The social worker said something. Her voice buzzed like a low-flying wasp at the base of Jodi’s skull. Only one word stood out: Rupert, like it seemed to every time. Shame Jodi didn’t know whoRupertactually was.
“Jodi.” The social worker frowned.
Jodi rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Sorry, what?”
“I said, Sophie and Rupert have told us they are going to help you take care of yourself when you leave the hospital. Is that an arrangement you feel comfortable with?”
Rupert. Rupert. Rupert.Jodi kept searching the patchy minefield his brain had become and eventually found the tall, blond dude who’d visited a couple of times. Sophie kept telling him they lived together, but Jodi could hardly remember home, let alone having a flatmate. Jodi trawled his brain again. A couch came to mind, scattered with black cushions and a tatty grey throw. The blanket seemed out of place, though Jodi couldn’t see why. All he knew was the couch seemed to call to him, and abruptly his world narrowed to the way the seat cushions moulded perfectly to his back and the tatty blanket draped around his shoulders.The blanket’s around my shoulders, so why the hell are my legs warm?
“Jodi?”
“What?”
“Do you want to go home?”
Do I?Jodi turned the question over in his mind, matching it with the tingly heat that was fast fading from his legs as he returned to the present. He needed that heat. He didn’t know why, but something—everything—suddenly screamed at him that he wouldn’t survive without it.
Jodi met the social worker’s gaze as another wave of desperate frustration swept over him, clawing at his chest and veins. What did it matter that he couldn’t remember his couch or his flatmate’s name? What did any of it matter while he was rotting away in a place that made no fucking sense? “Please. I want to go home. I don’t give a shit who counts my fucking pills. I just want to go home.”
PART TWO
Seven
Jodi watched as Sophie bustled around the flat, unpacking clothes and filling the fridge with the groceries a Sainsbury’s lorry had just delivered. For the hundredth time, he studied her movements and facial expressions, trying to marry them with the Sophie he thought he remembered. Same blue eyes, wild blonde curls, but her body was different—softer, rounder. And her face didn’t quite fit.
Cold, creeping anxiety chewed on Jodi’s heart. A week— No, ten days ago, he’d told himself everything would be better if he could just find Sophie, that the huge chunk of time and knowledge he was missing would come back, but it hadn’t. She’d appeared at his bedside, flustered and crying, and—
And what? Jodi’s mind went blank, all thought and emotion suddenly gone, like a lightbulb had blown. He blinked, trying to focus. Where the fuck was he again? The plain walls, high ceilings, and ornate, Victorian coving. The coffee table. The couch. Ah, yes. The flat ... home, right? His gaze fell on a cluster of photographs, images of strangers. Sophie had told him this was his flat, that he owned it, with a mortgage and everything, but he wasn’t sure he believed her. If the flat was his home, he’d recognise the people in the photographs, wouldn’t he? But the blond bloke and the tiny little girl ... Jodi stared and stared, but nope. He didn’t have a clue, and he couldn’t bring himself to care much, either. Panic-laced bewilderment and a never-ending headache had become his new best friends. There wasn’t room for much else. “What day is it?”
Sophie glanced over her shoulder. “Thursday, sweetie. Why?”
“No reason.” Jodi curled his legs under himself and rested his aching head on his good arm, the one without throbbing scars and metal bolts in the joints. “Where do you sleep?”
“At my house, Jojo. I don’t live here. Rupert does.”
Rupert. Jodi turned the name over in his head and matched it with the blond bloke in the photo who liked to hover and stare with tortured eyes that gave Jodi the creeps—his second carer and apparent flatmate. “Where is he?”
“At work. He’ll be home tonight. Are you okay? You’re so pale. Do you want to lie down? The doctors said you should rest a lot.”
Jodi didn’t want to rest. From what little he’d gleaned from the whispered conversations around him, he’d been resting—sleeping—comatose—whatever—for far too long already, but the bastard chiselling in his brain thought otherwise. His eyes grew heavy, even as Sophie helped him lie down properly and covered him up.
She held a tiny white pill to his lips. “Swallow this.”
“What is it?”
“Codeine for your headache. There’s stronger stuff if it gets really bad, so just let me know, okay?”
“Okay.” Jodi swallowed the pill, wondering how deep the chisel needed to go before it justified better drugs, but he was asleep before he could give it much thought.
He awoke some time later to low voices floating out of the kitchen. For a while, he lay still, letting odd snatches of the muted conversation meld with the remnants of codeine-fuelled dreams, but despite the lethargy lacing his veins, agitation drove him off the couch and into the kitchen, searching for a tonic to calm his nerves.
Sophie and the blond bloke stared at him as he shuffled between them and opened the cabinet he was suddenly sure contained what he was searching for. Bags of pasta and rice greeted him.Damn it.He slammed the cupboard door.
“What are you looking for?” Sophie asked.
“My fags,” Jodi said distractedly. “Where are they?”
Sophie frowned. “You don’t smoke.”
