“Jesus, Ian,” I say, looking at him. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Stop.”
“Seriously. I’ve always been proud of you for so many reasons, but now… Now I actually think I could burst with pride, you know?”
“You’re such an idiot!”
I hug him warmly, before turning and rushing down the corridors, so that I can leave the hospital and be back with my niece as soon as possible. She’s only been born for three hours, and I already know she’s going to dictate my whole life.
I get to the main door, and just as I’m taking my phone out of my pocket to message Mum and tell her I’ll be there soon, I smack into something, hard. My phone falls out of my hand from the impact, and once I regain my bearings, I realise that the thing I smacked into was a person, and that they’ve fallen onto the floor.
I kneel down to give her a hand and help her stand up. But when she looks up, I realise that my niece won’t be the only thing that turns my life upside-down.
“Nick O’Connor,” she says, smoothing down her uniform.
I stand there, frozen, my jaw on the floor and my airways blocked.
“C-C…”
She looks at me, her head tilted. “Stuttering problem?”
“W-what? N-no!”
She laughs, and I nearly have a heart attack.
“C-Casey.”
“Wow, we got there in the end. What’s up? Memory loss?”
I shake my head vacantly. “What…How…?”
“What am I doing here? How am I?” she helps me out.
I nod, but I still can’t close my mouth.
“I work in the hospital,” she says, gesturing to her uniform. “And as for the second question…Was that supposed to be ‘how are you’?”
I move my head up and down.
“You used to have so much to say,” she says, raising an eyebrow.
Used to.
Has someone just plunged a knife through my stomach?
“You look good,” she says, letting her eyes slide over my figure.
You look incredible.
“Well, thanks,” she says, grinning.
What? Did I say that out loud? Has my tongue become independent from my brain?
“My brother’s just had a baby,” I manage, trying to fill the silence with something logical in case she thinks I’m an idiot – which, I guess, is what I actually am. But better not to shove that in her face at eight ‘o’clock in the morning.
“Oh,” she says, incredulous.
Surprise effect. Always works.
