Hate You Not

She leans in so close that I can feel her soft breasts, smell her fruity shampoo smell. It makes my throat knot even tighter.

“Hey there, baby.” Her fingers smooth my hair back off my forehead as she sits up a little more. Must have been a reflexive comment, because her body stiffens and she leans away like she’s recoiling.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. Her hand trembles as it strokes into my hair, her fingers tickling under my ear, where I’m pretty sure there’s bruising on my neck from how I landed—in that pile of two-by-fours.

I wince, and her fingers go.

“You’ve got a bad bruise.” Her hand is back, tracing along my chin, where I’m swollen and sore.

I close my eyes and drag another breath in. Then I grit my teeth, and my head gives an awful throb. Maybe I wince, because she murmurs, “You’re still sort of sitting up. Do you want to lie down more flat?”

Before I’m able to think of an answer, her cool palm covers my forehead. She pushes my hair back…and then does it again. A soft groan leaves my throat before I even know it’s in there.

“Does that feel good?” her voice whispers.

I nod, and my head aches in protest of the motion.

She keeps doing it. The room is quiet except the sound of air moving through vents and the lull of hall noise. I don’t open my eye, and she doesn’t speak—just runs her fingers gently back through my hair over and over until my body’s warm and heavy and my throat feels thick from holding back tears.

Finally, her hand leaves me. I hear her murmur to herself and feel her straighten my covers. Then she’s sitting on the bed with me again. I crack my good eye open, bracing myself for blurriness, and find I’m pretty sure she’s looking at me. I can’t make out the expression on her face, but I can feel the warmth of her attention.

My throat cinches and my chest aches because I know I don’t deserve it. I wait for some comment, for the accusations she should be launching at me.

I’m still waiting for her disappointment or upset when I feel June stretch out beside me. Her hand drifts over my chest, covered by a gown, before she shifts her hips slightly away, seeking to put distance between us even as she lies beside me.

She makes a sound—a sort of small sigh. I sink my teeth into the inside of my lip until I taste copper and put a hand up to my throbbing forehead, mostly to shield my face from her eyes.

“Are you hurting? I’ll help you get medicine, okay?”

I feel her hands tucking blankets around me again. She rearranges wires and strokes my shoulder—maybe by accident. Her shampoo smell fills my nose and head, making my hands long to reach for her.

“We can’t give the typical painkillers because of his concussion,” I hear someone say some time later.

June’s voice. Soft voice. Soft hands. Soft voice. Sometimes she’s lying beside me. Once, I hear her say, “You’re gonna be okay. Did you know that?”

When the surgeon stops by, uncovers my eye, and does something that makes pain shoot through my whole head, I feel June’s hand on my leg and hear her soft voice saying, “I’m so sorry.”

The eye hurts like hell, and my head throbs with each small movement. You deserve it, don’t you, though?

“Little bitches have to toughen up.”

I wake from the dream of my dad with a loud gasp, and I smell her again—June. Her palm smooths my hair back. “Just hang in there, okay?”JUNEI’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this. From the moment I got the call, I imagined that when I got here, he would want to see me. What I wanted was to be seen…to be wanted, if I’m being honest. Now I’m here, and he’s not really even interacting with me.

When I first arrived, he barely even opened his eye—the one that’s not bandaged. He seems so out of it, I just assumed he was on pain meds. But when I cornered his nurse in the hall to get more information, the guy told me that he can’t take pain meds at all.

“He had a hard fall. Notes from the paramedics said it took them a little while to wake him up. The area where he hit his head is one that can knock some screws loose with your vision. Not forever,” he says quickly. “But he’s gonna be disoriented and sleepy for a few days. Might have some coordination trouble, memory trouble; that’s all normal. We scanned him two times because the fall was more than fifteen feet, and it’s not more than a concussion. He got lucky. Those construction workers, sometimes we see lots worse.”

My stomach jerks into a knot when he says that. Construction workers? “So he was working at a…building?”