing. I was just one movement away from pulling open the door and entering the floor where Tristan was.

"What is it then?" he asked. His face was a picture of a hurt man. I didn't want to look into his eyes because I knew I'd hurt him.

"It's just Tristan..." I whispered.