Groaning, Vi pushed back the chair and rose, straining her entire body towards the ceiling. She yawned loudly and bowed backwards with her arms above her head, her fingers interlocked. She straightened and let her arms drop down at her sides.
“I need coffee and an Advil.” Grunting, she glowered down at the chair. “You’d think they’d make those things more comfortable.” She rubbed her ass. “My butt is killing me.” She exhaled and glanced at the door. “Hey, Phil’s still here.”
Juliette nodded. “I think he’s been here the whole night.”
Vi huh’d. “I guess he really feels bad.”
“About what?”
The girl turned to Juliette. “For abandoning me at the mall.”
“He what?” Juliette’s voice carried across the room, drawing Phil’s attention. He peered inside briefly before going back to standing guard. “He what?” Juliette repeated quieter.
“Remember that night you called and I said I was at the mall?” At Juliette’s nod, Vi continued. “Well, remember how I said Phil got a phone call and would be right back? Well, he didn’t. He got called back by Killian or whoever’s in charge and he just left without a damn word.”
“He what?” Juliette’s snarl was followed by the struggle to untangle herself from the blankets.
Vi stopped her. “Calm down. It’s fine. I was pretty pissed myself, but whatever. I always knew he wouldn’t be around forever. Not like he’s really my dad or anything. He’s just some guy paid to stick around. It was my fault that I…” she trailed off to study the diamond pattern sewn into the blankets. “I’m over it.”
Juliette ceased her struggling and peered at the girl standing before her with her tangled locks and drawn features. Maybe it was because she had never really seen her sister, but looking at her now, it was impossible not to see just how lonely she was. Everything about her screamed for affection and companionship and Juliette had never once stopped to give her either.
“Hey.” Reaching out with the hand not hooked to an empty bag of fluid, Juliette took Vi’s fingers. She gave them a light squeeze. “We’re going to be okay. I promise. You and me.”
Brown eyes lifted and peered at her with apprehension and a timid glimmer of hope. “Yeah?”
“Promise,” Juliette said again. “Things are going to change. We’ll make sure they do. We have each other no matter what.”
A hint of a half-smile tugged the corner of Vi’s mouth. “I like the sound of that.”
Juliette beamed. “Good. Now go get us some coffees while I hunt down the doctors and hopefully get the hell outta here.”
Laughing, Vi hurried from the room.
Juliette watched her go before reaching for the call button hanging off the side of her bed and hitting it … repeatedly.
“Yes?” came a grumpy voice from the speaker mounted on the wall.
“Hi, I was just wondering when I’ll be discharged?”
A moment passed, then, “The doctor will make his rounds shortly. Please just be patient.”
She hated bothering anyone, especially people who held her life in their hands, but there was nothing wrong with her and she wanted to go home.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how long that will be, would you?”
“No,” came the abrupt response, then a click as the connection was severed.
“Thanks a lot,” Juliette grumbled.
With nothing to do, Juliette sat there and stared at the opposite wall, trying not to think of anything, except going back to her normal routine as quickly as possible, which meant calling the hotel and the diner and begging them not to fire her. Charis would take some convincing, but the hotel might still take her back once she explained the situation. She didn’t even want to think about what might happen if neither took her back on top of everything else. The very thought was soul crushing.
Nevertheless, she grabbed the hospital phone and began dialing.
As she suspected, the moment Charis answered and Juliette said hi, the woman fired her. It wasn’t even done nicely or apologetically.
“We’ve already hired someone competent and reliable,” the woman sneered into the line. “Drop your uniform off and don’t even bother asking for your last pay as you still owe us.”
The line went dead promptly after the short rant.
Juliette sighed. Oddly enough, she felt no remorse over not having to go back. If anything, she was sort of relieved.
She called Harold next.
He picked up on the third ring.
“I completely understand,” he told her after she’d finished explaining the situation. “We’re just so relieved you’re all right. Can’t believe such a thing even happens outside of movies. But yes, of course you still have a position here whenever you’re ready to come back to it.”
The relief was astronomical. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to deserve that sort of break, but she wasn’t going to question it.
Mrs. Tompkins was her final call. She was still at her daughter’s house—thank God—so Juliette decided not to tell her about anything that had happened. They chatted a few minutes, mostly about Mrs. Tompkins’s move before hanging up. She was setting the phone back on the end table when Vi returned with a paper bag in one hand and a drink tray with two plastic cups in the other. She bounded into the room and set the items down next to the phone.
“I found bagels,” she declared. “No peanut butter, but they had cream cheese and jam.”
“Tell me what happened with your friends,” Juliette said after a stretch of silence that was filled with cream cheese spreading and coffee sipping.
Vi looked down at her bagel with cream cheese and jam, her mouth twisted in grimace.
“They’re assholes,” she mumbled. “I always knew it, but…”
Juliette stopped eating. “What happened?”
Vi set her half-eaten bagel down on the wrapper and dusted the crumbs off her fingers. She continued to stare at her breakfast rather than Juliette.
“They dared me to take something from a store in the mall. It wasn’t anything special, a lipstick that wasn’t even my color, but it was something we used to do all the time so it wasn’t a big deal—” Juliette opted to let that comment go for the time being. “—so I did it. I took the lipstick and started to walk out when Brittany went running to the clerk and ratted me out. I mean, dead on told the girl I took the lipstick. I was stopped and searched and obviously I had the thing so I got busted.”
“Vi!”
Vi rolled her eyes. “I know. Stupid. Anyway, Phil got me out. He talked to the woman, said he was my dad and I wasn’t stealing. I was waiting for him and must have forgotten to pay for it. The woman let us go and we left. I felt about two inches tall. I’d never been caught before. I was also pissed. They were supposed to be my friends. That’s when Phil kind of set me straight, told me I was being a shit and I needed to clean up my act. He made me swear not to take anything anymore or he’d arrest me himself. Kind of started liking him after that.”
No longer hungry, Juliette set her bagel down and wiped her hands on a napkin. She reached for her coffee and cradled the warmth between her palms.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“I hardly saw you,” Vi countered. “I mean even before Killian, you were never home and when you were, you were yelling at me or sleeping. Besides, I knew you were only going to lecture me on stealing and I’d already learned my lesson.”
Juliette exhaled. “I’ve been so unfair to you, haven’t I? Probably the worst sister on the planet and I am so sorry. I have no excuse.”
Vi nodded slowly. “Yeah, you were, but it’s either you or Uncle Jim and you won’t make me wear frilly panties.”
Gagging, Juliette recoiled. “That is disgusting!”
Vi grinned. “And yet so true.”
Laughing, Juliette shook her head. “Okay, enough of that. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do.”