PHOBIA
Athina’s beauty and wild nature was a force of reckon. It marveled Maria how she could not only tolerate her but love her wholeheartedly. They were the antithesis of one another, yet completed each other.
As Athina fussed over Maria like an egg that shouldn’t have a single scratch, Maria thought of ways to get her friend out of the hospital and make her stop worrying. If she could act this way, she wondered how parents would react.
Athina sat in the chair beside the bed, flicking through the channels on the flat screen TV in front of them.
“Hey, I hope you didn’t tell my parents about what happened?”
Reid told her that he instructed Athina not to say a word, but she had to confirm from the horse’s mouth.
“Reid told me not to, and he was dead serious about it. Do you want to call them?” She turned to her and was about to grab her phone to dial their numbers.
Maria shook her head. “You know how they can be.”
“I sure do. You would have pulled out all your hairs by the time they start fussing over you.”
She closed her phone back and tossed into her bag.
“Which is why I have you. More than enough,” Maria chimed.
Athina tapped her and murmured, “Don’t patronize me.”
She finally settled on a channel showing a talent show. “How did it feel like?” Athina asked in a low voice, eyes glued to the TV screen.
How did it feel? Maria asked herself. It felt like torture. The slow pain staking one that began gradually. It started as a mere cough, then her throat felt swollen, and breathing became difficult.
It was a freaking nightmare that Maria never wanted to relive. She shut her eyes and shuddered at the thought of it.
She opened her eyes to find Athina already staring at her worriedly.
“It was horrifying,” she managed to say.
Athina hugged her and spoke in her ear, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Maria hugged her best friend back and inhaled the sweet scent of her perfume. It had this coconut smell and a sweet kind of fragrance that made her want to stay in her arms for a long time.
Her best friend was obsessed with perfumes and she could barely keep up with a particular scent as she switched them like no man’s business.
She had a fill of her scent, which seemed to elevate her mood, and she released her hold on Athina.
The door opened and a petite young lady in a purple scrub with a metal tray in her hand walked in. She shut the door behind her and walked towards them, smiling.
“Hello, I’m nurse Abby.” She pointed at the name tag on the left side breast pocket.
They both greeted the nurse in unison. Athina stepped back from the bed to allow the nurse to do her job.
“How are you feeling?” The nurse asked Maria, who took a while to reply. “Fine, I guess,” she replied.
The nurse gave her an encouraging smile as she got to work. She disconnected the drip from her left arm and closed the area with a plaster. She gave Maria some pills to take for her headache and body pains.
Everything seemed to be going well until nurse Abby brought out a rather large needle to inject Maria. Her eyes went wide, and she screamed bloody murder. Athina, who was texting her husband, tossed her phone aside and ran to her friend’s side.
She took notice of the needle and screamed twice as loud as Maria. The injection was not going anywhere near Athina, but she could already feel the pain and sympathized with Maria.
Their fear of needles was one of the things they shared in common. Athina was a frequent in the hospital cause she happened to fall sick and even when she was not that sick, her mother still dragged her to the hospital. She always dragged Maria along and they’d both go through the pain together. Only one person got a shot, but two ended up crying.
Maria could not remember when last she was conscious and got injected. She knew it was painful by the way Athina feared them and would cry in advance.
It was a funny thing for adults like them to be terrified of injections, so Maria couldn’t blame the nurse that was trying to hold in her laughter.
Nurse Abby must have seen a lot of patients like her, cause her reaction did not surprise her with the needle. She moved closer to Maria and cooed, “It’s alright, I promise it won’t hurt.” Like she was a child.
Thirty minutes passed, and the nurse had yet to inject Maria. When she finally did, she let out a heavy sigh, and it surprised Maria it didn’t hurt as much as Athina had led her to believe, but she hoped to never go through it again.
Nurse Abby handed over a list of medicine she would need in case of another emergency and told she’d come later at night to check on her.
“That was one huge needle!” Athina exclaimed as soon as the nurse left the room and they both laughed about it.”
Maria pulled off the heavy blankets off her body. “Can you help me pass my purse? I need to check a few emails on my phone.”
Athina shot her a disapproving glare. “No work as long as you’re in bed,” Athina dictated, and put Maria’s phone in her bag.
“Please, If I don’t check now, it’s going to be difficult when I’m able to handle it,” she begged, but Athina vehemently disagreed.
“This is why I should get an assistant as soon as possible,” Maria groaned. Athina was getting on her nerves, acting like her mother and telling her what to do and what not to do.
She could already picture the hundred messages she’d have. Clara handled things like this and she barely bother about it.
“I can be your assistant. I have a lot of time on my hands, anyway.”
“You should enjoy your free time cause you won’t have any once the baby is born.”
“I know, but doing something would help me take my mind off things. I’m already freaking out, as it is. Have you seen the books I got on pregnancy and motherhood?”
“How about you just focus on those books, then? You’re carrying a baby. The last thing you need is stress.”
Athina did not fail to show her irritation to Maria, who was rather pleased that she was the one with the upper hand. Her best friend was quite the bossy type and whenever she happened to be the one in power, it was an amazing feeling and she exercised her authority well.
Athina grumbled words Maria did not hear clearly as she was slowly drifting to sleep. Whatever the nurse had given her had made her feel tired all of a sudden. She yawned and fixed the blanket back in her body. The temperature in the room was too cold that she considered adjusting the AC, but Athina seemed fine with it.
She was in a silk armless gown that displayed her toned slender arm. If she wasn’t cold with what she was wearing, it meant it was just her system.
Maria was about to shut her eye to take a nap when Athina sprang up from her chair to sit beside her on the bed. She turned her phone to Maria’s view, swiping through her gallery to show her some pictures.
“I was browsing on a few colors we could use for the nursery.”
Maria forced herself to wake up and look through the pictures. “It’s mostly cool and neutral colors,” she stated.
Maria knew her friend more than anyone. Cool and neutral was definitely not her style. Even if she ended up settling for them, it certainly would not be her first choice. Something sparkly or bright was what she was expecting.
Athina would go big for something like her first child’s room. Every baby time had to be present in the room, as well as all sorts of toys that would fit in the room. Maria would not be surprised if she bought a toy large enough to fill their large backyard.
“Yeah, could be a boy.” She shrugged.
“Why do you say it like that?” Maria’s eyebrows furrowed as she adjusted herself to sit upright and look at Athina’s face.
She knew Athina was excited to have a child, but importantly, she had spoken about how nice it would be to have a mini her. It made Maria wonder where that part of her had vanished to. There was nothing wrong with considering having a boy first, but it felt like she wasn’t considering having a girl. Or maybe she did not believe it was going to be a girl.
“Well, you do know how Colton’s family are,” she said, biting her bottom lip.
Maria was familiar with her Colton’s family history. The wealthy family had a generational line of first male descendants. Every male of the Martakis gave birth to a son first, and it had been that way for generations. If one person had broken the record, it certainly wasn’t known by anybody.
Maria did not know how to feel about the sexist nature of the family and she could imagine the pressure her friend must be feeling.
“Are you going to have a scan?”
“I want to, but Colton wants to wait till the baby is born. It’s like he’s sure it’s going to be born.”
“I think you should figure out the sex so you can prepare yourself for whatever comes next.”
Athina nodded in agreement and let out a heavy sigh. “It would be epic if I broke the cycle,” she said with a sly grin.
“You’d definitely stand out and make their ancestors roll over in their grave.” They laughed and brought up jokes about her husband’s family. Athina mentioned how her mother-in-law had been sending gifts as well as tips to care for a first male child.
A loud ringtone they both recognized interrupted their discussion and Athina got up to get Maria’s phone from her bag. She gives when she saw the caller ID and wiggled her eyebrows at Maria.
Maria was curious who was calling to make her friend act funny. She snatched the phone from her hands and saw it was Kyros. The feeling of guilt and regret washed over her instantly. She had not called him for days and felt bad for how she had been acting towards him.
She swiped to pick the call, and his warm velvety voice filled her ear. “Maria, it’s been a while. How’ve you been?”
Before she responded, Athina mouthed she was going to get a drink and left the room.
“Hi, first of all, I want to apologize for not reaching out sooner.”
He chuckled gently. “It’s alright, I get you must have been busy with the restaurant.”
“Yeah, it’s been crazy.”
“Actually, I was scared you were avoiding because of what happened between us.”
“What? Of course not. Things have been so hectic and even in the hospital, I’m trying to have as much as rest as possible.”
“Hospital? What happened?”
“Uh yeah, I had a little peanut allergy reaction and got admitted.”
“I’m so sorry about that. Are you alright though?”
“Yeah, I am. I feel much better now, like it never happened.”
She was lying to herself confidently, more than she cared about convincing him not to worry about her.
“I’m happy to hear that. I sent a text a few hours ago and when I noticed it hadn’t delivered, I knew I had to call.”
Maria recalled she had a nasty fall in the café and her phone was in her hand. Her phone hit the ground pretty hard. The screen had cracked all over. It was even by luck she could still see things clearly, like a caller ID.
“My phone’s screen broke, so it’s going to take me a while to fix it or get a new one.”
“Oh, sorry about that. When are you going to be discharged? I’d like to come visit you.”
Maria smiled at the sweet offer cause she did not expect him to want to go out of his way to come see her in the hospital.
“Tomorrow, so you don’t have to.”
“Then how about I come see you at home?” He insisted. “It would be terrible of me to be aware you were in the hospital and not come see you.”
Maria wanted to refuse, but the guilt of how she’d brushed him off even when she didn’t want to. She figured she might actually enjoy his company and it would make her forget about certain things for a while.
She agreed and told him he could come in the evening the next day. She informed she had moved to her own apartment and would text him the address.
“You’ve been in Athens for only two weeks and have already got an apartment. Wow, you move fast,” He teased.
She laughed and confessed she was sleepy and although she’d love to continue talking to him; she did not want to sleep off or yawn back to back and make him feel their conversation bore her.
They settled on the details of their meeting and he expressed how excited he was to see her. Maria blushed, her cheeks warm and red as Athina walked into the room.
Maria bid him farewell and ended the call. She could already tell Athina was going to tease her, so she stopped her beforehand.
“Don’t,” She warned and Athina raised her hands in surrender.
Maria could no longer ward off the sleep in her eyes and succumbed to it. As she drifted to sleep the hum of Athina singing a rhyme helped her and put a smile on her face.