My blood drops into my toes and I heave in a breath.
“I have to sit down.” I stumble to one of the chairs, looking out the window across the hospital grounds where the day is bright and fog doesn’t exist. Tensing my muscles, I fight the urge to pass out against the grey in my mind. I told him I wasn’t weak and feeble, but look at what I am now. Tears push behind my eyes; more weakness. This was never me; now my body and mind won’t let me be who I was.
Finn leans against the bench, mug in hand. “Who’s Jamie?”
I stare up at him. “Most people would say sorry and change the subject.”
“Sorry. Who’s Jamie?”
“Halfway there,” I mutter.
Finn moves to the chair next to me. “Maybe you need to talk about some stuff. If you’ve got memories trapped inside they could be what’s making you faint.”
“Right.”
The dizziness increases the more he talks about this, so I lean forward and study my shoes, ignoring him.
“I’m here to help you,” he says quietly.
I snap my head up at his words, frowning at him. “What the hell does that mean?”
He moves his hand as if he’s about to put it on mine, and then balls his fingers and places them on his knee. “I meant, I want to help you.”
Finn’s pager beeps and he instantly pulls it from his pocket. He bites down on his lip and glances toward the door. I don’t know if I should be thankful this interrupts our weird and intense conversation or whether to be freaked out by what it means. Something’s wrong on the ward.
Finn gently places the cup on the low table in front of us. “I won’t be long.” He leaves the room.
I rub my cheek, amazed by the calm of his demeanour when I can hear others rushing down the corridor. I place my hands over my ears and close my eyes, trying to block out all my senses. This is not good. I should leave, but I can’t. I’m pulled in by the car crash mentality; the need to see what’s happening that everyone secretly has in these situations.
Standing in the doorway, I watch as two nurses talk in urgent voices then run toward a patient’s room. The horror of what is happening is overtaken by the curiosity. The corridor is quiet now and the nurses’ station vacant, so I head in the direction they went, toward the room with the lowest voices. I close my eyes, take a breath and peer around the corner. Two nurses administer care to the patient, one injecting something into an IV. I swallow, remembering the needles in my arm. They murmur to each other in hurried tones.
Finn was in this room earlier.
“Rose!” I tense. Caught in the act. Finn stands behind me, holding a dish with vials, ready to take into the room.
I stumble away from the door. “Sorry, I…”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says in a low voice. “It’s wrong.” Finn’s blue eyes register shock, looking from me to the door. “Intrusive, I mean. You’re not family or a nurse.”
The urgent voices and beeping machines in the room connect with memories of the night in the road. The fog from my past creeps into the edges of the world and I can’t move. Finn takes my elbow and guides me away from the door.
The sensation of his touch shocks me, as if he’s plunged my arm into a bath of iced water. The intense cold burns my flesh and the ice shoots through my limbs until my hands and feet numb.
Finn pulls his hand back as if I burnt him; he blinks away the shock in his eyes. I stare back, unable to speak as the cold creeps up my neck into my mind.
“Please, leave now,” he says in a flat voice.
As Finn walks into the room where the patient fights for life, I back against the wall and close my eyes. Rubbing my cold arm does no good; the skin is warm to touch but the blood circulating inside takes the chill toward my heart. I suck in a breath and lean over. The fog has gone but this is even worse.
***
The trip home is hazy; the pain radiating from my arm doesn’t subside. When I stagger through the door, I don’t have any energy left to climb the stairs to my room. I crawl onto the sofa in the lounge and stare at the moulded cornice around the light above where the flaking paint shows several colours underneath. The sound of Alek’s music thumps through the silence and I drift off, head pounding.
I’m dozing but something alerts me. Half-asleep, I’m aware of someone else in the room with me. I open an eye and see the red-haired girl hovering in the doorway, watching me. She’s wearing dirty jeans and a T-shirt with capped sleeves and a Guns ‘n Roses print, but nothing on her feet. Alek’s music continues to thump through the ceiling.
“Hi,” I say and smile.
Her eyes widen and she pulls her long hair over her shoulder. “Who are you?”
“Rose; I moved in a few of weeks ago. Are you a friend of Alek’s?”
Her look darts in the direction of the stairs. “Kind of. I’m staying with him as long as I can.”
“Oh?” What was that twinge? Jealousy? Over someone like Alek? I slap myself in my mind.