Chapter 1
Takotsubo cardiomyopathy
2003
If you yearned for, and daydreamed about, someone enough, could you drive your subconscious mind insane? Could you lose your grip on reality and start hallucinating?
‘Frankie? Hello, can you hear me?’ Lou trilled as she waved her hand in front of my face. I was staring over her shoulder at the rapidly approaching figure, trying to determine whether he was, in fact, a figment of my fevered imagination. ‘Frankie?’ she called again, her voice now tinged with concern. ‘Jesus, you look like you’re going to pass out.’
She turned to follow the direction of my gaze, and we were now both looking up into the gorgeous (if somewhat bloodshot), sky-blue eyes of Thomas G. Longley. ‘Holy crap,’ she muttered under her breath, taking a small step back.
‘Hi, I’m Tom,’ my possible hallucination said. He was focusing on me, just as he had been throughout his determined walk towards us across the bar. My expression was likely akin to that of a crazed Belieber when confronted with a pair of Justin’s used underpants, and I was frozen in place.
Lou gave me a sharp kick in the shin with the pointed toe of her boot, snapping me out of my stupor. I realized that my mouth was hanging open, and snapped it shut. The pain in my leg suggested that this was reality, and he was the genuine article. Although happy that I wasn’t as crazy as a box of frogs, I had unfortunately lost the power of speech.
I was pathologically shy, especially around attractive men, and this was not just any man; this was Thomas G. Longley. My best friend, Lou, and I had been obsessing over Thomas G. Longley for the last two years. He was the star of most of my fantasies, and, bizarrely, my imagination didn’t just restrict itself to the steamy ones. I had even caught myself daydreaming about washing his sweaty rugby kit and sorting his socks into pairs, such was the extent of my infatuation.
Tom was four years above us at medical school. So whilst we were nearing the end of our second year, he was about to qualify that summer. Well over six foot tall, solidly built, with light brown, messy hair, and amazing blue eyes framed with incredible thick eyelashes, he was our idea of perfection.
He always looked in need of a shave, and most of the time his clothes were downright scruffy, his wardrobe seeming to consist of only well-worn jeans (no bad thing with his arse), and equally well-worn rugby or tour tops. But his lack of care for his appearance made him even sexier in our eyes, highlighting his natural confidence and the fact he couldn’t care less how people saw him. Lou and I thought he was the cat’s pyjamas, along with the rest of the female population of our medical school (although I doubt they were quite sad enough to obsess over him to the extent that we did).
For some weird reason we always used his full name when referring to him, and not just ‘Tom’, by which he was widely known. We would have loved to know what the G of his middle name stood for. The only reason we even knew the first letter was because we checked the viva results for his year like the crazy stalkers we were. Not wanting to be outed as creepy nutcases, we never worked up the courage to find out more, as this would have involved asking his friends and risking exposure.
London medical schools are pretty insular when they’re not part of larger universities, and there were only about a hundred and fifty students in each year at ours. This enabled our rampant observation of Thomas G. Longley; but even though he was the subject of our obsession, neither of us had ever had an actual conversation with him.
There was, however, the ‘Library Incident’, which took place towards the end of my fresher year. In a revision frenzy, I tripped on the way through the bookshelves to get to my friends. I ended up sprawled face down, right in front of a table of rugby players, one of whom was Thomas G. Longley.
My books had flown everywhere, and unfortunately so had other mortifying items from my bag: my Tampax Extra Super tampons, my trusty multicolour glitter pen, and worst of all, Lady Princess le Foof (the small, dog-eared, ancient My-Little-Pony that I used to bring me luck in exams, and religiously carried around whilst revising).
Thomas G. Longley leapt up, rounded his sniggering mates at the table, and crouched down to help me gather my stuff. I could feel the heat in my cheeks as I frantically grabbed for the most embarrassing items, but I was too late for Lady Princess le Foof, who had rolled out of my reach.
‘You okay?’ he asked, holding out Lady Princess le Foof in his tanned hand. I looked briefly up into his gorgeous face, which was lit with a wide smile, and felt my heart stop before I quickly looked away.
‘Fine, thanks,’ I muttered in barely more than a whisper, before snatching away Lady Princess le Foof and scrambling to my feet. I kept my eyes averted as I scurried away, while his mates continued to jeer in the background.
After dissecting the ‘Library Incident’ at length with Lou, we both concluded that I most likely came across as a rude, clumsy, mentally deficient – not the first impression I would have gone for, but there was little point dwelling on it (which unfortunately I did, an unhealthy amount).
Lou herself had undergone the ‘Bar Incident’. The price of going out and drinking in central London restricted all but the fabulously wealthy to the dingy student bar, so it was invariably heaving, and one night Lou had found herself pressed up against Thomas G. Longley whilst waiting the requisite five hundred years to order. As soon as Thomas G. Longley had drawn up he had been served instantly (such was his appeal to the female bar staff), but as further proof of his perfection he directed the barmaid to Lou, explaining that she had been waiting longer.
Lou had fared a bit better than me in her interaction with him. For a start she wasn’t sprawled on the floor, and she did manage to thank him warmly, using more than the two words I had limited myself to.
So as you can see, past experience had not prepared me for the approach of the unwitting subject of my unhealthy obsession. Hence my second ever conversation with Thomas G. Longley was veering towards me, once again threatening to demonstrate subnormal behaviour on my part.
Despite this, instead of actually answering him, my mind was making a frantic inventory of my appearance. It was caveman night at the bar, and Lou and I had embraced this theme with gusto, both of us donning the micro-mini, furry, leopard-print skirts we had found in the Topshop sale. Lou had backcombed my hair to go along with the whole cavewoman thing, and I was now regretting having allowed this. My hair was the one part of my appearance that I was normally happy with, being very dark, long, thick and shiny, when in its normal state.
Although I doubted that shoes or cosmetics were available in the Jurassic period, Lou had forced me into wearing four-inch stilettos and full-on makeup. All our mates were dressed up too, including the guys (most of whom were wearing extremely ill-advised loin cloths), and we had thought that our outfits were awesome and hilarious. But now that I was looking into the gorgeous eyes of a very obviously not-dressed-up Thomas G. Longley, I thought with horror that we probably looked like a pair of demented cave-sluts.
Lou gave me another sharp kick in the shin, and I realized that I needed to pull it together and speak.
‘I – I’m Frankie,’ I managed to get out. Tom smiled and swayed slightly on the spot. He leaned in and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. We stood staring at each other for another few seconds before he lurched forward, closing the gap between our mouths. He tasted of gin and cigarettes but I didn’t care, this was Thomas G. Longley and he was finally, finally kissing me. The perfection of the moment started slipping away, however, when the catcalls of his mates penetrated my hormone-fuelled mind.
I could hear the standard ‘Way-hey!’, ‘Go on mate!’, ‘Give it some beans!’ and ‘Show her who’s boss, son!’ No doubt spurred on by his vile friends, I felt one of Tom’s hands pushing its way up into my skirt, unfortunately taking said skirt with it, and nearly exposing my knickers. His other hand was clamped round the back of my neck and his tongue was down my throat.
Panicked by imminent knicker exposure, and being the subject of practically the whole bar’s attention, I started frantically pushing at his shoulders. He lifted his head from mine and I could see him trying to focus on me with his bloodshot eyes. A frown creased his forehead and a look of confusion passed across his handsome face, which I noticed was now decidedly pale. He gagged, and I took a hasty step back just as we were approached by my friend Dylan.
Dylan was a member of the rugby team but also in my year and one of my best friends. He gave me an apologetic look and grabbed a now green-tinged Tom.
‘Come on, Longley,’ he said, leading him away in the direction of the loos. ‘Can’t have you blowing chunks over the ladies can we.’
