‘I’m sure it’ll be fine with just a plaster,’ I said, leaning forward to find one in the first-aid box. Charlie put his hand across the top, blocking me.
‘No. It won’t. It will bleed straight through. Trust me. Now sit still.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Please.’
I looked at him.
‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘I promised Niall that I’d look after you. You’re not going to make me break my promise to a five-year-old, are you?’
‘Oh, wow,’ I snuffled out. ‘That’s low.’
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’
I gave him a look and sat back against the sofa, as requested.
A few minutes later my nose cut was butterflied up and Charlie had put a little square of gauze on the top and secured it with paper surgical tape.
‘Have you got an ice pack?’
‘There’s a gel one in the top bit of the freezer.’
He headed off to the kitchen and I pushed myself gingerly up off the sofa. The boys were happily laughing at the Minions doing something and I walked over to the mirror on the wall by the front door. Charlie had done a good job of tidying me up. A white strip of gauze ran across the bridge of my nose, covering the stitches, and he wasn’t joking when he said about the egg on my forehead. It really was quite the bump! A very fetching look. Not one I would be highlighting on the beauty pages of my blog any time soon.
‘Is this what you meant?’ I turned to find Charlie grinning at me as he held up a gel ice pack in the shape of the Mr Men’s Mr Happy.
‘That’s the one.’
‘OK. Now come and sit down.’
I headed over to the couch where the boys were and they shuffled along without taking their eyes off the telly. I sat down next to them and Charlie sat down next to me and gently laid the gel pack on my bump.
‘Hopefully this will take some of the swelling down,’ he said, quietly, so as not to disturb the boys’ enjoyment.
‘Thank you, Charlie. I’m so sorry about all this. I don’t think I’m up to looking at the blog thing any more today, so if you want to go home, it’s fine.’
For a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of something cross Charlie’s face. But then again I had a bump the size of Pluto on my forehead and had recently made disturbingly horrid crunchy noises with my nose, so my vision and perception were probably somewhat off right at the moment.
‘I think I’ll wait here a bit. Just make sure you’re all right.’
‘I’m fine. It was just a little bump.’
‘Libby. You ricocheted backwards about three feet. I’m staying.’
‘OK.’ I was too tired to argue and actually it felt sort of nice to have him there.
I turned my head back towards the television. The colours pounded my eyes so I closed them, laid my head back and just listened to the sounds of the film and the boys, big and small, laughing along.
15
A couple of weeks later I answered the door to my friend. ‘So, how’s your day—?’ Amy stopped as she entered my living-room area and saw the disaster zone it currently resembled.
‘I know it looks bad, but it’s not. Honestly.’
‘OK,’ Amy replied, wholly unconvinced. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Planning.’
