It was my turn to feel that kick to the gut. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I always knew I wasn’t worth the effort. I knew I wasn’t the kind of person who deserved someone like Tom, but to hear him say that he hadn’t even started caring about me, when I was so desperately in love with him, was so painful that for a moment I thought I was going to be sick. Thankfully, due to the sorry state of Tom’s kitchen, the only thing in my stomach was black coffee.
After closing my eyes for a second against the tidal wave of pain, I opened them to see Tom right in front of me. As he took in my expression, his fury seemed to waver for a moment.
‘Frankie, I –’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I whispered, breaking eye contact with him and quickly moving towards the door. He followed me down the corridor and caught my arm as I was about to leave.
‘I think we should talk,’ he said, his voice rough with emotion. I wrenched my elbow out of his grip and tore open the door.
‘There’s nothing left to say,’ I told him before tearing down the stone steps from his house and running up the street in the direction of my flat.
Chapter 25
Stupid face
My life was shades of grey (and not in the good, red-room, handcuffs type of a way). It was like without Tom all the colour had leached out of my surroundings. I moved through the motions like an automaton at work, and at home tried to avoid Lou and Dylan as much as possible (both of whom wanted to know what had happened). I didn’t see the point of rehashing things and eventually lost it with them, telling them to mind their own business and that I would talk about it when I was ready.
I also kept my phone on silent and ignored all his calls. Tom rang me a few times after I left his house, but at the end of the weekend, when I still hadn’t returned any of his calls, he left a message saying, ‘Fine, Frankie, if this is how you want it then I won’tforceyou to talk to me. Wouldn’t want you to think I was a selfish brat or anything.’
Surprisingly his cold, angry words only made me feel numb, but then again I already had his parting shots about not really caring about me, and my not being worth it, on a repeat loop in my brain, so the heartbreak couldn’t actually get much worse.
‘Frankie?’ Ash called, pulling my mind out of the bleak thoughts and back to the colourless reality of my day. ‘Did you hear me?’
‘Oh, sorry, Ash,’ I said, focusing on him and grabbing my list. ‘What was that?’
He sighed and gave me another one of the concerned looks he’d been levelling at me all week.
‘Are you okay? I know I keep asking but you just –’
‘Fine, fine absolutely fine,’ I trilled with a – hopefully – convincing fake smile pasted on my face. Ash hadn’t been convinced by any of my fake smiles so far, and from his expression I didn’t seem to be fooling him this time either.
‘You know you can talk to me if you need –’
‘Ash, please,’ I said, cutting him off and pleading with my eyes. ‘Please leave it, okay?’
He sighed again, ‘ “There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.” ’
‘God, Ash, spare me the cryptic proverbs. I am not in the mood.’
‘Whatever has happened between you, Frankie, you should forgive him and move on.’
‘I’m trying to move on, Ash,’ I said through clenched teeth.
‘I mean move on together,’ he told me, and I looked at the ceiling, seeking patience.
‘Just please, please tell me what message Dr Williams gave you, so that I can get on with my job.’
He stared at me for a beat. ‘He asked that you go to supervise a couple of exercise tests this afternoon,’ he said when he realized I wasn’t going to give in.
‘God, finally. Thank you,’ I clipped, grabbing my list and making a hasty exit from CCU in order to avoid Tom.
‘Hey, boys,’ I called as I pushed through into the exercise test room. It was set up with a treadmill facing the cardiac monitor, which had leads to attach to the patient. Two cardiac physiologists, Rhys and Owain, were manning it today and they both offered me polite smiles. At least these guys didn’t know me well enough give me any crap about Tom.
The idea of an exercise test is that the patient walks on a treadmill for ten minutes with a heart monitor attached. The electrical trace from the heart will show if there are any areas of heart muscle that don’t get enough blood, and thus if there are any narrowed arteries. Most of these tests were conducted by the cardiac physiologists, but if a patient had a cardiac history one of the junior doctors had to come and stand in the room like a lemon in case the patient collapsed. Today I was the requisite lemon.
After I had waited a couple of minutes a porter arrived wheeling Mrs Jones (my oldNeighbours-loving bed-blocker). I was surprised to see her. Firstly, because she had been admitted with a heart attack, and her heart disease had already been extensively investigated. It had been decided that conservative management was the best approach, rendering further tests pointless. Secondly, and more importantly, the primary reason for her extended hospital stay was that she was ‘off legs’.
‘Off legs’ is a term used for elderly people whose mobility goes downhill leaving them unable to cope at home. Very often a crisis point is reached and they have to come into hospital. Sometimes the deterioration in mobility is because they have an infection or acute illness. More often than not it’s because they are simply getting weaker with age and chronic conditions. The aim when they come into hospital is to treat any acute illness, and for the physiotherapists to get them back on their feet.
