Page 116 of While I’m Still Here

“What is it called?” I ask.

Nobody answers. That is suspicious. “Colin.” Colin becomes very interested in opening a tub of egg-fried rice. “Danny?” Danny's smile widens. “Marcus?”

Marcus sighs. “I didn't name it.”

“Name what?”

Danny pulls out his phone. “Don't,” Colin warns him.

Danny turns the screen towards me. BEA'S TITTY COMMITTEE. I stare at it, then look at Colin. “I didn't name it,” Colin says immediately.

Marcus lifts one hand. “Nor did I.”

My eyes go to Danny. Danny looks extraordinarily pleased with himself. “Democracy is beautiful.”

“There was no vote,” Marcus says.

“I represented the people.”

“You represented yourself.”

I laugh, and that is precisely what Danny wants.

The prick.

I know because I catch the change in his face. Tiny… There and gone, but it's relief. Danny has spent the entire evening refusing to let the room become solemn for longer than thirty consecutive seconds. Every time conversation drifts towards hospital admission times or drains, or what happens when I wake up, he finds something ridiculous to say.

At first, I think he's avoiding it, then I realise he's doing it for me. Marcus answers the questions. Colin notices when I need touching. Danny notices when I need to laugh. Somehow, without discussing it, they've divided the night between them, and somehow, impossibly, it works.

* * *

By half past eight, the coffee table has disappeared beneath empty Chinese cartons. The film we put on after dinner is still playing, but I couldn't tell you what it's about if someone offered me a substantial amount of money. None of us has watched more than five consecutive minutes.

I'm curled into the corner of the sofa beneath a blanket with my feet tucked underneath Colin's thigh because they're cold. Danny has taken possession of the opposite end and has spent the last twenty minutes stealing prawn crackers from the bowl balanced on my stomach despite having an identical bowl within reaching distance. Marcus is still in the armchair, although the pre-operative leaflet has finally been abandoned on the table after I threatened to feed it to the incinerator.

It should feel crowded; instead, my house feels strangely settled. I look at the three of them and realise I don't know when they're leaving. The question slips out before I can decide whether I actually want the answer. “What time are you all going home?”

Nobody answers. Colin glances towards Danny. Danny looks at Marcus. Marcus, traitorous bastard that he is, simply looks back at me. Colin was always staying. That was never really a question. Some things twenty-two years of friendship make unnecessary to discuss, and the idea of Colin kissing me goodbye tonight and driving home while I climbed into bed alone was never remotely possible. He'll sleep beside me. He'll wake when I do. He'll drive me to hospital in the morning. I know all of that in the same unthinking way I know where the light switch is in my own bathroom.

What I hadn't known was that Danny had already taken tomorrow off work. He tells me with an awkward shrug, as though sacrificing a day to Henderson's quarterly figures is barely worth mentioning. Marcus has rearranged his morning too, and when I ask what time he's planning to leave tonight, he looks genuinely confused by the question.

He isn't. Neither of them is. They don't have to stay. That's what I keep trying to tell them, and all three men respond in their own way with the same infuriating certainty.

They know.

They know they don't have to.

They're staying anyway.

Pricks.

The sleeping arrangements quickly become an argument over who owns my sofa, Danny's allegedly fragile thirty-three-year-old spine, and Colin claiming that twenty-two years of seniority gives him automatic bedroom privileges. I let them argue because it's easier than admitting I've suddenly become dangerously close to crying.

Eventually I laugh, and the pressure in my chest loosens.

All three of them are staying… Nobody is going home tonight. I hadn't realised how badly I needed that until I knew.

* * *