Page 48 of Hate You Most

Dakota stepped forward.

“She’s been confused ever since she woke up,” Dakota said quietly. “She doesn’t know where she is, or even really who I am. She’s overwhelmed.”

Viktoriya stared at her. Each word was a small shove towards the edge of a large cliff. She was about to freefall.

“I told you I don’t want this,” Viktoriya said. “Dakota, I don't want this.”

Dakota shook her head slightly.

The doctor looked between them. “You’re her spouse, the decision is yours.”

Dakota swallowed.

“Yes,” she said. “Do the scan. Do the surgery if you need to.”

The world tilted and something inside Viktoriya cracked then. She had a wife—she wasn't even gay. How could something like this have happened? Sure, they had fooled around but that was nothing but a way to release adrenaline.

“No,” she said again, but this time it didn't come out right. Like her voice wasn’t quite hers anymore.

The bed began to move. They were already unhooking things, already steering her toward the door.

“This is for your own good,” Dakota said, too quickly. “We need to make sure you’re okay.”

Viktoriya laughed, breathless and broken. “You don’t even know me. Why do you care?”

The hallway lights blurred as she was wheeled out of the room. Her head pulsed with each turn of the gurney. A deep throbbing ache that made it hard to think clearly.

She turned her head as much as she could. Dakota was walking beside her, one hand gripping the railing like she was afraid Viktoriya might disappear if she let go.

“Stop,” Viktoriya said to her. “Please. We're not married, please tell me we're not.”

A quiet ‘I love you’, tumbled out of her rival's lips before she was being held back as the bed moved around another corner.

The doors to the imaging room slid open, swallowing Viktoriya whole. Cold air, white walls, and that constant beeping that wouldn't leave her be.

Fuck. She had a wife—and she didn't remember.

February 2014 - October 19th, 2022.

— Winter Olympics. Sochi, Russia. Henry Ford Hospital.

“Do you want yogurt or pudding?”

Viktoriya scoffed from the hospital bed. “I want nothing, I'm still mad at you.”

“So that's a no to the pudding then?” Dakota asked. “If that's a no, then I'll eat it. It's apple flavored.”

“Can you be serious? I'm trying to have a conversation with you.”

Dakota straightened at that, yet she remained close to the door, as if needing an escape from her was the most comfortable thought in the world.

“I'm not going to apologize if that's what you're trying to get me to do. My job right now is to keep you alive, and you're doing a pretty shitty job of that yourself by saying no to imaging or surgery. So,” Dakota said and tried to smile. “Yogurt or pudding?”

“You gave consent for me,” Viktoriya said and tried to keep her voice as neutral as possible. “I said no, and it didn't matter to you. Is like I am not even here, like I don't matter.”

“Of course you matter,” Dakota said, throwing the chocolate pudding beside Viktoriya's legs on the bed. “I agreed to imaging and to surgery because you matter to me. If you meant nothing to me, I wouldn't be in this hospital room, I wouldn't be sleeping beside you in that horribly uncomfortable plastic chair that makes my back and my neck hurt. I wouldn't be giving you the pudding and eating the yogurt myself, especially when we both know that Pudding is the best one.” Dakota's voice was low, and she could tell this wasn't something to be argued with. It was simply the way things were. “I do all of this because you matter to me.”

“You took away my right to say no.”