Chapter 22 Christopher Tuesday
Tuesday
“Are you sure you want to head in?” Alexander’s hand pulls gently at my shoulder as the key turns in the door of my apartment.
The sound of the lock amplifies the nausea and dread in my stomach.
I pause and turn back briefly to look at him. His eyes aren’t visible underneath the rim of his baseball cap. “I need to get my things. I can’t have your housekeeper do that for me.”
I enter my apartment and instantly notice the mark on the wall caused by the stretcher when the paramedics brought Andrew up from his room.
Alexander gently closes the door and follows behind me as I make my way into the lounge. I try to steady my mind, to think of what I need.
Laptop.
Change of clothes.
Toiletries.
“Could you head down and see if the door on the right is closed?”
The mere thought of seeing the room sends a shudder through my body.
The image of Andrew lying motionless on his bed is burnt into my brain and has played on repeat for the last forty-eight hours. The ventilator machine and heart rate monitor are the only two sounds breaking the silence in his private room.
“It’s shut!” Alexander shouts from the bottom of the stairs.
My heart rate rises with every successive step downstairs. Alexander patiently waits in the bathroom doorway. This is not how I envisioned him seeing my apartment for the first time.
The glare from the overhead light in my bedroom exposes Andrew’s birthday presents, discarded in the hallway when I’d found Andrew. My legs go weak at the sight, and I collapse forward on my bed as everything else comes up with it.
“Chris.” Alexander reaches out, but is unable to catch me before I fall.
And then it all comes out.
My state of shock is replaced by howling. The tears I’ve mostly managed to keep inside since Sunday night flow freely. The trauma of what I saw gives way to the painful reality: Andrew’s life is now dancing on a knife’s edge. He’s only kept alive by machines.
Alexander gets down on his knees, putting his arm around me as I shake uncontrollably.
“Let it out,” he whispers, rubbing my back. “Let it out.”
What if Andrew doesn’t survive this?
What if he never returns home?
Panic overwhelms my senses and I shoot upright.
“I need to get out. I need to get out.” My breath shortens as I get off my knees.
“Okay. What do you need and I’ll get it?” Alexander stretches over me to pick up my backpack. All my stuff from the work trip is still inside.
“Laptop, tooth…” My airway constricts, making speaking—let alone breathing—impossible to do.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He slings the backpack over his shoulder and guides me out the apartment and onto the street.
I finally catch my breath in the cool evening air when I rest my hand on the palm tree next to Alexander’s car. A French bulldog pees on the opposite side of the street and barks as Alexander’s car beeps when he unlocks it. He opens the door to his rose-gold Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon.
“Let’s get you back to mine.”
The overhead shower’s been running for ten minutes now, the water mingling with my tears. My bum is numb from sitting on the wooden seat placed up against the window. The large bonsai tree outside casts a shadow in the moonlight.
Why would Andrew do this? Why would he try and take his life? And what was his apology for? I’m sorry were the only two words on the piece of paper left beside the bottle of wine on his bedside table.
There are so many unanswered questions.
I know he took the breakup with his ex badly. That he was pissed off that I couldn’t make his birthday soiree. But he’d seemed happy in his pictures online the past week. His last post even celebrated his promotion at the London Hotel.
The look on the nurses’ faces, one of sympathy rather than empathy, when I couldn’t answer questions about what had happened and what he’d taken, smothers me with guilt. The same guilt has kept me at his side at the hospital ever since.
This morning, the doctor talked about moving him to the psychiatric ward if his vitals improve, causing my grip to tighten round the chair handle.
He’s not crazy, he’s just a little unwell.
I couldn’t fight back showing my anger in my voice.
The way the doctor’s eyes had narrowed, scrutinizing me with a look of such annoyance, made me flinch—I’d thought for a moment that he might admit the pair of us.
I pull myself up out of the chair with the shower handle and turn the water off, once I’m confident the stale smell of not washing for the last two days has been removed from my body, and reach for white towels with the golden letters AM embroidered into them.
I pause while drying off to take in the vastness of Alexander’s guest bathroom.
The wooden paneled ceilings. The marble bathroom counter fitted with a double sink.
The heated floor. A separate bathtub over by another floor-to-ceiling glass window.
He really does live in a completely different world from me.
When I return to the bedroom, Alexander’s waiting in the chair opposite the bed, a glass of water in his hand.
“I’ve put the fire on, but I can turn it off if you’d prefer.”
The flames from the electric fireplace built into the wall flicker away.
“It’s okay,” I say, looking beyond him and noticing the Jacuzzi outside. The spotlights shine down on it from the overhanging roof, visible through the sliding glass doors.
Alexander brings over the glass of water and places it on the bedside table by an orange oval lamp, along with a pill.
I shake my head in complete disbelief at the grandness of his place. I’ve always had a taste for the finer things in life, but I feel like a fish out of water here.
“I’ve got something for you to sleep in.” Alexander picks up a grey vest and pair of navy shorts from the bench at the bottom of the bed, stretching out his hand to give them to me.
“Thank you.”
My arm is so heavy I’m barely able to reach for the clothes. I pull the vest over my head before standing up to remove the towel and put the shorts on.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sitting back down on the bed.
“For what?” Alexander moves forward to kneel in front of me, meeting my line of vision. The warmth from his blue eyes meets the coldness in mine.
“For ruining our first date. For putting you out this evening.”
The guilt for imposing myself on him consumes me. Nothing ever seems to be easy of straightforward when it comes to us.
“Don’t be stupid.” The lavender scent from his hands hits my nostrils as he lifts my head up. “There will be plenty more opportunities for us to go on a date. And you’re not putting me out at all. Let’s get you into bed.”
Alexander stands back up and pulls back the duvet to let me in.
“Thank you.” It’s all I can say.
But what I want to say is, Thank you for helping me.
For showing up.
For being so kind and caring.
For helping stop the seeds of doubt in my mind that all you care about is yourself.
Alexander grabs the pill off the side table along with the water.
“Take this. It will help you to sleep.”
I’m too tired to question what Alexander gives me as I swallow it down with a gulp of water.
“Rest up.” He kisses me on the forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Wednesday
“Happy belated birthday.”
I put all the joy I can muster into my voice as the call connects. Kelly’s face appears on-screen, looking less than impressed that I’d completely forgotten her birthday in the wake of everything that happened.
“Umm hmm.” Her tone is dismissive as she potters around her kitchen in an oversized jumper.
“My present arrived late too.” She lifts up a hamper from the kitchen counter to show it to the screen, which includes a load of face creams, moisturizers, and other items from Jo Malone that I knew she would like.
Little does she know that it would have been two days late if Alexander hadn’t stepped in and gotten a courier to pick up the package from the store and deliver it to her when no express delivery options were available on the website.
His small act of kindness made me want to cry all over again.
But this time, they were tears of happiness, rather than the tears I’ve been shedding over Andrew.
Is this what it feels like to be cared for? To be loved?
My parents were neither the loving nor the caring type.
They’d always opted for tough love, expecting more and giving less.
They were put out if they had to take care for me or my sister when we were ill.
I can’t even really compare this to the feeling of loving someone, because I’ve only been in love once before, with Ryan.
But that was blind love.
That was idealism, excitement.
The immaturity that comes with being naive and young.
This feels different.
I snap myself back into the room before getting carried away by my thoughts. It’s too early in whatever this is to be thinking about the L-word.
“What did you do for your birthday?” I feel bad for not recalling if she told me what she was up to. I’ve not been able to recall or retain much of anything in the blur of the last three days.
“The girls took me out for dinner at Dishoom in King’s Cross.” Her tone softens as she rifles through the hamper.
“Dishoom? But you don’t like curry anymore.”
“Don’t!” Kelly rolls her eyes as she lifts one of the creams out. “My cravings for Indian food have gone through the roof this trimester. Do you remember when we were kids and dad used to feed us his curries?”
“And mum used to have a go at him for stinking us out the house and saying it would give us explosive diarrhea.”
Both of us laugh at one of the few fond memories I have of us round the dining room table as children, and I lean back into the couch.
“Wait, where are you? Aren’t you meant to be in the office?” Kelly stops herself from laughing. She leans into the camera, no doubt trying to make out what’s behind me.