Page 71 of For One Moment With You
Because right now, what’s going on feels like an accelerated processing of everything that’s happened to me. A kind of growing up that should have happened over the twenty-two years since marrying Gareth, years during which I’ve been going around with my eyes closed, that’s instead been condensed into a few days of wake-up calls.
Closing my eyes, I try to calm my breathing. Then I’m thinking of Adam, a sigh coming from me. Is it possible that even now, there’s still a chance for us?
Stupid Tilly, I berate myself. He saw you fall – he simply did what any decent person would have done.But you haven’t heard the rest of his story,I remind myself. Suddenly I can’t wait to hear the rest of it – when –if– he does come back.
* * *
It’s astonishing how much I’m sleeping at the moment. But sleep’s when the body repairs itself. The mind, too – and I’ve a lot that needs repairing right now. Not just physically. There are all these realisations I’m processing, those spidery little neurons regrowing, so that hopefully, in some way, I learn from this.
When I next wake up, it’s dark. Gazing towards the window, I can just about make out the stars twinkling; feeling a sudden pang.Oh, I’ve missed the stars.
Almost immediately, my eyes close and I drift off to sleep again, waking when a nurse comes back.
‘Tilly?’ she says quietly. ‘The doctor is here. He wishes to talk to you.’
I know from her face something’s wrong. ‘Why?’ My heart beats faster, the dratted bleeping machine trying to keep up.
‘He will tell you.’ She hesitates. ‘I will ask him to come to see you now.’
It isn’t a comfortable feeling at the best of times, lying in a hospital bed, reliant on other people. Especially when they know more than they’re letting on. A very long ten minutes passes before the nurse comes back with a man.
‘This is Doctor Elias, Tilly.’ She glances at him. ‘I will stay.’
His face is unreadable as he looks at me. ‘I have been looking at your scan results.’
I frown. ‘What scan?’
‘While you were unconscious, we carried out a scan of your brain. There was some indication of bleeding.’
I gasp out loud. ‘Bleeding? Why hasn’t anyone mentioned it before?’
‘Sometimes these things disappear untreated. But…’ He glances at the nurse. ‘In your case, we have concerns that it has not.’
I stare at them both. ‘Why?’
‘For one thing, your speech has become slurred,’ he says quietly. ‘We would not usually expect that – at this stage. Also, there is weakness in your left hand.’
There’s nothing wrong with my speech. Ask Alex, or Adam. ‘There is not,’ I say hastily. ‘I’ll show you.’ I raise my right hand with relative ease. But when it comes to my left, it takes superhuman effort to move my fingers.
‘This is why,’ the doctor says gravely, ‘we must carry out another scan. Just to be sure.’
I try to take in what he’s saying. ‘When?’ My words sound fine to me. My tongue feels thick, but after what I’ve been through, that’s to be expected. Isn’t it?
‘As soon as we can find someone to move you. You are lucky. It shouldn’t be too long.’
As I stare at him, suddenly there’s two of him. Then everything blurs, and I can feel fear like never before, the worst fear since all this started. A huge wave of it gathering momentum before rearing up and crashing over me.
‘Tilly? Can you open your eyes?’ The voice is distorted.
I try to open my eyes, to cry out,What’s happening to me?But my body won’t respond.
It’s like I’m taking a step back from my life as I consider that I really haven’t learned anything, have I? That’s what this is about. It’s another sign. I might be saying I’m not Tilly the hub, but underneath, I still am, still thinking about everyone else. Worrying about everyone else. Dwelling on the past, on my losses, mistakes, regrets, none of which I can change. Forgetting that in all this, there’s only one thing I have control over. And that’s myself.
All of this whizzes through my mind at warp speed – which means there can’t be too much wrong – as in that moment, I send a plea out to the Universe. Not God – like I’ve already said, I’m not religious.
I’ll stop worrying about other people – about my dad, about Rick, Gareth, my marriage… I’ll do anything. I have so much life left to live. Just please… show me how to get over this…
This time, the haziness is worse. No longer a place of in-between, it’s where fear resides, a dark, overpowering presence, as I realise there are no guarantees, no reasons why the Universe should listen to me. There’s no dressing it up. No spin to put on it. The truth is brutal; this last realisation one my entire life has been designed to avoid.
