‘Yes.’
She narrows her eyes at me as I cough and she encourages me to sit up in bed.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m bloody starving.’
‘What do you want to eat?’
‘Toast. And tea.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. What sort of tea?’
‘Builder’s brew. Sugar please.’
‘Strong as tits?’ she asks.
I nod, smiling.
‘Good. I’m going to get the doctor now.’
‘If it’s the same doctors from last time, can you get the one who’s reasonably good-looking? Not the one with the comb-over,’ I say.
‘She feels better, doesn’t she?’
‘She’s getting there. Tea would help. The service is so slow in this place.’
‘Oh, piss off, Lucy.’
20
‘OH MY GOD, LUCE,’ Cass says as she throws her body over mine. Darren stands there with his face in his hands. You’re crying, aren’t you, mate?
It’s been an afternoon of it, people filtering in and out of this room with grapes, flowers and bento, sheer relief on their faces to know I’m both alive and also back in the room. Everyone from parents to sisters, to teeny tiny nephews and nieces who enjoyed playing with the controls on my bed and nearly folding my body in half. But the love is real, all these people, and the best thing is knowing who they are, how they fit, how they belong in my life.
‘I think it was the shock of knowing you two got together… What the actual hell, guys?’ I mumble.
Darren looks almost effervescent with joy to have his old Lucy back. ‘It works. And essentially, it was all because of you.’
‘Then I’d better be a best man or something, name a child after me.’
‘Deal. So what do you remember now after the accident?’ Cass asks.
‘Oh, all of it, it’s a very strange feeling. Thank you though for sticking with me when my mind was being an absent bitch.’
‘Well, you owe me thirty quid so I have vested interests,’ Darren says.
I laugh and hold both of their hands as they stand either side of my bed.
‘I can’t believe you took me to Velvet Boulevard on my birthday though? You literally took me to my workplace.’
‘We didn’t know what to do. It was that or Heaven and we didn’t think you were ready for a gay nightclub. We’ve told all the gang down there you’re OK.’
I smile. That’s the biggest relief of all maybe. To not have to start again but slide into old routines, to go to auditions, do the odd work shift and shag the odd random. It wasn’t a perfect or orthodox life but it was mine and it made me happy, so much of it made me happy, and if I could speak to my seventeen-year-old self who thought this didn’t carry value or that it was time wasted then I’d tell her to rethink all of that doubt. Life isn’t a straight clear path, it should never be, and I’ve enjoyed my last twelve years being a complete rollercoaster.
‘So what now, Wonder Woman?’ Darren asks.
‘More physio, rehab and then back into the world. I’ll have to buy a new Elsa dress, grow the hair out, I’ll make it work.’
