Two minutes and ten seconds to go. Levi wiped his mouth of Bad Boy sauce, reached over for his laptop and booted it up. That way he’d be ready to send over the file of info he’d collated when he went back into work. Once he’d given Honey a brief rundown, he’d leave her to look through it herself, and then they could talk about other stuff.
He had so many questions to ask and wanted to know everything there was to know about her. Levi picked up his phone, seven seconds and… it rang… it was her… she rang him… it was a sign. He jabbed accept.
‘Hi, I was just about to ring but you beat me to it.’
Honey laughed. ‘You snooze you lose, mate. So, are you going to whizz this info over to me? I’m ready and waiting. Do you want my email?’
Levi was prepped and ready to go.
Half an hour later, they were done with the business part of their call or so Levi thought, but Honey had one more question.
‘So I can definitely use my profits to support my favourite charities because Ziggy’s… well, I call it Ziggy’s, but you know what I mean, and then the donkeys. Both are really special to me.’
Levi was nodding even though she couldn’t see him, which was when a thought occurred. ‘Yep, it’s all good and you know what I’ve just realised, we should’ve Facetimed. I could swap to my laptop. You don’t have to if you don’t want… it’s just an idea and I warn you, I’m in my Hogwarts pyjamas.’
‘You are not! I don’t believe you.’
‘Try me!’
And she did.
After Honey had booted up and connected, and their faces appeared on their respective laptop screens, she pointed out a stray noodle that was stuck to his chin and complemented him on his very fetching wizard tee-shirt and tartan lounge pants, Levi moved the conversation on.
Honey was eating a bag of crisps, noisily, but he didn’t mind. At least she hadn’t seen him slurp his pot noodle. ‘What have you got planned this week, apart from work? I’m stuck in the city until Friday, training and meetings which will besoboring.’
And there it was again, a faint flash of worry then it was gone.
‘The same old. I’ve got Ziggy coming for tea tomorrow night, just whatever is left over from the café, but it’ll be nice to see her. She’s a right busy bee. I swear she never stops for a minute. She says it’s because she’s powered by insulin, and I do wonder if that’s true.’
Levi had taken to Honey’s best friend the moment he met her, which reminded him. ‘You were going to tell me what happened when she was at school, remember, last week. But she came and joined us, so you didn’t finish. I’ve been thinking about what you told me a lot, especially while I’ve been at work. I want to understand more in case I ever come across anyone with the same condition.’
Thankfully, Honey had stopped munching so answered with a question. ‘Oh yes, where did I get up to?’
Levi smiled. Her head was constantly all over the place. Not quite scatty but close. He found it endearing, though, part of her personality. ‘You said that being diagnosed with Type 1 made her the odd one out and that it wasn’t plain sailing and she had blips along the way.’
‘Yes, I remember now. Do you fancy a brew? I mean I can’t make you one, but we could both get a cuppa and meet back here… won’t take long. I wish I’d put my jamas on now!’
He knew there was no point in resisting and that there was every chance she’d come back to the screen in her jamas, and there’d be more snacks.
He was right.
When she returned with a ‘ta-da’ and was dressed in her old-fashioned button shirt pyjamas and carrying a tray loaded with enough snacks to feed customers on one side of her café, Levi settled back into his sofa, hopefully far enough away from his laptop speaker to avoid the crunching, munching and wrapper crackling.
Honey, once settled cross legged on her sofa, got straight back into her story. ‘Right, where were we…? Well, to start, it was baby steps I suppose, for Ziggy and her family and even her close friends who rallied round. She missed the end of term, but when we went back in September the real problems started. Kids can be so cruel and at our school there were some monsters.’
‘Oh no, what happened?’ Levi wasn’t sure he wanted to hear but the words just came out.
‘Well, at lunchtime and breaks, Ziggy would go and inject her insulin in a welfare room, but it didn’t prevent some kids calling her nasty names. Like junkie, and diabetes girl, and then some went one step further and said she was disgusting, she made them sick, and they hoped she’d get cancer and die.’
‘Seriously… they were that cruel? That’s awful.’ Levi had been a recipient of school banter, but this was another level.
‘Yes, they were that cruel and it was an awful time especially when she was getting used to her new way of life. It was like everything was conspiring against her. Even the weather – because extreme heat or cold would send her glucose up or down, hormones took their toll, too. Then she decided not to eat, because that way she didn’t have to inject. Honestly it was a tough time until we had a breakthrough.’
Levi felt instantly relieved, knowing that there was some light in the tunnel for Ziggy, a girl he’d weirdly started to care about, and others like her.
‘What happened?’
‘She was offered counselling by the diabetic team at the hospital who were brilliant. They suggested Ziggy joined a forum specially for teenagers, on Diabetes UK. She wasn’t keen at first but with a little encouragement, she did, and it helped her so much. Talking to other youngsters who were in the same boat, seeing how they were coping and taking inspiration and comfort from people who were making a huge success of their lives gave Ziggy hope.’
