“And about this hospital bed, I didn’t know which one of you paid my medical and hospital bills. You guys just split the bill for me; I’ll transfer the money to you. I won’t owe you.”
Alaricka looked at the two men’s faces, then raised her hand, pointed at the door, and said, “I need to rest now. You guys go out. Don’t bother me again.”
Kieran looked at her with dark eyes for a few seconds, then turned and left.
Patrick’s brows were tightly knit, and there seemed to be some hesitation in his eyes. Seeing Kieran leaving, he followed too.
Suddenly, Patrick stopped and gave Alaricka a warning look. “By the way, if the police find out it was your fault, you have to apologize to Rose. A real, sincere apology.”
Alaricka looked at Patrick without any fear and said calmly, “Of course.”
As she spoke, she lay back under the covers: “Get out.”
Since Kieran and Patrick walked in, the room stayed quiet and nothing changed until they left.
Alaricka was lying in bed. Even without opening her eyes, she could feel that a lot of people in the hospital room were looking.
After a few minutes of silence, the quiet murmurs started up again in the hospital room. Maybe it was the atmosphere; their voices weren’t nearly as loud as at the beginning. Alaricka listened to them talking. Even though she didn’t catch if they were talking about her, she still couldn’t fall asleep.
She opened her eyes and sat up again. Her little move made the room quiet again. After a long while, Alaricka finally realized it. She looked up, calmly glanced at everyone in the room, and said in a flat voice, “Don’t mind me, just do whatever you need to do.”
Even though she said that, they still looked at each other, didn’t answer, didn’t say anything else, and even stopped what they were doing. Alaricka wasn’t in the mood to look at them, kept her head down, stared at her fingers, her mind all messed up, not knowing what she was supposed to do.
Until a middle-aged woman’s voice sounded in the hospital room: “You’re a student from Rovella High School, right?”
Alaricka slowly looked up and saw a middle-aged woman standing by the bed two beds away from hers, holding a bright red apple with half the peel hanging off. The middle-aged woman looked at her with a bit of curiosity in her eyes. Alaricka said slowly, “Yes.”
The middle-aged woman’s eyes suddenly lit up, and she kept asking her, “Doesn’t one of your classmates’ grandmas get treated at that hospital in the east of the city?”
Alaricka didn’t answer right away this time. Instead, she looked at her calmly and said, “How did you know?”
The middle-aged woman quickly shoved the apple in her hand to the middle-aged man next to her, clapped her hands, and smiled. “I knew I didn’t remember wrong; you were that little girl. Back then, someone took your classmate’s grandma’s hospital bed, and you threw a tantrum on the floor and managed to get the bed back.”
“I thought you were a loyal and caring girl back then, with a really great personality. I really liked you.”
Alaricka’s heart skipped a beat, and she said softly, “Really?”
The others in the ward got interested and started craning their necks, wanting to know more details. The middle-aged woman immediately started telling the story in a dramatic and exaggerated way, saying how back then Alaricka was so smart and brave, calm and decisive, rolling on the ground, crying and yelling, and snatching her classmate’s grandma’s hospital bed back from the hands of the dark forces.
The middle-aged woman spoke in an exaggerated way, almost describing Alaricka as one of those pure, kind characters from novels or TV shows who went through tough times but never forgot to be good. Hearing this, Alaricka just held her forehead, her face flushing in patches.
Hearing everyone’s praise, then hearing the middle-aged woman say she beat up eight strong men, Alaricka couldn’t help but interrupt, “It wasn’t like that; that’s way too exaggerated.”
The middle-aged woman made a disapproving “eh”: “How is it not like that? You, young lady, stop being so modest; it really is like that.”
“You were a good kid; we all liked your personality as a little girl.”
Alaricka looked a bit stunned, then lowered her head, “Really?”
The middle-aged woman nodded hard, “Of course, I really liked you. You were really filial, really kind, and you could even do such an embarrassing thing for someone else’s grandma.”
Alaricka was a bit speechless and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The middle-aged woman kept talking: “So, I wanted to tell you, you’re really great; don’t listen to whatever those two men said.”