Right, Yet Wrong
Vi winced and tensed her shoulders at the touch of the nurse’s cold fingertips against her bare skin. “Ow.”
“Stay still,” the stony-faced woman commanded, reaching for a new patch of gauze.
When the nurse pressed on the open wound again — a little too hard this time — Vi reacted instinctively, her hand lashing out and knocking over the rolls of gauze and tape on the metal tray next to her bed.
Caitlyn’s head snapped up, and she watched as the nurse’s face slowly became the darkest storm cloud she had ever seen in Piltover.
“I told you to stay still,” the nurse said, her voice cold and hard.
Vi opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say anything, she was cut off again. “I don’t understand why they even let you filthy trenchers into the hospital.”
Caitlyn watched as Vi’s eyes took on a steely and dangerous gleam — the exact one Caitlyn had seen the day Powder was being chased down by a group of boys six years older than her.
She knew what was about to come next, and unless Vi got her temper under control right this instant, she would be in very big trouble with the hospital.
“Hey!” Caitlyn snapped, and the nurse glared at Vi.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” Caitlyn said again, and this time, the nurse turned toward her.
“Don’t you dare talk to her like that.”
The nurse’s expression morphed into something so aghast it was nearly funny. “You’re taking this… this… undercity filth’s side?”
“I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Caitlyn snarled, voice quiet and even. “But if you don’t learn how to treat everyone with equal respect, you and I are gonna have a problem.”
“Excuse me?” The nurse pressed one hand to her chest. “It’s not my fault she can’t handle a little tickle!”
“It doesn’t matter whether or not she can handle the tickle.” Caitlyn sat forward, resting her forearms on her tray table. “The fact remains that you don’t know how to respect Vi, or choose not to because she’s from Zaun.”
“Young lady, I will not —”
“Enough.” Caitlyn fixed the nurse with a hard stare. “Do you want to lose your job? I can arrange that.”
The silence was thick and heavy. Caitlyn could feel Vi’s gaze burning into her, flicking between Caitlyn and the nurse as though she was watching a very intense tennis match.
“Get someone who can change her gauze without cold fingers and without applying too much pressure. She hates that, you hear me? And believe me when I say I am not above using my connections to bring your career down all around you.”
The nurse swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
When the door shut behind the nurse, Caitlyn picked up her book again to continue reading.
Vi’s voice was small. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem,” Caitlyn answered, trying to appear absentminded although all she really wanted to do was jump into Vi’s bed and give her a hug and a kiss and tell her how much she missed her.
“How, uh…” Vi pointed at the door. “How did you know I hate… you know, too much pressure and all that?”
You used to get mad at me whenever I patched up your wounds too harshly.
Caitlyn bit back the obvious answer and fabricated a lie on the spot — a skill she’d perfected in recent days.
“It was obvious,” she said. “You winced when she pressed the cloth onto the cut.”
“You weren’t even looking.”
“Peripheral vision.”
“Why do you care so much about me?”
Caitlyn froze, the question catching her off-guard.
“Are you trying to… I don’t know, befriend me or something?” Vi demanded, harsher this time.
“No,” Caitlyn said, voice small.
“I hate Pilties. I hate the upper class. I hate the elites of Piltover who stomp all over us and look down on us. You clearly fit into all those categories, meaning you are a personified version of everything I hate.”
Vi drew in a deep breath, and Caitlyn tried not to cry. Just two weeks ago she and Vi were absolutely head-over-heels for one another. And in the short span of a fortnight, the love was replaced by pure, condensed hate.
“I’ve made that much obvious. Why do you still try?”
What do you want me to say? Caitlyn thought bitterly. That you loved me and because of that stupid accident you forgot everything? And I still love you as much as I did before the accident and I’m trying to make you remember who I am? Remember who you are?
Caitlyn turned away, hoping Vi wouldn’t see the tears brimming in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she muttered, her voice shaking.
“Should I…” She braced herself against the next words, forcing her breath to even out. “Should I not care?”
Vi reply was indifferent. “I don’t see why you should care about me. I'm an adult, for heaven’s sake. I don’t need you looking after me.”
You used to believe that. I changed that, but now…
Not knowing what to say or what lie to spit out, Caitlyn chose silence over a weak and flimsy excuse.
~~~
“So, how’s your new roommate?” Vander asked, but his voice was strained.
Vi’s gaze flickered from Caitlyn’s empty bed to Vander, who was sitting at the end of her own bed. “She’s… fine.”
Her adoptive father raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you would ever give a Piltie such high praise.”
She shoved another spoonful of food into her mouth, deciding not to answer.
The nagging at the back of her mind wouldn’t leave her alone. It hadn’t left her alone, not since the day before, when Caitlyn had told off the stupid nurse.
If Caitlyn hadn’t done the verbal job, Vi would have done it the physical way.
“She’s acting a little… weird,” Vi admitted at last. “Have you been talking to her?”
Vander raised an eyebrow. “What? What constitutes ‘weird’?”
“She knows I like mac n cheese, and said that you told her that. She didn’t care for introductions. She said that she overhears our conversations and knows whatever she needs to know about me to get by. She said that she can tell I hate when people don’t dress wounds properly because of how much I winced but she wasn’t even watching when the nurse changed my dressings.”
“…And?”
Vi sighed, chewing over her words for a second before letting loose the last bit of information — the one she’d been pondering over for nearly a week now.
“And… she keeps staring at me weirdly. Like… like she’s seen me before or something. She said I just look like someone she knows, but that… doesn’t seem like the truth.”
“Um…” Vander knitted his brow. “I… I don’t know what to tell you, Vi. Maybe she’s just attentive to details that way.”
“She… cares about me.” Vi frowned, as though the courage to spit that word out was uncomfortable. “I’ve made it evidently clear I have no interest in befriending her or anything of the sort. As soon as I’m out of here, I plan on forgetting her for the rest of my life.”
Vander’s pained expression made Vi mentally backtrack, wondering what she’d said wrong.
“If she cares about you, why do you still hate her so much?” Vander asked quietly.
“Dunno.” Vi shrugged, trying not to grimace at the pull of stitches on her skin. “She’s no different than the rest. Still an upper-class Piltie. Still… one of the people who took Mom and Dad from me.”
“Has she spoken down to you?” Vander asked, though his tone made it explicitly clear he knew the answer. “Has she looked down on you? Made fun of you for being a trencher? Bullied or discriminated against you in any way?”
Vi felt her shoulders sag. “No.”
“If you have no reason to hate her, don’t.” Vander sat back and folded his arms, as he did whenever he got serious. “Nothing good ever comes from forcing emotions like this, Vi. And don’t judge her and treat her based solely on the fact that she’s an elite topsider. There’s much more to Caitlyn than that.”
The edge in his voice told Vi that he’d already spoken to Caitlyn and gotten to know her much more than Vi was ever planning to.
Vi grumbled grudgingly. She didn’t want to admit it, but Vander was right. She had no real reason to hate Caitlyn. She had simply been forcing it this whole time. And yet… it felt like a betrayal to herself to make friends with someone like Caitlyn.
Hating Caitlyn… how could anything feel so right yet so wrong at the same time?