The Cockney Canuck - 67. Chapter 67 Crying for Robbie

I was having difficulty distinguishing my dreams from reality. It should have been simple; the dreams were loud, chaotic and repetitive, but when I was awake, it was generally peaceful, dreamy and dark. It was almost a reversal of the normal pattern; my brain seemed to rest when I was awake and go into overdrive when I was asleep. That was how it seemed, but there were inconsistencies in my theory which later had me questioning whether I was awake at all, or if the whole episode was just one big confusing dream.

I would often find myself in deep discussion with the same person and although it always seemed to be very important, I could never remember what it was about. At times there would be two, three, or four people talking at the same time, their voices overlapping, making it difficult to understand and impossible to block out. I was unable to get any rest and whenever I went back to sleep, I would re-join the same head-splitting dream as if I had never left.

My only respite was the occasional flashback. They were abstract memories from the past which I rarely if ever thought about in real life. Yet somehow, these random clips had managed to survive the turmoil in my brain, seemingly at the expense of more important information like the names of the people who were visiting me.

I remember hearing Lorna introducing them. “Your sister Nicola is here to see you, Robbie,” she said, and Sue used the same technique, always repeating her name and then mine. It enabled me to attach tags to voices and recognise who was in the room, but it didn’t always make sense because there were people who shouldn’t have been there at all. Like Mr Jenkins, the head teacher from my school in England, and that interfering social worker. I couldn’t figure out why they were visiting me in Canada, or how they even found out that I was in the hospital.

Contrary to what others have said, I wasn’t stuck in a lifeless body and I never felt detached. In fact, I had some feeling in my arms and legs and was able to move them around the bed to a certain extent on my own. At some stage, small vibrations became firm touches as the feeling returned in full to my limbs and I was able to feel a cold facecloth against my skin as Lorna washed me. All the time, the drip in my arm ensured that there was no hint of pain.

* * * * *

Soon after arriving at the hospital on the day of my accident, Don and Sue had faced a parental nightmare, which they could never have envisioned having to endure. They had been expecting to see a bruised and battered teenager, moaning at them to be allowed home, but nothing more serious. When they arrived, however, I had already been moved into intensive care, and they were met by a sobbing Nicola. A scan had revealed damage to the temporal lobe on the right side of my head and unless they were able to relieve the swelling, this would either prove fatal or cause permanent brain damage. To save my life, the doctors had acted quickly and decided to administer a drug induced coma through a drip in my arm. It was a risky procedure and one that they only ever used as a last resort when all other options had failed. Deliberately putting me into a state of prolonged unconsciousness, would protect my brain from swelling by reducing the cerebral blood flow, but there would almost certainly be side effects and the risks were made clear to Don and Sue. It was far from certain how successful this would be, and the longer I was in a coma, the less chance I had of making a recovery without serious brain damage. There was little that anybody could do other than wait, while I fell into a deep drug induced sleep.

It was a difficult time for my family, who watched from the sidelines as my vital functions were monitored and maintained by machines designed to keep my body alive while my brain was in partial shut-down.

The arrival at the hospital of a distraught looking Nathan must have confused Don and Sue, but they had known him for a long time and he was a considered a friend of the family. He sister Karen had driven him there after Nicola had called him on my phone, but he wasn’t allowed into the intensive care unit because of their ‘family only’ rule. The hospital wanted to keep visitors in this small, high-tech area to a minimum, and I suppose, it was understandable. Administrators saw no reason to make an exception, but Nathan considered himself as more than just a school friend and his case was taken up by a newly enlightened Nicola. She would have understood his importance to me more than the others and took her argument straight to the director of operations.

Even in my precarious predicament I wouldn’t have wanted to swap shoes with that guy had he refused to accommodate a blood-soaked and highly emotional Nicola, and it wasn’t long before Nathan was allowed in to see me.

While the battle for life raged inside my head, there wasn’t much to look at on the outside, but Nathan told me later that he was heartbroken when he saw me asleep with Sue sitting beside the bed holding my hand. He didn’t stay for long, there was little point, and afterwards, Nicola took him upstairs to the cafeteria where Karen was waiting. They sat together and talked over coffee, and an unlikely friendship was born, which I could never have foreseen. Karen had never met Nicola and they shared little of the same personality traits, but adversity conquers all, and Nicola may for once, have found herself outgunned by the slightly older, more experienced, and very likeable Karen.

According to Nathan, listening to the two of them trying to out talk each other was also a near-death experience, and there was a repeat performance when Nicola invited Karen in for coffee after Nathan’s sister had dropped her home. For Nathan, it was an opportunity to talk to his friend Daniel and pass on news of my injuries. I’m not sure if they discussed anything else, but if Daniel had been angry with me before the accident then it was soon replaced by concern after learning of the serious nature of my injuries.

It was a late night at the Taylor household, and apparently, the only one who kept to her schedule the following day was Amy. Nicola and Daniel were allowed to take the day off, and Don cancelled his appointments to stay with them and then go back to the hospital, where Sue was already working her shift in rehab.

In England, it was called a busman’s holiday. When a bus driver, for example, would take a day off work, so that he could drive another bus carrying friends and family to the seaside. It was the same for Sue during my hospitalisation. She would finish her shift in the rehab department and then head straight to the intensive care unit to help look after me in her free time. There was little for her to do, but to her credit, I was told that she was there by my side almost every day. Reading, doing crosswords, knitting, whatever she did to keep herself occupied, until I was out of danger she rarely left the confines of the hospital.

The only person who was able to match her attendance record was my ever dependable boyfriend. ‘Cream rises to the top’, was another of my mom’s favourite sayings and this boy was drowning in it. He was already a popular and likeable character, but his loyalty and the way he handled himself during that difficult period won him a lot of new admirers, including Nicola.

Later that week, my nemesis turned protector, went in search of the asshole Jake armed with her sassy, but scary best friend Naomi. They were hoping to extract a confession but were fortunate to escape serious punishment following a confrontation with him in the school car park. Nicola had allegedly threatened to cut her ex-boyfriend’s balls off and shove them down his throat and unsurprisingly he took umbrage to this, pushing her out of the way. It led to a scuffle and a black eye for her latest acquisition in the boyfriend stakes. I had never met Jimmy, and for a while, it wasn’t certain that I ever would, but he had been dating Nicola for nearly a month, so it was fair to assume that he was either a glutton for punishment or had some kind of death wish.

Nicola, Jimmy and her raucous friend Naomi, were all suspended for the final two days of school before the summer break, but for Jake, it was an ignominious end to his high school days, and the start of a full-time career on the scrap heap.

There was no evidence to suggest that Jake was the mystery guy who ran into me and pushed me down the stairs. The CCTV footage was enough for the police to launch an investigation, but the images were inconclusive. There were supposedly three witnesses, but none of them was able to recognise or give an accurate description of the guy, who had carried on running and escaped the scene, while everyone else was looking at me.

Rory began hearing rumours of an accident after arriving in homeroom the next day. The adjacent stairs were sealed off and the police were there. He told me later that he had started to worry when he noticed my usual desk behind him was vacant, but it wasn’t until the following day that an official announcement from the school confirmed what by that time was common knowledge. There was a constant trickle of updates from the hospital, and the school issued the usual appeals for information or witnesses, but there was no response and only three days remaining until the summer break.

At the time there was no guarantee that I would even make it to the summer break, but I guess I wasn’t ready to let go so soon.

I was lucky.

The decision to induce a coma proved to be the right one. The swelling slowed, averting serious damage and further trauma to my brain, and I survived.

The news from the hospital though had been tempered with caution, and warnings from the doctors of possible lasting brain damage, but those who really cared, also believed and none more so than Nathan.

I liked him because he would talk to me, and not about me or around me, like many of the others, and he never stopped. He would ask me questions and leave gaps for me to answer, and then tell me everything that he had done that day and everything that we were going to do together when I was better. Often he would sing, and sometimes even tell me jokes, but he was never silent.

Lorna told me that was my best friend, but when we were alone he told me something different and I liked what I heard. I may have even made medical history by being the first coma patient to blush, at least he seemed to think so. It was obvious to the nurses that he put his heart and soul into every word that he spoke, but it must have been difficult, and there were a few times when his emotions got the better of him. When he cried, I cried too, and even though my tears were on the inside they felt real enough to me. I listened to him fighting them back, and trying to compose himself, worried that hearing him sob would make me sad. Whatever was in that clear liquid they were feeding me, made it difficult to feel any true sadness, but Nathan’s visits would have tested it to the limit.

There was a lot that didn’t make sense as my dreams would become inextricably entwined with reality, but some of what I remember hearing was later verified by either Lorna, Nathan or Sue. It was proof that even in an unconscious state I was able to hear and memorise certain conversations, even if I couldn’t understand them at the time and would forget them later. It brought a chilling sense of reality to something that could have so easily passed as fantasy.

Most of what I was able to recall came from Nathan’s mouth. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that it was his voice that I responded to first when they stopped feeding me the anaesthetic. I was told that I was awake briefly for ten minutes on the first day when he was there, and later that night for fifteen. The next morning, I was conscious for twenty minutes when Sue was with me and I was able to sit up and take a drink. It was a slow, painful and confusing recovery, not an instant awakening, and those first few days were a lot worse than the time that I had spent in a coma. As my feelings fully returned, so inevitably did the pain, and this time I no longer had the benefit of the bottled happy juice dripping into my bloodstream.

It was the following day before I was able to think clearly enough to communicate and Lorna was the first person that I was able to talk to. I was frightened and disorientated but she was able to calm me down and sit with me to explain what had happened. She told me that Nathan would be visiting, but at the time I knew him only from my sub-conscious.

When he arrived I was sitting up in bed with Lorna, blinking and trying to focus. I knew it was him, but I waited until his face lit up, before smiling and the change was instantaneous. He looked as if he was about to wet himself with excitement as his mouth dropped open in surprise and turned into the widest smile that I had ever seen. I stared at his face trying hard to drag something from my memory that would enable me to feel close to this gorgeous boy, and I was able to picture him at school and at our house with Daniel. It was still vague, but it was real and something to build on.

‘How was it possible for me to forget that face?’

When I opened my mouth to talk, nothing came out, and my heart jumped in a panic thinking that I was back in my coma. I didn’t want it to be a dream.

“You look a lot better,” he said finally and his delicate voice made me shiver.

“Thank you,” I mumbled. It wasn’t meant as a reply to his compliment, but to express my gratitude for being with me while I was asleep. I wanted him to know that I could hear him. But my throat was sore, and I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to talk.

It was his eyes that fascinated me the most, and I watched them tear up as he walked towards me. He was laughing as he sat on the bed, then he cried some more, before laughing again. I was wishing he would stick to one or the other, but both at the same time was confusing for a kid coming from a coma. The tears won, and he rested his head on my shoulder and cried like a baby. If Lorna hadn’t already figured out my connection with Nathan by that time, then she would have had a pretty good clue after watching him balling over me, and then planting wet teary kisses all over my face. When he finally composed himself, I was in a bigger mess than he was, and I could feel his tears trickling down my chest and back. It made me smile: I liked the sensation, I liked everything about this boy, and I wanted to get to know him a lot better.

“I swear if you ever fall down the stairs again, I’ll kill you,” he said, wiping his face and sniffing. “You had me so worried, I prayed for you Robbie and I’m an atheist.”

“I know…I heard…you praying.”

“Oh my God,” he said turning to Lorna. “He heard me, I knew he could hear me, I told them didn’t I?”

Lorna nodded her head in agreement, but then had to ask him to calm down a little after he got himself all excited, bounced on the bed, and very nearly pulled the tubes from my nose. I hadn’t really noticed them until then, and I put my hand up to my face to try to brush them off. Nathan gave Lorna a cute look of apology, as she reached over and made some adjustments to something that I didn’t really want invading my nose.

“He’s still not properly awake,” she said as she held my hand against the bed to stop me from pulling at the irritating tubes that I had decided to remove.

It was difficult for me to fully grasp what was happening or to keep check of my emotions, and Nathan was confusing me even more with a display of affection that I wasn’t prepared for.

“Can I give him a hug?” he asked.

“Just be careful,” said Lorna, “he’s a bit fragile at the moment.”

Normally I would have considered that an insult, but fragile was exactly how I felt as Nathan, carefully threaded his arms around me for a gentle hug and pat on the back.

“It’s okay Robbie,” he said. “It’s over now…it’s over…I’m so glad you came back.”

I liked it when he whispered in my ear and I knew that it meant something to me. I struggled with the thought, trying to prise it from my barely healed mind, but like something on the tip of your tongue, I just couldn’t bring this memory back to life. It was frustrating, but there was no way of explaining it to him. He obviously knew me so well and I wanted to know him too and be able to remember him before he was just a cute voice in my head.

“What’s wrong,” he said as I stared into his blue eyes.

“Nothing, I was just daydreaming…I think.”

“Was you awake the whole time when people were here?”

“No, not all the time…some of the time, I think.”

“But you can remember me talking to you?”

“Yes.” I coughed. “Bits…you didn’t stop.” I smiled, but I was still finding it difficult to talk and Lorna had to point this out.

“I love you, Robbie.”

I glanced over towards Lorna who had turned away to give us some privacy, I thought that maybe she was embarrassed, but she was upset and I thought I saw her crying too.

‘Is everyone crying for me’?

“I…love you too Nathan.” My words were rushed; they didn’t carry the same meaning as his and they weren’t nearly as sincere, but it was the best that I could do at the time and I think that he understood. Nathan was incredibly cute and I could see why I liked him, but I wasn’t sure if I loved him. I was hoping that it would come to me later.

‘How can I tell him that I still don’t remember much about him’?

I was definitely attracted to him, and even when he was crying I could see that he was special. He smelled good, and when he kissed my lips he tasted good. If I had to get to know him all over again then I was prepared to do it.

“You’re gonna be okay Robbie.” He wiped his face with his sleeve as more tears rolled down his cheeks before hugging me again. I wanted to hold him too, but I was scared in case we got into some kind of knot with all the tubes.

“I heard you talking to me,” I said. “I can remember what you said.”

“I knew that you could. I really knew it…even though you looked…dead.”

“I wasn’t dead,” I said.

“Do you want me to let go now?” he whispered after a while.

“No.”

“Good because I’m not going to.”

“Nathan?”

“What.”

“You’re a terrible singer.” It made him laugh, his voice wasn’t all that bad considering I had only heard him singing when I was in a coma.

“Do you remember the song?” I shook my head, it was distant and becoming more so. Soon, I would forget everything that was said in my dreams. That didn’t worry me, I was only concerned with what had happened before, as I tried to remember if we had ever done anything more than kissing. The mischievous grin on his face told me definitely yes.

* * * * *

The next time I woke up I was alone and fully conscious. I was able to sit up without any dizziness and look around the room, and when I did this, I realised for the first time that I wasn’t at home. It may seem odd, but when I was in a coma, I always pictured myself lying in my own bed at home even though I knew that I was in the hospital. I suppose I couldn’t really picture a room that I had never seen before.

It looked more like one of the computer labs at school, small, bright, and sanitised, but soulless. There were machines and monitors around the bed, quietly going about their business with a gentle hum and occasional beep. I was attached to most of these machines through drips and tubes that followed me as I moved about the bed. There were tubes still up my nose, helping me breathe, and when I lifted the bed sheet I was horrified to see one coming from my dick. I screwed up my face and gently put the sheet back down. I was better off not knowing; I hadn’t noticed it up until then, and I wondered how it could have escaped my attention.

I shuddered at the thought of how many days I had spent in this room, now I wanted up and out!

‘How long have I been here for’?

It was impossible for me to tell, but for whatever reason, I was thinking perhaps a month or possibly two. It felt even longer than that, but anything further back than yesterday was unreliable and had no time value whatsoever.

‘I remember Nathan talking about an end of term show, but was that real or just another dream. That would make it next year. Is this next year? I don’t feel any older’.

I panicked and looked down at my hand, turning it in front of my eyes as if looking for some sign of ageing. It was a weird feeling and a scary one as I contemplated the possibility of losing a year of my young life, in the bat of an eyelid, without a single memory other than those muddled dreams.

With half of silicone valley scattered around my bed, I was sure that I wouldn’t have been able to pass wind without it being recorded, and I wondered how come my mini anxiety attack hadn’t registered with any of the nurses. When I lifted my other hand though, I knew what the little clamp on my index finger was for, and I pulled it off and waited for the nurse to arrive.

“There are other ways to get my attention,” she said pointing to the panic button above my head, which I hadn’t noticed.

“What year is it?”

She gave me a curious look. “Do you not know?”

‘What a fucking stupid question, where’s Lorna’?

“No,” I said, “that’s why I’m asking. I wanna know how long I’ve been here for?”

She smiled, but that wasn’t what I wanted and I stared back at her.

“Let me see…you’ve been here for….” I watched in horror as she began counting her fingers. “Three, four and a half, no five and a half….”

‘Weeks, months…YEARS’!

“Days,” she said, “you came in on Monday and today’s Sunday. How long did you think?”

“Oh, about a week,” I said as I lie back down sweating.

‘She’s in the wrong job, she would make a good game show host’!

She smiled at me. “For most people, it seems a lot longer.” It made me wonder just how many people go into comas every year in that hospital, and how many of them come out, or die where I was lying?

I had been in a medically induced coma for only three days, but it had taken a further two and a half to fully regain consciousness. Barely a week had passed, but it seemed like so much had happened during that time, it was scarcely believable. Before she told me, if I had been given the option I would have gladly settled for two months!

I would have to remain in the hospital for at least another week and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to that, but I had done well; most people apparently take a lot longer. It could have been, and maybe even should have been, a lot worse.

* * * * *

I didn’t want to see anyone, but they came anyway. They were there as soon as they heard I was conscious and talking. I was able to recognise my family now and remember the early days very clearly, but still nothing from the past couple of months.

“I brought you in a radio,” said Daniel and he set it up next to my bed. “You can listen to the soccer game later.”

“What soccer game?”

“England are playing Germany in the World Cup,” he said.

I had no recollection of the World Cup or watching any of the other the games in the tournament and was surprised by Daniel’s sudden interest and knowledge of a sport that I knew he thought was for girls.

“I would prefer to watch it on TV,” I said and that was when they dropped the bombshell.

“Robbie,” said Don, “I know you’re not gonna like this, but you’re not gonna be allowed to watch television for a while.” I pulled a disgusted expression.

“And no computers either,” added Sue.

“Or cell phones,” said Nicola. I followed their faces one by one as they spoke, and moved to Daniel expecting to hear something else that I couldn’t do, but he had nothing to add.

“What can I bloody do?” I folded my arms and stared into space grim-faced as Nicola sniggered.

“It’s not for long, there are other things,” said Sue.

“Yeah right…like what?”

“We’ll think of something to keep you amused,” said Don.

“School’s finished now,” said Daniel. “I brought you in some cards.”

‘I wonder if they’ll let Nathan come over to keep me company? Have they even met him? Yes, of course, he’s Daniel’s friend, they must know him, but do they know that he likes me’?

It was my first lucid day and there was a lot of questions that needed answering.

“There you go,” said Don, “It’ll take you a day to read all of those messages.”

I gave Don a blank look. I wasn’t even listening to him. “Sorry?”

It gave him the excuse to leave that he had been looking for. “It’s okay Robbie, you probably need to get some more rest,” he said.

‘In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been asleep for nearly a whole week’.

They didn’t look as if they really wanted to be spending their Sunday in the hospital—I knew I wouldn’t have—and now that it no longer looked as if I was going to die, my celebrity value had quickly faded. I could see Nicola glancing at her watch and Amy gave the game away when she told me that they were going to stop off at the Dairy Queen on the way home. It was my favourite, and I wasn’t happy at having to miss out on something else.

I spent the afternoon listening to the radio commentary of England being eliminated from the World Cup at the hands of their arch-rivals Germany. It was nothing new, but I wasn’t as bothered as I might have been in previous years. At the end though, there was one comment that amused me from one of the pundits; something silly, but I found it funny.

“It’s been a very forgettable tournament for England,” he said.

“Yeah, for me too!”

I laughed at my own joke and switched the station over to listen to the baseball but the Blue Jays were also on the wrong end of a thrashing, so I turned it off altogether and reached for my dick.

It was a habit I suppose or an instinctive reaction for a teenage boy stuck in bed but not tired, and with no television, internet, or mobile phone to fiddle with. The only toy I had left was the one between my legs and after days of neglect, I was curious to see if still worked.

‘I hope I haven’t forgotten how to do this’.

One of the joys of regaining my memory was the gradual recollection of my brief but eventful sex life. I could remember Tom and everything that we did almost as if it were yesterday, and Fran also, although her name still escaped me. There was someone else, a boy, whose face was familiar in my mind but not his name, but as yet there was nothing about Nathan.

‘Maybe we haven’t done anything like that’?

I would have been cool with that; in fact, I would have preferred it. I could think of nothing worse than having sex with someone as gorgeous as Nathan and then not being able to remember it, so until I had evidence of the contrary, I decided to assume that we had no knowledge of each other in that department and then wait and see.

The return of my libido, however, proved to be a double-edged sword. The enormous relief that I felt at the sight of my first boner in over a week was tempered by the unsightly tube inserted into the top of it.

“It’s for your pee,” said Lorna. I dropped the sheet quickly after hearing her voice and placed my hands on the top of my crotch to hide any tell-tale signs of an erection.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. I had noticed earlier that day and then forgotten. “I think I can get up and go myself now.”

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“It doesn’t really hurt but.”

“Have you had an erection yet?”

“Sorry?” She was getting a little too familiar for my liking.

She laughed, but she was being serious. “It’s okay Robbie, you don’t have to be embarrassed, that would be a good thing, it’s another sign that your body’s recovering. I think we can remove the tube now though.”

It was enough to lure me into an embarrassing confession, but I wasn’t too happy when she told me that she would remove it herself. Lorna had washed me, bandaged my wounds, cleaned my ass, and even held my dick as I peed into a bottle, so there was little point in being shy around her at that point. I did, however, make her wait a couple of minutes before unveiling my work of art.

“I’m not ready yet,” I said and smiled at her before thinking of Miss Pringle. I think that even Lorna understood the problem.

‘How is it, I can remember Miss bloody Pringle, but not my boyfriend’?

* * * * *

The next day, I was moved from intensive care and taken upstairs to share a room with two boys who were much younger than me. One looked as if he had been in a big accident and had a leg in plaster and both arms bandaged. The other boy had an oxygen mask on for almost the whole time I was there and looked pale and drawn. I felt sorry for him; it didn’t look as if he was going to get better anytime soon.

It was more comfortable than the intensive care unit, and a lot more relaxed, but everything comes at a price and during the day I had to attend rehab where I was placed under the supervision of Nurse Sue.

“I can walk!” I said. “You don’t know how good it feels to get my legs back.” I had just taken my first tentative steps around the ward after Sue had helped me out of bed.

“You’ve been in bed for a week Robbie,” she said rolling her eyes. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. Daniel could easily do that if I let him.”

“Okay, so what’s next, I’m bored already.”

“Just concentrate on walking for today, it’ll get your muscles working again.” I wasn’t happy and gave her a disapproving look.

“There’s nothing wrong with my muscles, they’re working just fine,” I said. “And I can walk around all day when I get home.” She wasn’t convinced. “Please…I’ve had enough of this place.”

I knew that it wouldn’t be her decision, but she would have a say as to whether or not I was fit enough to leave. Seven days in bed wasn’t long enough to cause me any problems, and most of my superficial wounds had healed, so the rehab was really just a formality and a way of passing the time.

When Sue went home Nathan would arrive. He visited me every day at the same time, and I was getting used to seeing his happy face, although sharing a room made it impossible for him to get really close. He would give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, but I would have liked a little more.

That day he brought a friend with him. Rory had apparently been wandering around for ages searching for my room, before bumping into Nathan. I knew who he was, but his name unsurprisingly had vanished from my mind along with all of my recent memories of him. He was a boy from my homeroom who I shared some classes with, but we weren’t close friends, and I couldn’t understand why he was visiting me. It started to make sense when he began talking about the games that we had watched at his house, but all I could offer him was a blank look. Nathan had to explain; he could say it better than I could.

“What’s wrong with the kid in the corner?” whispered Nathan and I shrugged my shoulders. I knew his name was Jamie, but nothing more. He always looked sad and for that reason alone, I tried not to look at him.

“He doesn’t look well,” added Rory.

“Maybe that’s why he’s here,” I said.

Nathan laughed and shook his head at Rory. “You guys should swap places.” It sounded good to me. I was desperate to get out of that place. “Doesn’t he get any visitors?” asked Nathan. “He was on his own last night too.”

“I’ve never seen anyone,” I said.

“Not even his parents?” said Rory.

“Not everyone has parents….” I had forgotten his name again, and Nathan had to add it on the end of my sentence for me, but Rory got the message.

“Sorry,” he said, “I forgot, but you’ve got Don and Sue. He must have someone who looks after him, he can’t be any older than ten?”

I didn’t know and even though I felt sorry for the kid, I wasn’t able to spare him much sympathy. I had been through a bad experience myself, and I was only just starting to feel normal again. I wanted to spend time with the Nathan, not in a room with sick kids. Maybe it was wrong of me to think that way, but it was self-preservation, and that poor kid didn’t look as if he had much of a future. Charity starts at home.

Not everyone thinks that way though, and Rory showed a quality that I lacked when he walked over and started talking with this kid. I had been trying to reacquaint myself with my boyfriend at the time and I was pleased for the chance of a little alone time. Half-an-hour must have passed, and all that time Rory was still talking to this kid, who was sitting up and actually laughed a little. Nathan, noticing that I had stopped listening, turned around to see what had grabbed my attention.

“That’s pretty cool, don’t you think?” I said.

“Yeah, it’s nice of that kid to cheer Rory up like that.”

I had to work that one out; my brain was still running at half speed, but it was Rory’s actions that provided the biggest test. He surprised me; he didn’t seem the type who would walk up to a complete stranger and strike up a conversation. Yet he was able to do it with this kid, and even make him laugh. I admired him because he didn’t need to do that. Rory had everything going for him; he was good-looking, smart, his parents were well-off and above all, he was healthy. Jamie looked so obviously short-changed in comparison to the golden-haired boy from school, and it didn’t make much sense. He had overcome his natural shyness so that he could befriend this kid and cheer him up, and that played on my mind long after my friends had gone home, and long after the lights went out.

That night when it was quiet, I could hear this kid breathing beneath his mask, he always sounded chesty and weak, but earlier he had seemed a little happier than usual and I wondered if my new friend had been responsible.

‘I like Rory, he’s a good kid and I wanna be more like him…I think he might be gay too’.

* * * * *

On Wednesday, I was examined in my bed by the neurologist. He was concerned about my memory loss but otherwise very pleased with my overall recovery. He told me that I would have to rest for at least another two weeks, but there was no longer any need to keep me in the hospital, and I couldn’t have agreed more. I would have to return regularly as an outpatient for tests and to work on my memory, but none of that really mattered to me at the time, I just wanted to get home for the long weekend, which started tomorrow.

I thanked him as he shook my hand. Then as he walked away, he stopped and turned to leave me with a final chilling reminder of how different it could have been.

“You were very lucky, young man,” he said, “You came within a whisker.”

In England, I had been brought up with the metric system, so I had no idea what a whisker was, but it sounded very small and I got the point.