Post by theo lovett on Jul 17, 2019 6:56:07 GMT
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R E L I V I N G T H E P A S T .  My dad was the best. When I was a kid, I had the worst arachnophobia you could imagine. I know, I know, everyone does-- but mine was bad. If I saw a spider I'd have a full scale breakdown, shaking and screaming. If a spider was spotted and I didn't see someone with my own two eyes catch it and put it outside, I wouldn't set foot in the house, much less the room... I'd go to my friend next door's house for at least twenty-four hours. It was a stupid, genuinely life affecting fear. So one day, I must have been around twelve, my dad had enough. He drove me for a "surprise" and soon we were pulling up to the local zoo. When we approached the Hidden Jungle room, the panic started to set in. My palms got sweaty, my heartbeat catapulted, I suddenly felt dizzy and sick... I refused to go in. It took my dad over an hour to convince me to set foot inside, and it took him and the nice zoo lady well over that to coax me into holding my (now soaked with sweat) palm out. But I did it. My instinct to run when that hairy tarantula's legs first set foot to my hand was overwhelming, but my dad squeezed my shoulder and I held strong. Sometimes I feel like I can't remember my parents' faces and I start to panic, but recalling that memory always brings my dad's back into sharp focus. I can still remember how he smiled at me, how his voice was so gruff and warm when he spoke. "This isn't some bullshit about being a man, Ted. This is about not letting the things we're scared of rule our lives, because there's so much in life that's scary at first but worth it in the end." I miss my dad. I miss my mom too, obviously, but my dad and I were best pals. When I first started medical training I was convinced I wouldn't be able to do it, I found the prospect of responding to motor accidents (a huge part of my job, naturally) too triggering. And it was, still really can be. But I think back to that day at the zoo and I get through it. I have a pet tarantula now, she's chill as fuck. R O G U E S G A L L E R Y .  "My little teddy bear. He's so sweet! I met Theo at the hospital. Well, set my sights on him there, really. He was rushing in a kid with a gunshot wound and he was shouting, all code this, code that, covered in blood. That was kind of sexy on its own, but you know what was sexiest? How tightly he was holding the kid's hand. You just don't get men like that often, d'ya? I was swooning. I was right to be too, ever since we started dating a couple months ago he's been the perfect gentleman. It was especially crazy on his twenty-first, when he got all that inheritance. I was so used to being the wealthier one, my commision makes my job way more lucrative than his, like when he said it was gonna happen I never really believed him! But here we are, and he loves spoiling me. It's so sweet. Really, the only complaint I have about him would be his living situation. His brother's so miserable and rude, then that Elyse girl needs to back the fuck off. They have this stupid joke that really pisses me off, like, Theo gets her all this nurse merchandise and she gets him the EMT equivalent. Shit like, 'forget the ambulance, ride the EMT' and 'nurses: we can't fix stupid, but we can sedate it'. God, they think it's so fucking funny. He wears those stupid shirts to bed and it's honestly like she's right there with us, I can't stand her." - FLORENCE COATES "Florence is the kind of girl I've always hated. Sorry not sorry. She's a pharmaceutical rep, which is a totally immoral job anyway, which is how she met Teddy. For context, I work at the hospital too, which is how I met him... but I've lived with the twins for over a year now, we're basically family! I'm looking out for him. Teddy is a sweetheart, he's got this fear of being an accidental fuckboy. She smells that fear. Florence is a shark. She acts like she had no idea he was going to come into that money, but she only started really dating him once he did, and I really have a feeling she knew. He's so trusting, he probably told her. Stupid boy. He doesn't see her when she's around the doctors, flaunting herself to get them to promise her sales... I'd respect the hustle if it wasn't at one of my best friends' expense. Those boys have been through enough. Be gone, thot." - ELYSE ANDREWS  "My aunt was twenty-five when she took us in. Her boyfriend left her, because he was twenty-five and did not want to be a step-dad to two bereaved, crippled teenage boys. She understood that. She understood when we acted out, and when we struggled to take her telling us off seriously. We understood when she couldn't face playing grown up at parent-teacher conferences, and when she fed us chicken nuggets for the fifth night in a row. We spent those years muddling through and it was fucking hard on everyone. Now that I'm close to her in age I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like for her, losing her sister and then having her whole young adulthood so disrupted... she did her best, and it was seriously more than good enough. As wounded as we were, physically and emotionally, I still think back on my teens as a happy time. We'd have pizza parties and movie nights, and every year, on the anniversary of their death, Aunt Alli would make us sit together and talk about our memories of them, no matter how surly and reluctant Ollie and I were about it. If we hadn't have done that I doubt I'd have so many memories readily at my fingertips, so I'm super grateful. She's a superhero."  "Scraped knees, a shared record collection, faking twin telepathy... Growing up with a twin brother was loads of fun for the first fourteen years, then a life saver when our parents died. I mean that literally, I think having Ollie by my side saved my life. He went through worse than I did when it came to the physical side of things, I don't think I've been the support to him that he's been to me, though it's not something he did with massive intent. He was in too much pain to. But when we were first hospitalized, there was a week or two where he was comatose and it was me on my own. Obviously family visited and my aunt barely left my side, but it didn't matter, I felt so, so alone. It's crazy to be in the car with your folks one day, then in a hospital bed the next, your brother in a deep, unmoving sleep. I don't think I ever told anyone this, but I spent that time believing he was gone. No matter what the doctors said to me, I'd convinced myself they were just treading water, delaying the inevitable moment they'd have to give me yet more devastating news. I know that's stupid now, but at the time it seemed so legit. One time, when my aunt was snoring in the chair next to my bed and it was real late at night, I got up onto my feet. Dragging my IV with me, I went to the room across the hall where Ollie was, and I sat beside him. That was normal, that's pretty much what I did most hours of the day. What was less normal was that I took his hand and I just started begging him to wake up. Since I didn’t want to alert the nurses I was whispering, but I was really begging him, telling him how badly I needed him and wouldn't be able to do this without him. I was definitely sobbing. It was this huge outpouring, I was hysterical for sure, but I couldn't stop. Eventually I gave him a limp hug and dragged myself back to bed, thankfully undisturbed. That is, until the next morning. Alli woke me up with a shake, her normal habit of treating me like a china doll forgotten in her urgency. 'It's Ollie, Ted. He's awake!' I said we made up having twin telepathy, and we did, it was a good joke. We've never talked about that day and in the end it was a horrible one, seriously so fucking grim to watch him have to be told what I already knew, to see a similar image of what I must have looked like when I first heard. To know his pain. But I hope you'll get what I mean when I say it was still a good day for me, in fact was the first time I felt anything resembling hope since the day this all went down. Now I think twin telepathy is a thing. Ollie's my best friend and he always will be, it's my responsibility to save him like he saved me." |
lex | wyatt | resident |