The ambulance crew hooked Jodi up to an oxygen machine and loaded him onto a stretcher. Jodi reacted little until they got outside into the bright sunshine, then he cried out and lurched off the side of the stretcher. Rupert caught him. “Easy, boyo.”
“Hurts, Rupe ... please.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. They’ll give you something as soon as we get to the hospital. Please, Jodi. You need to let us get you there, okay?”
Rupert shielded Jodi from the sun as the crew loaded him into the ambulance. Inside, he knelt by the stretcher. Jodi curled into the foetal position and reached out his right hand. Rupert took it in his own shaking grasp, squeezed it tight, and brushed Jodi’s sweat-dampened hair out of his face. “I’ve got you. I promise.”
The paramedic touched Rupert’s shoulder. “You need to sit down and put a seat belt on.”
Rupert shook his head. “No. I’m staying here.”
“Sir—”
“No!”
The paramedic let it go. Rupert wondered briefly if he’d come across this crew before, but London was a big city with thousands of paramedics working the streets. Rupert had forgotten more of them than he actually knew. He squeezed Jodi’s hand again. “Just hold on, boyo. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Jodi curled tighter into a ball and pressed his head into Rupert’s chest. Rupert rubbed his neck and flinched. Though cold to the touch, the tension in Jodi’s body was terrifying. Was that a stroke symptom? Rupert had no idea, and the ingrained professional calm he’d called on to get this far abruptly evaporated, and blind panic set in. Was this it? Was everything they’d been through not enough? Had the past few weeks been nothing but a cruel trick? For a moment, nausea overwhelmed him, but as the ambulance rumbled to life and hit the road, burning around corners, sirens blaring, the task of keeping himself upright became all-consuming.
The ambulance made the twenty-five-minute drive in eighteen. A team of A & E doctors and nurses were ready, and Rupert was pushed aside. He backed into the wall, trying to keep out of the way until the paramedic took his arm and led him out into the corridor.
“They won’t let you stay in there. Here you go ...” The paramedic opened a door to an empty waiting room. “Wait here. A doctor will come with news as soon as they can.”
He left. Rupert fell into a chair and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t do this, not again. He couldn’t sit in this damn fucking chair and wait to be told there was little left of the man who’d carried his heart from the moment they’d met.Sophie. I need Sophie.Rupert pulled his phone from his pocket, but it wasn’t his phone. In his panic as they’d left the flat, he’d grabbed Jodi’s instead. Rupert tapped in Jodi’s passcode, hoping Jodi hadn’t changed it since the accident. The phone lit up. Rupert found Sophie’s number and waited for her to answer. She didn’t, so Rupert killed the call. He couldn’t leave her a voice mail like this. Not again.
He shoved the phone back in his pocket and got up, drifting to the window. Outside, Camberwell was already alive—buzzing with the colourful chaos that was unique to South London. An Afro-Caribbean man crossed the road with an elderly dog. He stopped and shared a few words with a younger, Eastern European girl. They parted with a laugh and wave, and Rupert envied them so much his bones hurt. He’d forgotten what it was like to smile without a care in the world.
“Are you with Jodi Peters?”
Rupert spun around. A young doctor stood in the doorway, dressed in purple scrubs, a startling pink stethoscope around her neck. Rupert blinked. For some reason, he’d expected a middle-aged man. “Yes. I’m his partner, Rupert O’Neil.”
“Good. I’m Dr. Stanton. I’ve been looking after Jodi since he came in. I’ve taken bloods and given him something for the pain and some precautionary antibiotics. The stroke team are with him now. They’re running a few extra tests, and then he’ll be going up for a CT scan.”
“A brain scan?”
“Yes.”
“Did he have a stroke?”
Dr. Stanton ventured further into the room and sat down, gesturing for Rupert to do the same. “We don’t know at this stage. The slurred speech and one-sided paralysis are classic indicators of a stroke but are also symptomatic of many other things—meningitis, haemorrhage, seizures—especially with a TBI as recent as Jodi’s.”
Recent. Rupert felt sick again. With all that had happened since, the accident often seemed like it had occurred years ago, and the reality that Jodi had a lifetime of consequences to live with had always been tough to stomach. “When will you know?”
“Quickly. The stroke team works fast and we should have their assessment within the hour.”
An hour seemed an unbearable amount of time to wait, but there was little Rupert could do but thank the doctor. “What doyouthink?”
Dr. Stanton paused in the doorway. “I think we should wait for the test results. Nothing is certain until then.”
She left Rupert alone with his thoughts, and it wasn’t long before hopelessness overwhelmed him. This was bad ... It had to be, because even if it wasn’t a stroke, it was bound to be something equally debilitating and horrid, because that was how shit worked for them now, how it worked for Jodi. His brain injury and everything that came with it was permanent, and no amount of fumbling blowjobs could change the fact that he’d been condemned to a life of pain and suffering.
How fucking stupid had they been to think—to believe—it could be any other way?
Too stupid for Rupert to contemplate. He put his head in his hands and didn’t move until Sophie appeared fifteen minutes later.
Rupert stared at her. “How did you know?”
“Pat and Ron downstairs saw the ambulance. I was in Pimlico when they called me.”
