Chapter Fourteen #2
There’s a small wooden staircase between the main bedroom and the cramped hall that leads to the bathroom.
I’m not sure if it’s the wine, or the cocktails, or the stupid, misplaced adrenaline rushing through my limbs that does it, maybe it’s simply that my body is tired from all the walking in shitty, unsupportive shoes, but either way, my body and brain don’t collaborate, and I mess up my footing on stairs.
My ankle feels like it snaps in half.
“Argh!” I yip. My hands save my face from smacking against the tiled floor but pain lurches like fire through my lower leg.
His shadow is over me in seconds, his hand on my upper arm.
“What happened?”
“I fucking tripped. What an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. It’s dark and you don’t know the place.”
“Still…” I whimper. Pathetic. “I don’t have time for this. We don’t.”
Gus breathes out slowly as he tells me to close my eyes and pops the light on. I slowly peek through shuttered lids at him kneeling by my legs. He stares at my already swelling ankle, mystified.
“Not much for first aid?” I ask.
He cringes. “Can’t say I’ve ever had to do it.”
I roll my eyes. “Just help me up, Popstar. I’ll need some ice.”
“With water?”
“No. In a towel,” I say. He simply frowns. “To put on the swelling. It helps.”
“Right. Yes. Ok,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “This stuff doesn’t come naturally to me.”
I twist, flinching at the way the pain intensifies at the slightest movement, and sit up to take a proper look at it. It’s definitely swollen, but then again, so is my other one. Hopefully, it’s nothing.
“How come they’re so swollen?”
I sigh. “I have poor circulation. It always happens to me. My friends dragged me on a walking holiday one time, and my ankles got so big they had to cut me out of my jeans.”
He tries not to smile. “Well, thankfully, you aren’t in jeans.”
No. I’m in just a very oversized t-shirt which is bunched up at the top of my thighs. As if he’s drawn attention to the fact he awkwardly wets his lips and glances back towards the bed. “Can I pick you up?” he asks.
“Really?”
“Unless you’d rather crawl to the bed?”
“No,” I say, feeling my lips draw down. “I’m sorry about this but I do still need the loo though.”
He nods, his eyes softening. “Ok. So, I’ll lift you onto the loo.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because…” I use my hands to gesture wildly at invisible truths in the air. “You’re not a nurse.”
“We can pretend.” He says it so casually it could be taken innocently, and yet, there’s a tone there. I tilt my head to let him know I’m onto him. He laughs. “What?”
“I am not role-playing doctors and nurses with you.”
“Hey, where did that come from? I’m simply offering to help you to the loo then back to bed where we will share a double mattress with zero romantic tension. I don’t like your insinuations.”
I sniff. “Hmm. You’ve had too much media training.”
At this he guffaws. “I promise you that is not what my team say. There’s no such thing as too much media training.
” He reaches out, offering me his arm. I already know it’s going to be rock solid even before I touch it.
My hands grasp onto him as his other arm comes around me, his fingers pressing against the softer part of my lower back.
He also winces as we rise. Which reminds me. “Oh, your back. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Hush. I’m fine. I’ll help you those last few steps to the loo,” he offers, as I place my spare arm around his shoulders for balance. Once I’m close enough, I huff at him which he takes as a cue to leave.
“I’ll wait outside.”
“Gus,” I call a minute later, having hopped painfully across the bathroom to wash and dry my hands. “Ready.”
He opens the door. Before I can even think about how best to navigate this, he wraps one arm under my legs so that I’m forced to grapple with his shoulders as he swoops me off my feet. I can’t fight the squeal that escapes me as he strides up the steps, switching lights off as he goes.
“So the bad news,” he mutters, “is that we have no ice.”
“Is there good news?”
“I have found a flannel which I can pour some room temperature water on to wrap around your ankle?”
I whimper again. It’s not a good look on me. “I’ll be ok.”
“I can go out?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I’ll go out,” he says. “I’ll ask a restaurant.”
“And what if you’re spotted?”
“It will be in pursuit of your comfort so…”
“No, Gus. Honestly, I’m fine.”
My eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness at all as he softly places me down on the bed.
But he doesn’t immediately remove his arms from underneath me, his knee pressing into the mattress, dipping from his weight.
“You know, you’re allowed to be vulnerable, right?
You don’t have to kick yourself when you’re down. ”
Air fills my lungs a little too quickly, that pesky sharp sensation building behind my eyes.
I don’t know what it is about his words, or the way he pulls his arms from underneath me away so carefully, like I’m breakable, like I’m something to handle with care, but I feel it remove a weight from off my chest.
I frown. “I don’t like being a nuisance. It’s not fair on the people around me.”
“You’re not a nuisance. You had an accident.”
I shrug. “Still.”
“Sara,” he pauses for effect. “You’re not a nuisance.”
I want to push the words away. To reject them. Because that’s not true. I don’t get to be broken, or sorry, or clumsy. That’s for everyone else. I have to have my shit together all the time in case somebody else collapses.
His footsteps sound as he heads back to his side of the bed and I breathe carefully to force the emotions back.
“Good night, Sara,” he says, shuffling beside me. “Thank you for worrying about me.”
“Night, Gus.” I swallow thickly to control my voice. I don’t want him to know how much he’s affected me. “Thank you for taking care of me.”