The assumption that hewillfeel better should comfort me. It doesn’t. “Is that his mum?”
“No.”
She doesn’t elaborate, but something about her one-word answer prickles my skin. Until today, Ludo’s had even less visitors than me, giving him a grand total of zero. If the woman isn’t his mother or a relative, then who the hell is she?
Staring brings me no closer to finding out, so I search for something else to do. But it’s hard. I don’t have any books, my phone is smashed to bits, and I’ve yet to figure out how to claim one of the ward’s mobile TVs.
You could always, like, ask.But I know I won’t. It’s a Drummond thing to suffer in silence. Besides, watching TV at home sends me to sleep, and I don’t want to sleep right now. I want to watch over Ludo to make sure he’s okay and ignore the fact that I never cared ifanyonewas okay before I met him.
* * *
“Mr Drummond?”
I startle awake. Despite my best intentions, I’ve dozed off and somehow slept through my bed being moved to a different spot on the ward. “What the fuck?”
The nurse treats me to a steely glare before her expression softens. “We needed your high-dependency bay back, so we’ve moved you down here.”
I blink rapidly. “Who did you need it for? Someone new?”
She doesn’t answer. Just hands me a cardboard cup of pills.
I swallow them and drink the water she hands me. My legs hurt—that’s right, both of them, because it isn’t enough that one is broken, the other is protesting at being unused for so long. Muscle pain, spasms, throbbing joints. Fuck my whole goddamn life.
The nurse wanders off, leaving me to take stock of my new surroundings, not that I can see much of them. I’m in a dead end, so there’s a wall on one side of my bed and the curtain is drawn around the other. The bed opposite is occupied, but it’s not Ludo. It’s an old man eating yoghurt with a pen lid, and I wonder if I’ve been dropped onto another fucking planet.
It doesn’t help that the problem of having nothing to do remains. Being alone with my thoughts has never been an issue before; I generally don’t have any beyond my next wage packet, but the good drugs have done weird things to me. Suddenly I’m fretting over the food in my freezer that will spoil when the electricity tokens run out and hoping someone feeds the manky stray cat who’s always trying to kip on my couch. And I’m worrying about Ludo. What if the critical care bed was for him? He had an infection last time we spoke, and it wasn’t getting better. What if he has sepsis? Or one of those flesh-eating hospital bugs I’ve seen splashed across the tabloids Bernard hoards in his van?
My heart turns over despite logic reasoning that my bed could’ve been given to anyone. After all, if Ludo needed my bed and I was well enough to take his, surely they’d have simply swapped us.
Logic has always been my friend, apathy too, and common sense. But all three are lacking as my mind turns over a dozen scenarios that could’ve brought me to this moment. My brain hurts. I touch the gash on my temple and wonder if I hit it harder than the docs are telling me. If something unseen is broken and that’s why I can’t get Ludo out of my thoughts. Head injuries change personalities, right?
Yeah, but you’re still a prick.
Valid. I prove it to myself by ignoring the old gent across the aisle when he tries to talk to me and being obnoxious to the fella who brings my dinner.
And I don’t eat. Ludo warned me not to rinse my morphine pump on an empty stomach, but I do it anyway, because he’s not here, and I don’t want to think about how reliant I’ve become on his company. On three days of random conversations with a stranger. Or maybe it’s the sum total of six times he’s touched me. Fingers brushing mine, a light thumbstroke on my forearm, and his soothing palm cupping my cheek. He only did that once, and I’m still half-convinced I dreamed it, but I’m not dreaming now. I’m living a nightmare. The only light in this dark fucking cavern is him.
And he isn’t here.
Somehow I sleep some more, and I wake to silence sometime later. Significant time has passed, though I have no clue how much. A day. A week. Who gives a fuck?
I rub my face. For however long I’ve been here, I’ve convinced myself that my surroundings haven’t mattered, that if I can only get the hell out of here, everything will be okay, but as I take in the unfamiliar bed bay with its broken cabinet and a chair that’s the wrong colour, itdoesmatter. My bed, though it’s the same one I’ve been stuck in for who-the-hell-knows how long, feels like a raft adrift, and a desperate need to escape overwhelms me.
Heart in my mouth, I sit up, searching for something—anything—I can use as makeshift crutches. I need fresh air. I need to go home.Michael wants to help... he can pick me up.
Being upright makes me dizzy. I brace myself on the side of the bed and suck in deep breaths that go nowhere. My good leg tingles as though it anticipates the excitement of my ridiculous plan. I ease it off the bed, finally grateful for the thick sock covering my uninjured foot.Now what?
For all my enthusiasm, I have no idea. My arms are strong enough to hold me up, but everything I can see to aid me has wheels.Fuck it. Maybe I’ll just slide on my arse until I fall into a lift shaft or some shit. It’s not like my life could get any worse right now.
“What are you doing?”
I jump a fucking mile. Someone is behind me, and I realise in my eagerness to be the stupidest man alive that I’m facing the wrong way. That any attempt to move forwards will take me straight into a fucking brick wall.
The irony is biblical and so devastating that I fail to register who the bemused voice belongs to until shuffling footsteps round my bed and Ludo stands in front of me.
He’s all dark brows and the beginnings of a wicked grin. “Well you’ve fucked that up, haven’t you?”
Five
