‘Did you see who that was? Did you hear what he said? Go and chase him down, Meggers, and trap his dick in the lift door. Go!’
Meg stands her ground. They slowly enter the room, both with wide grins on their faces.
‘That’s not funny. What an utter wet wipe, thinking he can come in here and sweep me off my feet, like I’m some girl that needs saving, that needs to be told clichéd tripe like that.’
‘Luce, calm down. Your blood pressure, babe,’ Beth says, coming to sit down next to me. She takes my hand in hers and tries to stroke out the clawed nature of my fingers.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t I get punched by Chloe Hilton that night?’ Meg asks.
‘You did. You took one for the team,’ I tell her. ‘And Beth also jumped on in there and slapped her so hard her chicken fillets fell out of her bra.’
Meg stares into the distance to relive that memory, the sisters in full flight, it was a beautiful thing, like geese flying in formation towards the sun.
‘I was so drunk, I have zero recollection of that night. Did Josh really come in here confessing his undying love to you?’ Beth asks curiously.
‘Yes. I am fuming.’
Meg sniggers a little to hear it.
A lesser girl, poorly and broken, would have relented but not me.Wow, you love me? Even when I’m broken, bald and at my lowest ebb? You’ll still have me?Seriously, eff off as far away from me as humanly possible. Because I’m not nearly done. I am not broken. I’m going to get Igor back in here and I’m going to work my arse off and find someone who’ll sort out my hair and there’s going to be a comeback, bitches.
‘You may have just broken his heart though?’ Beth mentions.
‘And? Just a shame it couldn’t have been his face. That, what he was going on about, is not love. What’s in this room… this is love. This is what’s kept me alive and looked out for me all those years. He’s not part of this story, he’s not even a side note. He’s a typo, a mistake.’
Meg and Beth look at each other and smile. I like a rant, it’s cathartic and I think it’s the reason I have such good skin as I get all my bad energy out into the world rather than let it fester in my body, but there was something in there for these sisters that is all true.
‘Who am I in your story then?’ Meg asks.
‘You’re a novel, babes. You’d all get your own novels. Main characters for sure, starring roles. I’d change your mumsy jeans and have you in better outfits though.’
‘Bitch.’
‘And that is love…’
21
‘And that is good, Lucy. I am impressed.’
My hands release the clamps and I put them down on the table as Igor scribbles some notes on a clipboard.
‘Are you writing that I’m your best patient?’ I mutter, craning my head over to see his notes.
‘No,’ he tells me bluntly. ‘My best patient is a sixty-three-year-old woman called Norah who’s just had a new hip and makes me muffins…’
‘I have muffins.’
‘Not like Norah. Unless you were being sexual, which, in that case, you can put your muffins away. In fact, if you wanted to know what I was writing, I actually wrote that you’re less of a whiny cow at thirty.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, feigning gratitude. ‘We’ll blame my late teenage hormones for that version of Lucy.’
A smile, I think I got a smile. I’m breaking you, Igor, and it’s fun.
‘Your sister tells me you were a dancer, you were into your fitness before all of this happened.’
‘Yeah, the job kinda dictated it.’
‘Well, once you’re discharged here then I want you to take things very slowly. Low impact to start, any pains and niggles, then you ring me.’ He hands me a business card.
