He pours another cup of tea and carries it over, holding his phone between his lips.
“That’s disgusting, you know,” I chide, taking one of the mugs from him as he joins me in my blanket fort.
“You haven’t even tried it yet,” he says with a low laugh that I rather like the sound of.
I shake my head. “I meant the phone between your lips. Your phone is just about the nastiest thing you own—worse than your toilet seat.”
He cringes, and I hear a chorus of “Yuck!” from the phone, reminding me that there are little ears listening.
He holds the phone up, pressing his shoulder to mine to get us both in view of the camera, and I wiggle my fingers at the screen. “Hello. I’m Adhira.”
The smaller girl with glittering blue eyes stares into the camera, her light-brown waves a tangled mess around her heart-shaped face. She nudges her mum, never once taking her eyes off me as she whispers, “She’s pretty, Mummy.”
I stifle a laugh and feel Elijah’s thigh brush against mine for a split second before it’s gone so fast I almost think I hallucinated it.
“Well, thank you,” I tell her. “You and your sister are bothverypretty too. What are your names?”
“Ellie!” the little blue-eyed girl shouts.
“I’m Lyla,” the hazel-eyed one with a mop of messy blonde waves says, beaming.
“It’s nice to meet you both,” I tell them, returning their smiles. “And I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name,” I say to his mum.
“Eleanor. Nice to meet you, love.” I’ve never spoken more than a couple of hundred words total to this man, so I can say with absolute certainty that his mum’s name had never come up, butmymum would have my arse if I told her that. I might not always read the room well, but I do have manners on occasion.
The girls move on, demanding their brother’s attention and begging for their tea party, which “Lijah” has been depriving them of.
He sips his tea, refers to each of us as “Lady” before speaking our names, and dives into the role of the doting big brother. If I were even remotely interested in a relationship right now, this kind of behaviour might just be the thing I need to get me interested in someone. But as it stands, I am not, so it’s not doing much for me.
I excuse myself as my lids grow heavy, but instead of going to bed, I slide down my door, pressing my ear against it to listen to him have his family time.
He’s going to be an incredible father one day, if he wants that sort of thing. Papa was almost never home while I was growing up, but he worked long hours to make sure Mummy and I had everything we needed. It wasn’t his fault that his job didn’t pay well, but I still hate the fact that a small, childlike part of me yearns for a memory of him calling to tuck me into bed like Elijah is doing right now, behind this very door, for his baby sisters.
I listen until I hear him in the kitchen, cleaning up, flicking lights off, followed by the soft snick of his door.
It’s a little while before I muster up the energy to climb into bed, but it doesn’t take long before I’m fast asleep, the soft hum of the pipes filling the flat and my heartbeat slowing to match their rhythm.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
I blow out a steadying breath,staring down at the cold cap, gloves, and socks in my lap that are meant to preserve both my hair and nerve endings, my skin prickling with the memory of the pain I’d felt the first time I wore them.
“It’s near as bad as the infusion itself, eh no?” the short, stout man with the bushy grey beard seated beside me says. Archie sat beside me during my first treatment, too, and while I won’t go all sappy on him, I know my first infusion would have gone so much worse had he not been there.
I flick my gaze to him, feeling the cool liquid entering the port positioned below my right collarbone.
“It’s pretty uncomfortable, yeah,” I admit, allowing my walls to lower as I peer around the small, white-walled infusion centre lined with patients just like me undergoing treatment.
“I’d be lying if I said you get used to it, but it’s not such a shock after the first few times,” he says, offering me a reassuring smile. “Last time you were in here quite a while, so I imagine you felt like hell when you left.”
I groan at the memory of just how close the loo and I have become since then. “The worst so far has been the third day after my first infusion. I was completely immobilised and couldn’t keep anything down,” I tell him, pulling the cold cap on.
My nose burns, and my head feels like it’ll explode with the sensation of the worst brain freeze of my life.
“First day’s not so bad since they load ye up with steroids. Gives ya a wee boost. Go ahead, get those gloves and socks on, deary. You’re too young to not be able to use your fingers or toes.” He laughs a hearty, belly-deep chuckle that warms me throughout. It’s just enough to encourage me to follow his advice. “How else will you text and post to social media?”
I pull the cold socks on first and then the gloves. It’s painful, far worse than the infusion, but like Archie said, I need my hands. Ineedto be able to do good things with them one day, like treat the patients entrusting their lives to capable providers like Archie and me now.
