Then the fire brigade arrives, and the parade of burly firefighters provides some nice eye candy for a few minutes before one appears with a clipboard thicker than my wrist. He starts taking statements with the enthusiasm of someone who just realized their shift got extended by three hours.
The incident report notes that theaccelerantwas hand sanitizer and theincendiary devicewasnovelty birthday candles from Tesco.
Meanwhile, Leo is praised by the fire captain for his “quick thinking and appropriate response,” which he accepts without a smile.
I catch his eye and mouth “hero” at him.
His jaw tightens, and his expression seems to hover between amusement and irritation, like he can’t decide which reaction I deserve.
Interesting. It seems Mr. Leo is not used to being teased.
When all the officials finally retreat after taking statements, I try to inject some levity into the situation.
“Let’s look on the bright side. There’s a chance they might bump me up the queue just to get rid of us.”
Sadly, it doesn’t appear that even trying to set the A&E waiting room on fire speeds up the NHS triage system.
As the first painkillers wear off, my ankle throbs even more intensely, like it’s personally offended by today’s events.
Then Jaymee decides to make things worse by introducing some practicalities into the mix.
“Archie, I just thought, how are you going to get up to your flat with a broken ankle?”
My stomach hollows. I live in a tiny bedsit on the fourth floor of an old Victorian building. The four flights of narrow stairs up to my room are a tripping hazard even when all my limbs are fully functional.
“We don’t know for sure that my ankle is broken,” I say optimistically. “It could just be sprained.”
We all look down skeptically at my ankle, which has now swelled to twice its normal size.
Jaymee’s teeth worry her lower lip. “You could crash at my place, but there are still stairs, and getting to the bathroom would be a pain.”
Jaymee lives above the pet shop she inherited from her aunt. It smells of guinea pig pellets mixed with bird seed. And the onlybathroom is off the shop on the ground floor. To get to it, you have to go through a maze of kitty litter bags, aquarium filters, and a rabbit hutch that blocks half the hallway.
“Thanks for the offer, but I think navigating a maze of kitty litter bags on crutches might finish me off,” I say.
“You can stay at my place if you want. I can crash on the couch. But there are still two flights of stairs,” Billy says.
Billy lives in a crowded apartment with six other gym bros. The smell is worse than Jaymee’s place.
I love Billy, but I can barely survive a ten-minute visit to his apartment without my eyes watering.
“I’ll help you sort out somewhere you can live,” Leo says abruptly.
We all turn to stare at him.
“After all, I caused your accident in the first place,” he continues.
But now that Jaymee has introduced practicalities into the mix, my brain is flooding with reality.
“It’s not just my apartment…” I say slowly. “I don’t know how I’m going to do any of my jobs.”
Fuck, I’ve been so caught up in my pain, the handsome stranger, and Billy’s pyrotechnics that I haven’t thought through the practical implications of what a broken ankle means for my life.
It’s classic cognitive avoidance, my brain’s attempt to shield me from actually confronting the fallout waiting on the other side of painkillers and adrenaline.
I can’t stay in my bedsit. I can’t walk the dogs. I’ll struggle to complete my bookings as a children’s entertainer on only one leg.
Plus, my bank account situation is precarious at the moment. I’ve been living gig to gig, trying to build my two businessesinto a steady income. But some months, I’ve struggled to scrape together enough to pay my measly rent.
