''Cause you're hot then you're cold

You're yes then you're no

You're in then you're out

You're up then you're down

You're wrong when it's right

It's black and it's white.'

*ALTHEA'S POV*

October 15, 2023.

I couldn't believe my eyes, and I wasn't the only one in the colorful game room, judging by Oliver's wide gaze and the kids who were staring in awe. Their eyes wouldn't have shone more if Spiderman had been there.

It was better; it was Mr. Robot, in a navy blue tee-shirt and jeans, freshly shaven, and with his messy strands somewhat arranged, or at least, they had been until he finished typing and ran his hand through his hair.

"With my left hand?"

"Yes, it'll be a PT exercise at the same time." I slid the white sheet of paper on the table in front of Asher, making this scene even more improbable, and yet, it resembled a lot to the sight I'd had every Friday during my senior year of high school. "Gracie does it all the time."

"But I'm right-handed, and I couldn't use it to draw before, so it's impossible now. Besides, if I recall, we had something else planned for the physio."

What had I said yesterday?

I should have known he wouldn't let this go. But I blamed his smoldering jade eyes for messing with my sanity, the same ones that were currently tracing the curves of my chest shamelessly, the thick cotton of my uniform not even stopping them from warming my skin.

Clearly, his eyesight was fully functional, just like 'everything down there'.

Oh no, I quickly shook my head before the images of his bulge could flash through my mind again.

Okay, I would have lied if I'd said I hadn't wondered about that before, especially knowing he hadn't had any relationship in these three years, while he'd always had a pretty high sex drive. However, Google searches were fine. I hadn't expected to get such an explicit answer right in front of my eyes, and from simply holding his hand and teasing him about my boobs.

I couldn't imagine what it would be if he really touched them—when he would touch them because I knew I wouldn't escape it, and he would surely make progress with his movements for this.

Yet for now, I avoided it, including talking about it.

"At least, now it gives you an excuse for your drawing skills," I retorted, making his eyes narrow in challenge—for what? I wasn't sure, but thankfully, Gracie diverted his attention, offering to show him how to use his right hand to guide his left.

This way, he couldn't type on his tablet either.

These kids were the best, and not only because they'd easily convinced Asher to join us and avoided me the 'boobs' exercises.

It hadn't even been my first reason to suggest this Sunday afternoon activity when I'd learned that a few kids stayed at the clinic all weekend, either because their parents were working, living too far, or they didn't have family.

I only wanted to bring some colors and glitters to their day, and as the hours passed I started to understand why the woman from the documentary about grief had preached so much the benefits of charity work. I felt them too, along with all the colors, the glitters, and the light sting in my cheeks from laughing like I hadn't in a long time.

Maybe it also had to do with the one with whom I was currently sharing an orange juice.

Well, I almost spit my mouthful when the kids said they'd never heard the song 'Call Me Maybe' playing in the background before, and Asher complained that he felt old, the white mustache the kids had painted above his lips moving with the grumble.

"Want to feel older? This song is from what? 2013, right? So most of them weren't born," Oliver noted, bobbing his head to the catchy rhythm as he exited the room to get more snacks because all the painting had whetted the appetite of the four little artists.

"What?" Asher stared between the closed door, where the nurse had disappeared, and me, his eyebrows lifted in a question I easily guessed, even if I didn't have the answer.

I hadn't really related to the song until 2016, when Asher would suggest me to call him, and every time, I'd heard the lyrics in my head. I'd had it stuck in my brain for months after.

"Feels 'ike yesterday..." he hummed, making me shake my head as the melody was already seeping into my cells again.

"Isn't it what Grandma Liz says all the time?" I laughed lightly while the playlist passed to another song.

Not Asher though.

"I'll check." He reached for his tablet, which he'd put aside to draw, as its holder didn't let him slide his wheelchair under the table, and he hadn't touched it in quite a long moment.

Surely longer than we'd both realized as his eyes widened at the screen.

"'Uck."

"Asher..." I tried to give him a stern look because if he feared people wouldn't understand his pronunciation, the two snickering boys beside him caught the curse very well.

However, I couldn't help smiling too when more words slipped out of his lips.

"It's discharged. I forg't to charge it."

Judging by his blinks, I guessed it hadn't happened often.

"It's fine. We can look on mine." I pulled out my phone, which hopefully still had battery, although I hadn't checked it more in the past hours, and Linda would have been proud of me.

Even more when I had to put it down as quickly at the sound of someone calling my name.

"Thea!"

Well, by now, I easily recognized the small voice and also the reason behind: Gracie, who needed me to check another of her drawings. The young girl was taking art really seriously.

She reminded me of someone, and apparently, I wasn't the only one, as Asher chuckled, asking if he could use my phone while I grabbed my pencil.

"Sure." I shrugged, knowing it could take some time as I spotted Gracie at the mint-colored table.

This place was so colorful, each piece of furniture in a different pastel shade.

Thus, when a silhouette all dressed in black appeared on the other end of the mauve path, the contrast stopped me in my tracks, and I blinked a few times before realizing it was just a young man.

"Um, hi. Sorry to disturb," he started, the unsure look in his blue eyes counterbalancing all his tattoos and piercings. "But do you know if Sarah is here?"

Sarah, the new girl who had arrived on my first day here and who was, from what I'd heard, gothic, though I had yet to meet her, as she rarely got out of her room.

"She's out for the day with her parents." Oliver came up right in time, his hands full of snacks and soft tone not helping the young man swallow the answer nonetheless.

"Oh okay, I'll come back tomorrow morning before school then. At what time does she start her physio?"

"Nine o'clock, and the doors here open at seven. So it should leave you quite some time." The nurse offered him another smile, which the boy tried to return as he thanked us, but the twitch of his mouth dropped faster than his shoulders as he walked away, and with it, something plummeted in the atmosphere too.

"He's Sarah's boyfriend," Oliver whispered, probably sensing the question shadowing my eyes. "She refuses to see him since her accident, and her family does nothing to help him. He's tried three clinics before finding out she was here, and he comes to see her every day. The poor guy is breaking my heart."

"Oh... I can't imagine how hard it must be for him."

Or I pictured it too well, and it was the reason why the colors around appeared duller, even once the young man's dark silhouette had disappeared.

I could have been in his place. I should have, if I hadn't left, if...

"Where's Asher?" Following the drifting trail of my thoughts, my gaze slid to our table, only to find the spot empty, no trace of his vibrant green eyes anywhere around.

I could have almost believed I'd dreamed it all if it hadn't been for the drawing marked with the letters AR that I grabbed with shaky hands, and Francis who replied,

"He said he has work to do."

Work? On a Sunday afternoon? 4.25 pm, more exactly, from what my phone, which he'd left next to the piece of paper, indicated.

Something felt amiss, and not only the unnameable shape he'd painted on the paper. But maybe I was overthinking.

Maybe he was simply tired. All the tutorials I'd searched on the Internet had mentioned that exercising the paralyzed members could be exhausting, and he'd done quite a lot today. Besides, knowing him, he would have never ever admitted he needed a break.

So I let him time to rest while I joined Gracie and her drawings and then, helped Oliver to welcome the kids that came back in the dorm for the week.

I let him time to rest when it was dinner time, and I knocked on his door but got no reply. I let him all night to rest, while I tossed and turned in my bed, replaying every minute of this day.

October 16, 2023.

And at 7 am, bright and early in front of the door number 15, I hoped he was refreshed.

But just in case, I had brought some extra energy for the busy day ahead: two lattes and some double chocolate chip cookies from Kylie's bakery.

Did it mean I was forgiving her? Did it mean I was forgiving him?

It wasn't as simple. Things weren't always black or white. There was an infinite number of colors in this world, and when I entered Asher's room, it was a fiery shade of green that met me.

Well, for the one second his gaze ran all over me before he turned to his desk again.

"Hey... I have a special delivery of cookies and latte." I offered him a small smile, although he didn't give it more attention than to the brown bag I lifted in my hand, and both came down with my empty stomach when he typed.

"I'm not hungry."

"Um, okay... Then, maybe you want to do the exercises we didn't get to do yesterday?"

I couldn't believe I was suggesting this, throwing him such an easy line, yet what was even more unbelievable was that he didn't tug.

"No need to."

Okay, something really was wrong, and it was confirmed when I walked around him, coming to stand on the other side of his desk, near his tablet, in the hope of finally getting his attention.

If his left side was already tenser than usual, it was even more obvious on the right, from his sharp and clenched jaw to the ridges of his neck slowly standing out.

"Is there a problem?" I asked, his tensions slowly traveling to my voice, my lips, and the rest of me when he replied with another three-word sentence.

The AI voice replied with another three-word sentence.

"No, there isn't."

He'd been more talkative yesterday without his tablet, and I was tempted to take it away from him.

But I didn't. One of us had to act like an adult at least.

"So why won't you look at me then?" I leaned my head down, searching for his gaze, which was still glued to his screen as he typed three more words.

"Here you are." His eyes flickered to me for a second, as fast as the AI voice resonated, yet it was enough for me to catch the fire brewing behind those pale jade shades, like a volcano about to erupt through a green island.

"You know you're being ridiculous right now?" I sighed, as if the heavy breath could have put out the volcanic eruption.

Or maybe I was only trying to stop the fusing from slowly spreading through my veins.

"I thought we've had fun for the past two days, and now, out of the blue, you're sulking. I don't even know why. Last thing I remember, you had no problem talking without your tablet and looking at me."

Then, Gracie had called me, and I'd left him with my phone before stumbling upon Sarah's boyfriend.

But he couldn't be jealous of a guy that must have barely been 18? He couldn't be jealous at all, even if he'd sneaked into my messages and seen Jordon's texts. Had he?

"The mood swings are part of hemiplegia's symptoms. Ask the doctor Rollings. Though you should already know it, since all the sites are saying it."

The websites about hemiplegia I'd visited. He'd found my recent searches.

It all clicked, including a spark that surprised me as I raised my finger at his accusatory glare, his narrowed eyes so different from yesterday, yet still so familiar.

"Oh no, maybe you can fool everyone here, but I know it's only you and your bad temper, and you have no right to be mad at me for wanting to know what I should've learned with you three years ago. I'm the one who should be mad."

And I was, all the rancor I'd bottled up spurting like a fizzy drink that had been flipped in every possible direction.

"I have three years and a half to catch up, and... I'm just trying to hel—"

"I don't want your help," he seethed, the slurred words firing out of his strained lips like spits of flames to sear me before the next second, he was back on his tablet, the contrast of the cold robotic tone stabbing me like a sharp blade. "I lied for a reason three years ago. Now, if you excuse me, I have a dumbass movement PT to attend, alone."

He moved his wheelchair backward, not granting me another glance after this, and he didn't have to; the fiery jade color was already imprinted through my memory. It was the same shade I'd last seen three years ago, the same crackling in the air, except he was the one walking out with a click of the door, and I followed him, even if too late.

When I stepped into the hallway, he was already disappearing at the opposite end, only his left arm peeking out as it probably moved with a reflex jerk due to his emotions. That was what the websites had mentioned, though none of them could help me as I opened and closed my mouth, finally deciding against shouting, as it was still early.

What could I have even said to change his mind?

"I love you!"

The loud words made me jump out of my spinning thoughts, and as I quickly shook my head, I realized the erratic thumps echoing around weren't only coming from my tight ribcage.

"Please, open this damn door! I know you're in here."

Farther down the hallway, in front of another painted door, stood the gothic boy I'd met yesterday, knocking furiously, well until he noticed my stare and turned around.

"Am I being too loud? Don't worry, I'll leave anyway..." He shrugged, throwing one more longing glance to the door that remained closed before walking past me, his figure looking even darker than I'd remembered.

Though it was surely because of my own thoughts.

"Wait," I called after him, taking in how cracking my voice sounded as I cleared my throat and realized I might also have been too loud while arguing with Asher.

He always had the talent to push me to his extremes, pulling me to his extremes, making me see red, blue, yellow, white, green, always green... until I was blinded and dizzy.

Even now that he wasn't here, I almost lost track of what I'd been about to say.

"Um, if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."

"You know I'm not one of the patients, you don't have to help me," the young man replied, the twitch of his lips making me look down at my hands.

"I know. But my shift starts at nine, and I don't feel like eating my double chocolate chip cookies alone."

The truth was that I needed a distraction as much as he did.

"Double chocolate chip cookies, you said?"

Who's up for the double chocolate chip cookies? 😋

And now, can we talk about this fight? What do you think of Asher's reaction? Is it a little extreme? Or are you on his side? 🤔

Also, tell me what you think of this new gothic boy! Isn't he cute? 🥺

As always, tell me all your thoughts in the comments! And don't forget to vote ⭐ if you liked this chapter!

Every little notification I get from you is making me so happy! So keep spamming me!! Be excessive!

I love you, my little Peaches!! 🍑😘💕✨