Page 87 of The Worst Guy Ever
“I know, but I was really looking forward to breakfast, and you must have thought I’d stood you up, and I hate that I made you feel that way.”
His breath is erratic, he’s exhausted and I don’t know what to do except hold him tight, maybe the tightest I’ve ever held him. “It’s OK. I’m here, it’s OK.”
“I slept in a chair and I smell like shit,” he sobs into my shoulder and I reach up, stroking my fingers through his hair.
“Do you want to go home and take a shower? Maybe have a nap?”
“No, I can’t leave her on her own.”
“I’ll sit with her.”
“You have to work.”
“This is more important. Go and get your phone. I’ll call you when she wakes up.”
In the chair next to the hospital bed I take what feels like my first proper breath of the day. I feel guilty that my first instinct was to assume he’d stood me up. I’ve never seen him like this, so worried and upset about trying to get hold of me. He’s normally so calm and self-assured.
I text Kara to tell her Rob is OK, and that I’ll explain everything later and pass the time trying to review documents, but mostly listening in to other patients’ conversations. It’s impossible not to eavesdrop when the walls are nothing more than a strip of fabric.
“Who are you, then?” Rob’s mum croaks, trying to boost herself up to sitting, which is impossible with her arm in a sling.
“Um, hi,” I leap to her aid, helping her lean forward while I plump the pillows. “I’m Hattie, Rob’s friend. We met at Luke’s wedding.”
“Oh yes, the woman who slashed my boy across the face,” she says, completely deadpan.Oh shit.I didn’t know he’d told her about that.
“Let me call for a nurse. I’ll call Rob, he just nipped home to shower.”
“Oh no, no. Don’t make a fuss. I’m just winding you up,” she says, a warm smile on her face. “He sat in that chair all night, you know. I bet he smells revolting. Leave him be and you stay right here and let me figure out why my son’s so obsessed with you.”
Chapter 35
Rob
Despitebeingtoldtorest for at least a week, yesterday I found Mum in the garden, pulling up weeds. She’s never been very good at listening to advice, so I’ve decided to stay at her house, at least until she can use her arm again. Sheila does her best to help, but Mum tells her off, and she won’t get away with that attitude with me.
Being home for more than a few hours on a Sunday night unravels something inside me. I don’t know if it’s the clutter everywhere you look, Mum and Sheila existing solely on tea and toast, or that the bedroom of my youth remains untouched. If you didn’t know better, you’d be forgiven for thinking I’d died and Mum had preserved it as a shrine in my memory.
It’s a stark contrast, revisiting the life of a boy who left for university one day, now returning as the man those years turned me into.
Growing up, there was an expectation that Luke, the son of a surgeon, would go to university, and I, the fatherless child of a cleaner and her barmaid sister, would not. And yet the roles were reversed early on. Luke worked in his grandparents’ pub before it was even legal, and quickly climbed the ranks in the kitchen. Science was my comfort zone, and once I got the grades to study psychology, there was no looking back. In all that time away, I came back for holidays, but always had a foot half out the door ready to leave again. A permanent position at Branchmore hospital was a stroke of luck. Close enough to Mum and Sheila to visit, not so close that moving back in made much sense.
I haven’t spent a night here in years, which means I’m very much feeling like I don’t belong here.
I belong inmyhome. I want to be in my kitchen after picking Hattie up from the station. I want to be cooking her dinner, listening to her vent about her day, before taking her to bed and holding her until the morning. Mum’s fall, plus a hectic work schedule, means I haven’t seen her all week. There’s nothing to do here except poke around the shrine.
Walls plastered in faded posters of semi-naked models and indie bands whose hits are long-forgotten. A shelf of dog-eared novels I barely remember reading. A wardrobe of oversized t-shirts and baggy jeans I can’t believe I ever wore. In the bedside drawer, I find a stash of letters and notes written by various girls throughout my school years. Flipping through, I feel terrible realising I can’t remember half of them, either.
I’m about to throw them in the bin but one near the bottom of the pile catches my eye, the cursive handwriting summoning a memory of golden hair, one gangly arm around my shoulder, a pure laugh filling my ears.
My Dearest Roberto,
How had I forgotten her nickname for me?
I have a worry and I need to get it off my chest. I’m worried you’ll stop being my friend now that Luke and I are officially boyfriend and girlfriend. AND I’m worried you might be worried about it too.
I know it’s always been the three of us, and that us two getting together might be a bit of a shock.
Their relationship was about as shocking as the sun setting and coming up again the next morning.
