Chapter 3 #2
Of course it’s not fair. Michael lives thirty miles away with a young family to care for. I’m not his responsibility. Never have been. And yet here we are. Again. Me in the shit and Michael believing it’s on him to fix everything.
I dig deep for my least unpleasant facial expression. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary. I’ll be fine in my place, and if I’m not, we can have this conversation all over again, okay?”
“It’s not okay, Aidan. None of this is. You know the truck driver who hit you failed the breath test? The idiot was out-of-his-mind drunk.”
“Lucky him.”
“You’re not angry?”
“I’m not anything, mate. I’m stuck in this bed for the foreseeable, and all I want to do is get some decent kip. You think you can help me with that by fucking off?”
“You’re an arsehole.”
I really am.
Michael leaves. I listen to his footsteps fade and knock my fist on my temple, hard. It doesn’t hurt as much as I need it to, and for once the fire in my leg is manageable enough for me to think clearly.
I don’t want to think.
I reach for my morphine pump, but it’s empty.
“You’ve used it all.”
I open my eyes. Ludo’s voice sounds so close I half expect to see him where Michael stood, but he’s sitting on his own bed, cross-legged, cradling his injured arm against his chest. His hair is mussed and his eyes hooded. He doesn’t look like he’s been awake long. “Used all what?”
“The morphine. It clicks when it’s empty and you have to wait until the next dose is due.”
I know that. That damn-fucking click haunts me at night when I really do have nothing to think about except the agony searing every nerve. But somehow hearing Ludo say it makes it more frightening.
He breaks our stare off and goes back to flicking the cast around his wrist. I ponder what’s wrong with him, then why I give a shit. I don’t give a shit. But curiosity is a wicked thing. Add in boredom and pain and I’m apparently a brand new person. “What happened to your arm?”
Ludo raises his gaze, eyes still bleary and swollen. “Nothing recently. I smashed it up last year and it needed new pins.”
“They’re putting pins in my leg.”
“I know. Your visitor has a loud voice.”
“Michael? Seriously? I don’t think that dude has ever shouted in his life.”
“Maybe I was listening too hard then.”
Ludo speaks without inflection, as though we have conversations like this all the time. As though it’s normal for him to be listening and absorbing information I haven’t paid enough attention to. Arsehole me wants to bite his head off. Tell him to mind his fucking business. But . . .
I’m so tired.
And talking to Ludo seems to require every sense even without growling at him. Not that I’ve ever possessed much sense. “Are you bored?”
“Hmm?” Ludo is still flicking his cast. “Bored? With what? Being stuck in here? Or talking to you?”
“Either. Both.”
Ludo laughs, and for a fleeting moment, I’m so captivated I’m scared our entire exchange has been a dream. But it’s not a dream. He’s real. And somehow I’m laughing too.
“I’m not bored with talking to you,” Ludo says. “But I’m definitely bored on this ward. Until you, there’s been no one to talk to at all.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes. If I don’t talk to other people, I talk to myself, and that never ends well.”
His smile fades so I can’t tell if he’s joking.
And I can’t imagine that hearing his voice on a permanent basis could be much of an affliction.
He has a rough London accent that’s nothing like the stuck-up tones most knobheads in Buckbourne speak with.
It reminds me of the cockneys on Peaky Blinders.
“You can talk to me, mate. Can’t promise I’ll talk back though. ”
“Not a fan of your own voice?”
“Who is?”
“Point taken.”
I’m still really fucking tired. I close my eyes, just for a second, praying Ludo will still be looking at me when I open them again, but the sound of metal on rubber brings me back to life.
I open my eyes and he’s shuffling towards my bed, his IV stand trailing behind him.
My weary heart leaps, and confusion hits me in waves.
I’ve never wanted someone to come and talk to me so much in my entire life, and I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me.
My broken leg makes sense. This doesn’t.
Ludo makes it to the chair by my bed and sits. He puts his hand on my arm. “I’m not cold anymore.”
He isn’t. In fact, he’s blazing hot. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I have an infection where they cut me. That’s why I’m still here.”
The thought of him not being here makes me feel sick. “Oh. Is that what the IV is for?”
“Yeah. Antibiotics. I don’t like them, though.” He points to a mess of plasters in the crease of his elbow. “That’s why I keep taking the cannula out, but I can’t go home until I’m better, so I need to stop doing that.”
“Why don’t you like the antibiotics if they’re making you better?”
“I feel like I have snakes in my veins,” he says as though it makes perfect sense.
Perhaps it does. With his hand still on my arm, I can’t tell.
An odd urge to cover his hand with my own sweeps over me.
I glance at him, hoping to dispel it before I make a tit out of myself, but my gaze falls on a scar on Ludo’s face, and I’m knee-deep in a new rabbit hole.
The scar runs along his jaw, half hidden by the scruff on his face, but it’s ragged and angry, and I can’t look at it for long without imagining how my leg will look when I finally get out of here.
“How long will the antibiotics take to work? If you don’t pull the cannula out, I mean. ”
Ludo shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe they told me and I wasn’t listening.”
“But you hear all my business?”
He treats me to a sheepish grin. “Sorry. You like your privacy.”
It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. “Don’t you?”
“Sometimes. But too much of it is bad for my brain.”
“Because you don’t like your voice?”
“Exactly.”
We reach an understanding I can’t quite see, and his hand slips from my arm. My gaze darts to it, and I’m surprised to see he’s left no mark. In my head, the heat from his touch is scorching, still burning strong, even now it’s over.
“Are you worried about your operation?”
Slowly, I shake my head. “I don’t think they could make it hurt any more than it already does.”
“Did your chest tube hurt?”
“Hmm?”
Ludo leans closer, his wide eyes owlish. “The tube they put in your chest. I’ve never had one of those.”
“You want one?”
“No.” Something wicked dances in Ludo’s expression. “I’ve broken lots of bones, though, and they took my spleen last time.”
“Last time what?”
“Last time I fell.”
I stare. Again. “How often do you fall?”
“For real or metaphorically?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Ludo sighs and ruffles his already messy hair. “Neither do I.”