It is suddenly all too much for me, and I feel like I need to scream. To yell, to cry, to tear off this mask and suck in the oxygen that I feel starved of. To run from the smell of disinfectant and hospital food, the sound of the machines, the constant ringing of the phone. I need to escape before it all smothers me, before it ruins me and renders me useless.
It is a familiar feeling, one that I had every single day of my working life in hospital, and one that I know will overwhelm me if I don’t pay attention to its demands.
I fake the need for a coffee, politely extricate myself from the room, and dash to the lifts. My heart rate is rising, and my palms are clammy, and each inhale I try to take seems to choke me. I literally run for the automatic doors, hitting a wall of rain outside as I almost collide with a man wheeling a toddler in a buggy.
I hastily apologise, and keep moving, heading for a nearby bench. I sit down, ignoring the puddle that soaks my backside, and pull off my mask. I turn my face up to the sky, and let the raindrops splatter across my skin, hitting closed eyelids and rolling down my cheeks. They hide the tears that I feel joining them, that I know I’ve been storing up until I was alone. I grab hold of the bench I am sitting upon, grip it so hard I feel a fingernail break.
You are okay, I tell myself. You can do this. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this…except, I don’t think I can. I don’t think I can even let go of this bench, never mind go back inside.
My solitude doesn’t last nearly long enough. I hear someone approach, and glance up to see Jake. He looks alarmed, and whips off his rain jacket, tucking it around my shoulders. It is too kind a gesture for me right now, and I find myself hiding from his gaze. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to see the pain and the anger and defeat that I know will show in my eyes. It’s not fair to impose myself on him in this state. He won’t understand, and he shouldn’t have to try. I am not fit for public consumption.
“Are you okay?” he asks, crouching down so we are face-to-face. “Is Dan okay?”
The rain is lashing down, flattening his hair, running in rivulets across his forehead. I force myself to meet his eyes, to take it all in, to confront the man who not so long ago I thought I was falling in love with. Now, when I look at him, I am blinded by regret. I know it makes no sense at all, but I can’t separate him – us – from what has happened to Dan. And being here, in this place, has opened up so many wounds I fear I might bleed out. I thought I was strong enough to move on, to put my past behind me – but I was wrong.
Now, I just want him to leave – it is all too messy. Too complicated. Too hard. He will never understand, and I don’t have the reserves of emotional energy to even try to explain. I am alone in this, and that is the only way for me to be.
“Dan’s okay so far,” I say, seeing but not feeling his hands on my knees. “We’ll just have to wait and see. You’re getting very wet.”
He smiles gently, and replies: “That doesn’t matter. How are you, though, Ella? I know this must be hard for you…”
I move his hands away and stand up. “Yes. But not as hard as it is for Connie and Dan.”
He climbs to his feet, but keeps his distance. You can only push someone away so many times before they get the message.
“Why don’t you come home?” he asks. “Have a shower, get some sleep, something to eat. I can bring you back here in a few hours if you like.”
The thought of those things gives me a fleeting sense of calm. I imagine being warm and cosy, tucked up in Jake’s big bed, him beside me, allowing myself to relax in his arms.
The calm is only fleeting, though, because now, whenever I imagine myself there, I also imagine Connie, frantically calling me. The walkie unanswered in the other room. Dan, lying in his own bed as bacteria runs riot through his body. Me, failing them all.
“I don’t think I can,” I reply, my voice barely audible. “I should have been there for them, Jake. I should have been at home, not…”
“With me?” he finishes for me, obviously understanding my line of thinking even if he doesn’t like it.
I nod, feel rain drip from my nose as I do it. He sighs, and I see him clench his eyes shut for a moment as he gathers his thoughts.
“You’re allowed to be happy, Ella,” he says simply. “You’re allowed to have a life of your own.”
Not so long ago I would have agreed – now, I’m just not sure that statement is true.
I stare at him, and see a stranger. Everyone is a stranger, really.
“I’ve got to get back,” I answer, passing him his coat. “Be careful on the roads when you drive home.”
I walk away, staggering across sodden grass, passing beneath a blocked drain that gurgles with rainwater and cigarette butts. I pull off the fingernail that I broke, seeing blood rise from the torn skin, the vivid red quickly washed away in the downpour.
I stand outside the doors, and stare inside. I don’t want to go back in there. I don’t want to face it all again.
I close my eyes, force myself to imagine Dan’s face. Force myself to picture Connie, at his bedside. Force myself to walk through those doors.
ChapterThirty-One
The breakthrough comes on the following evening. Dan has been regularly monitored, tested, poked and prodded, and so much blood taken that it’s a miracle he has any left. I’ve also been sneakily doing my own checks, just to double up. Throughout it all, he’s been patchy – drifting in and out of consciousness, not making a lot of sense when he’s been awake, restless when he’s been asleep.
Connie and I are both slumped in our chairs when he comes to. The nurses found us one recliner, and we have been swapping in and out of it – I am currently in the uncomfortable plastic seat, and haven’t felt any sensation in my rear end for over an hour. I am trying to do one of Connie’s crossword puzzles while she snoozes, but finding it impossible to concentrate. The letters and the grid and the shades of black and white have all blurred in front of my tired eyes, swimming like monochrome alphabet soup.
I don’t even notice Dan is awake until he speaks in a croaky but lucid voice.
