Mia shrugged. “Not as bad as you, and he doesn’t have a concussion, but he didn’t look so hot.”
My chest hurt, but the doctor had warned me to expect it, along with the constant nausea, fatigue, and a skull-crushing headache. Oh, and memory loss, confusion, and stiff muscles.
I closed my eyes for a bit. Sometime later, they moved me to a different ward and kicked Mia out.
“I’ll be back for afternoon visiting hours.”
I shifted awkwardly onto my side, trailing the oxygen tubes and the IV with me. “Don’t bother if you’re knackered. Get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah well. You could’ve told me that twelve hours ago when I thought you were dead.”
“Sorry.”
Mia sighed. “Me too. About everything. I shouldn’t have ripped your head off about Billy last week. I was just worried about Luke.”
“I know that. You told me on the phone when you apologised a week ago. We don’t need to go over it again.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. I don’t have it in me to argue with you right now. Just leave it, okay?”
“What about Billy?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I shrugged, and Mia left. A doctor came past, cranked up my oxygen, and told me to rest. I passed out for a few hours, and when I woke up, I was still alone with Billy on my mind.
It seemed fitting somehow. I couldn’t clearly remember how we’d left things, or why. Just that it was a royal mess that was making us both miserable, and we were running out of chances to fix it.
“Do you want something to eat?”
I blinked. A hospital worker was at the end of my bed. “Hmm?”
“It’s lunchtime. You didn’t order anything, but I can get you a sandwich if you like?”
“Nah. You’re all right. Thank you.”
“Sure? You need to keep your strength up.”
Logic told me she was right, but I could already smell the food being distributed on the ward, and I was pretty sure that even in my pre-carbon-monoxide days, I’d have turned it down. As it was, food was the last thing on my mind. Actually, no. That wasn’t true. After hours and hours of purging, my stomach was painfully empty, but for once I welcomed the sensation of being hungry. With my heart in tatters, it reminded me I was alive.
I lay back on the bed, trying to ignore the fact that I needed a piss. Standing up felt like scaling a mountain, and the vertigo a passing doctor had mentioned was no joke. I rubbed my stomach and closed my eyes. Behind my eyelids, the world stopped rocking, and Billy filled my mind. I pushed away memories of his anger and frustration and pictured him in the lake in the woods, naked and laughing. And in my kitchen, grinning as I demolished his latest attempt to cook real food.
My belly hurt, and my heart did too. And my brain played tricks on me. Beyond the cool blast of oxygen, I smelt Billy’s lemon shampoo and French washing powder, and my dreams made me cry.
