Chapter 30
Olive
I wake up and my first thought is Colin.
My second thought is that none of this can be true. But it wasn’t a dream. He’s really here in my room, and I must have fallen asleep. At least for a while.
I blink—it’s pitch dark, so still the middle of the night.
I turn over and see him stirring. And then I notice how shaky his breath is.
I jolt upright. “What’s wrong? Are you about to whitey? Wait, I’ll get . . .”
“No, I . . .” His voice trembles. “I have to . . . I think I’m having a hypo.” It takes me a moment to get what he’s talking about. His blood sugar. I’d pushed that issue way down in my mind.
“Have you checked?”
Colin just nods.
“So?” I ask. “Wait, I’ll put the light on.”
I lean over and switch on my bedside lamp, squinting because it’s so bright. My head aches, but never mind that. Now I can see. Colin’s even paler, and there’s sweat on his forehead. I grab his phone and the number jumps out at me off the screen. Two digits. Low. Seriously low.
“Have you eaten?”
“I was just going to.”
“Should I fetch something?”
“No, it’s fine.” He doesn’t look at me, just digs in his jeans pocket and pulls out some dextrose tablets.
His fingers shake as he tries to get the wrappers off.
I don’t know if that’s because he’s still drunk or already too low.
Probably a bit of both. I remember the website I was reading after I found out about his diabetes.
Alcohol can make your blood-sugar level drop quickly.
Always be extra careful if you have been drinking.
“Let me.” He doesn’t reply as I take the sweets from him. “Got any more of these?”
“No, I . . . I thought I did, but those are all there are. I already had to eat a couple, back in the greenhouse. Alcohol always makes things tricky.” He swallows. “Do you have anything else? Cookies, a soda, anything like that?”
He’s really struggling to form coherent sentences, and that sets my heart racing.
“Wait here.” I stand up. My mind is blank.
I bought that bloody tablet yonks ago at Irvine’s, only to be unable to find it now.
This can’t be happening. I dig through my schoolbag until I remember giving it to Gideon when Grace was feeling rough.
I open my desk drawer, but my emergency chocolate stash hasn’t magically refilled itself since my bout of eating my feelings last week. There’s nothing left.
“I’ll go and look in the wing kitchen.”
Colin’s leaning both elbows on his knees and only briefly raises his head. If possible, he looks even whiter than before. He doesn’t speak, just nods and shuts his eyes.
This is the moment I start to panic. He doesn’t argue.
That can’t be a good sign. I take a step toward him, hesitate, stop.
Can I even leave him here? He doesn’t look good, he really doesn’t, but staying to hold his hand is definitely not going to help.
His blood sugar is way too low, he’s been drinking alcohol, and the only thing that’ll help him now are carbs.
“I’ll be right back,” I promise. He blinks. “Or should I wake Ms. Barnett?”
“No,” he murmurs. “I’ll be all right. Just . . . just be quick, OK?”
“OK.” I turn and open the door.
I don’t know how I manage to repress everything that happened earlier as I flit through our dark wing. It doesn’t matter now—this is way more important.
I open the fridge in the wing kitchen. Butter, a jar of pickled gherkins and chilies, a limp lettuce and a couple of carrots in the salad drawer.
There’s one sole pot of yogurt—I reach for it, then groan.
Sugar-free diet stuff. God, this can’t be true.
Then I see the bottle of orange juice. I grab that and shut the door.
I open the cupboard at top speed and find a bit of bread.
There’s a bunch of brown bananas in the fruit bowl on the table too.
I break two off and run back to my room.
Colin’s crouched on the bed. He’s pulled up his knees and rested his back against the wall; he looks like he’s about to boak. He glances up as I come in. His eyes wander over to the food in my hands, but I get the feeling he’s not all there.
“Is any of this any use?” I ask, heading over to him.
“Yes.” His voice sounds miles off. He lifts a hand and points at the bottle. “That’s . . . Thanks.”
If I was in any doubt about how shit he’s doing just now, the fact that he can’t even break the seal on the bottle would have banished it.
“Wait.” I reach for it. “Let me . . .” It’s easier than I expected. Colin takes it, not looking at me. I want to help him, but all I can do is sit beside him as he drinks. Little sips. It looks knackering.
“Want a glass?” I ask, but he doesn’t hear me. I shiver as he puts it down. He props his head on one hand.
“Colin.” I shake him by the shoulder. “Keep drinking.”
For once he does as I say. Tiny sips, slowly, so slowly, as I pray that the sugar will hit his body fast. I wish I didn’t have to force him, but I have no choice. If he doesn’t get something inside him now, I’ll be in real trouble here.
We don’t speak. I just sit beside him in silence. Until Colin leans his head against the wall and shuts his eyes. His face has now taken on the color of the white walls.
“Getting better?” I ask tentatively, but he doesn’t respond. “Colin?”
I budge closer. His head slumps to one side, my heart skips a beat.
Fuck . . . My stomach drops away—it really feels like that.
I grab for the bottle in his hand before it tips over as his grip loosens and he loses consciousness.
“Colin, shit . . . Stop it. Look at me, Fantino!”
He isn’t hearing me, all the strength has faded from his body. I put the bottle down and kneel over him. Fuck, fuck, fuck . . . I try to hold on to him because he’s slumping sideways, but he’s way too heavy.
I pull my pillow over to stop him falling so far and shake him by the shoulder. Gently at first, then harder, but it’s no good. Colin’s completely gone. For a few seconds, I crouch there, paralyzed, before I manage to muster a clear thought.
Stay calm. I have to stay calm. This is the worst case, but if I freak out now, it won’t help Colin or me.
Should I check his app? To be certain that his blood-sugar levels didn’t come up enough.
That’s only going to happen if he eats something.
But he can’t eat now because he’s so low he’s lost fucking consciousness.
OK. Breathe. Calm. One step at a time.
Dad . . . I have to call Dad.
I glance at my phone—it’s an ungodly hour, but that’s the least of my worries. I listen to it ring without taking my hand from Colin’s face. I can feel the fine film of sweat on his cold skin. He’s not shaking anymore, and that’s doing my head in.
My heart is pounding.
Pick up, pick up, pick up.
Wouldn’t it be better to call nine-nine-nine? An ambulance might get here faster and they could—
“Olive?” It’s the middle of the night, but Dad sounds wide awake. And alarmed. Like he’d just been waiting for the time when I called him like this. “Are you OK?”
“Dad,” I gasp. “You have to come. Please. Colin’s not well. I—”
“What happened, Olive?” he asks in his doctor voice.
“He was drinking. And his blood sugar’s too low. I brought him food but he was already so low, and now . . . He just fainted, Dad!”
“I see,” he says. “Are you with him?”
“Yes.”
“Is he breathing?” Dad asks, and my blood runs cold: I have no fucking clue. I stare at Colin’s chest for several seconds until I’m finally certain that it’s rising and falling.
“I think so.” My voice is wobbly.
“Where are you?”
“In my room,” I admit.
Dad doesn’t waste breath on us breaking the rules, which brings it home all the more how serious this is.
“I’ll tell Nurse Petra,” he says calmly.
“She has a glucagon pen for emergencies, and she’ll come right over.
I’m on my way, Olive. Get dressed, open your door, and stay with Colin until Petra gets there, OK?
Put him in the recovery position, love. You know what to do. ”
“OK,” I say. “Please hurry.”
“I will. Goodbye now. See you soon, kiddo.”
“See you soon,” I whisper, but he’s already hung up. My heart is still pounding as I put down my phone. Colin’s head is drooping, and the silence is driving me crazy.
Everything in me fights against getting up and leaving him so that I can open the door.
For a moment, I consider going to get Ms. Barnett, but then my eyes rest on Colin again. I can’t leave him on his own. I just can’t.
My stomach is a wee ball of fear as I crook his leg, push his arm under his head, then roll him toward me onto his side.
Dad made me practice these things so often, but doing this now, for real, feels like more than I can bear.
My shoulder hurts. I never knew how heavy an unconscious person could be.
Colin’s hands are ice-cold, so I pull the duvet over him and crouch there, stroking his hair and whispering that help is on its way.
That I’m sorry. That I’m sorry for everything I said earlier, and to hang the fuck on in there.
These might be the worst minutes of my life as I count Colin’s every breath. So that I’ll know if they just stop.
They don’t. But he doesn’t react when the light comes on out in the corridor and, just a few seconds later, Nurse Petra appears in the doorway. She doesn’t ask questions, just comes straight to the bed.
She speaks to Colin; he doesn’t respond.
“Can you get Ms. Barnett, please, to show the paramedics the way?”
I shiver. “Paramedics?”
“Yes. Your dad is coming too, but he’s already called for an ambulance.”
I stand up, feeling weak at the knees, and do what she says. It feels as wrong as can be to walk away from Colin, but I have to.
Ms. Barnett is out on the corridor in her dressing gown. Later, I can’t remember what I said to her. Or what she says when the first doors open and the other girls look out to see what all the fuss is about.
Ms. Barnett sends a couple of them down to find the paramedics. All I can think of is Colin, but my hope that he’ll have woken up dies silently as we walk back into my room.
He clearly hasn’t responded well enough to the glucagon pen, so Nurse Petra is now putting a drip into the back of his hand.
She passes me the plastic bag containing a glucose infusion.
I have to hold it up. I know how it works, and so what if my shoulder’s throbbing and black spots are dancing in front of my eyes?
Nurse Petra checks again, but the glucose meter doesn’t give a reading.
“Is it broken?” Ms. Barnett asks, looking over her shoulder. “I can send someone down to the sick bay to—”
“No need, Maxine. He’s so severely hypoglycemic that it’s not registering.” She sounds anxious. “The alcohol in his system is making the pen less effective. I’m concerned that his body can’t release the sugar reserves on its own, hence the infusion.”
Colin’s lips are white. I want him to wake up and call me Olive Garden, crack one of his stupid jokes and wind me up.
I want to be certain that nothing and nobody can harm him.
Not even this disease. I want to undo the events of tonight and I don’t want to see him like this.
I don’t want to think about what’s happening.
If I left it too late. If I should have got help the minute he woke up.
If I shouldn’t have waited until he was so low, he was totally out of it.
If I should have acted earlier when he was so drunk but I hadn’t taken in what that could mean.
The ambulance gets here before Dad, and nothing has ever felt worse than stepping away from Colin.
I start to shake as I pass the drip bag to one of the paramedics.
Ms. Barnett turns to me as my knees give way and I stagger backward into my wardrobe.
There’s concern in her eyes, but before she can speak, someone puts their arms around me.
Some muffled sound emerges from my throat as I see Tori. Behind her, on the corridor, is Sinclair with wild hair and a guilty expression, ready for a sermon from Ms. Barnett. But that’s not at the top of anybody’s priority list.
“Shh,” says Tori, hugging me tighter. “It’s going to be OK, Livy.”
You can’t know that.
Just look at him!
But I say nothing. My lips don’t make a sound, or not until I realize that the paramedics are getting ready to take Colin away. What was I expecting? Apparently not that they’d take him to hospital—but the realization that I won’t know what’s happening to him is doing my head in.
Dad arrives. They send us out. I hear nothing.
“Go back to your rooms—there’s nothing to see here.” Ms. Barnett shoos the others away. Whose room should I go to? The one they’re carrying Colin out of? Dad follows the paramedics, then comes over to me. And then I see it.
“They’ve intubated him?” I ask, horrified.
“The journey will be safer for him that way, love.”
I lean against the wall. “Why? I mean . . . Is it really that bad?”
“Colin is in a critical condition. He needs to be taken to intensive care so that they can intervene in case of acute metabolic complications.” This is serious then.
It’s always serious if Dad drops into medical jargon, forgetting I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“We can’t risk that happening here in the sick bay. ”
I nod, struck numb. In case of acute metabolic complications. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound good. It doesn’t sound good at all.
“But he—” I gulp. “He is going to wake up, isn’t he? He will, right?”
Dad hesitates. “The paramedics are keeping an eye on his blood sugar, and I’m sure he’ll come round soon.”
I give a careful nod, then Dad squeezes in front of me as I go to follow them. “Dad, I . . .”
“I’m sorry, pet, but no.”
“Dad!”
“I’ll go with Colin to hospital and keep you posted. You don’t need to worry.” Dad gives me a look that can’t be argued with. I hate it. I just hate it. Then his face softens. He hugs me. “Oh, and, happy birthday, love.”