#zigtsu

Though Axilya’s aspirations in life had always been turbulent – a combination of a natural restlessness and pushy parents - strangely enough, none of her dreams had ever involved being a free taxi service to and from City Hospital.  

“Both of them?” she asked, scowling at the wall as she held her phone to her ear, picturing the damage in her mind.

“I’m afraid so. Nlaea claims to have spent all her money on alcohol, and lost her phone. Pele lost all her money, and broke her phone. Can you come and collect them?”

She closed her eyes and sighed. Did the receptionist even have to ask? They all knew Axilya and her friends by name. She wondered if she was on speed dial.

“I’ll be twenty minutes.”

--

Nothing the doctors told her surprised her anymore; they could say her friends had found and fought a pack of wild dogs in the woods and her only response would be to roll her eyes. She was completely desensitised to it. Regardless, two in one night was somewhat uncommon.

They didn’t really need to explain what had happened when they let her into the ward. As the nurses did their final check-ups, Axilya filled in the blanks of another night out gone bad: red-purple bruising manifesting around Nlaea’s eye; Pele’s bloody knuckles; gashes and stitches crisscrossing over the two of them, sore and angry looking. When she found out which one of them threw the bottle, she was going to kill them.

Curiously, neither of them seemed angry at the other anymore. Perhaps it had just been the alcohol. It usually was just the alcohol.

Nlaea waved a lazy hand in her direction as she took a seat beside her bed, doing her very best to put all of her exasperation into her expression and realising that there just weren’t enough ways to contort her face to get just how tired of this shit she was across.

“Before you say anything, we already talked it out in the ambulance, and I’m going to pay for the window,” Nlaea said. Her voice was scratchy with whatever she had been downing earlier.

“The window?”

Pele let out a snort of amusement followed by a sharp intake of breath. At least she was suffering for her mistakes.

“Shouldn’ ‘a said dat,” she grumbled out, sounding more tired than she looked, which was something.

“All done!” the nurse said, tightening the last of the bandages around Nlaea’s arm. This one she was familiar with: cheerful and easy-going, Zigtsu was one of the few members of staff in the hospital who could stand the painful task of tending to Pele whenever she turned up on their doorstep. He offered Axilya a broad smile that she could only half return, and only out of practised politeness. “Ya not doin’ too good at keepin’ ‘em outta trouble.”

“I’m trying,” she insisted. The only way she could try harder was to have them under round the clock surveillance, and though she had seriously considered it, she truly worried about what she’d see when they thought she wasn’t paying attention.

“Ah don’ wanna see any of ya for at least three mont’s, ah’kay?” Zigtsu said on the walk down to the carpark. Maybe Axilya could ask for her own spot one day, for ease’s sake. Parking there could be a nightmare.

Pele and Nlaea grunted in unison.

She decided that neither of them were being granted the privilege of sitting in the front seat. If they were going to act like children (angry, drunken children), they were going to be treated like children (sulky, violent children). There was a reason everyone called her the mother of the group.

“You two are the biggest pains in my ass,” she grumbled, to herself more than anything, pulling out onto the road. “And you owe me gas money.”

Before she could really launch into her lecture, she heard her phone buzz in her bag. Glancing at the traffic light she tossed it to the seat beside her; it was her boyfriend, Maverick, and he had probably just saved Nlaea and Pele from the talking-to of a lifetime. She put him on speaker.

“Hello dear,” Maverick said first.

Oh God.

“Hello, Mav,” she responded slowly, narrowing her eyes at the road. ‘Dear’ was usually reserved for mistakes or making other people (Nlaea) roll their (her) eyes. He did not know that Nlaea was in the car.

“Are you busy? I could use a lift.”

“Funny you should say that,” she said, glancing at her friends in the mirror. “Where are you?”

She could hear the way he cringed, half sheepish smile, half guilt ridden grimace. “City Hospital?”

The horn sounded out as her forehead met her steering wheel.