“Ah yes, our all-afternoon meeting with the finance team, aka the spreadsheet mafia. Can’t wait.” Sharon rolls her eyes as she follows Jake out of the door.
Both Garrett and I walk them to reception, grins firmly plastered on our faces and then we wave as Jake and Sharon walk into a lift. Before the lift is even closed shut, Garrett turns to me.
“Is she really ill? And how do you know that?”
“She must be,” I say. My fingers itch to pull my phone out of my pocket but I daren’t in front of Garrett in case Mina’s sent a message that implies she’s not sick and he catches sight of it. “There’s no way Mina would miss that pitch unless she was physically unable to make it to the office. The fact she hasn’t even called in suggests something bad has happened.”
I check my words, and I’m confident I’m not revealing more about Mina than she would like.
Garrett shrugs and gives me a heavy-lidded stare. “Whatever her reason, she not only missed the pitch. She missed the chance to be campaign lead on what could be one of our most lucrative campaigns this year. Congratulations, Charlie. You’ve got the lead.” His voice reveals very limited joy but even so, it’s less delight than what I feel in this very moment.
“Thanks,” I mumble, but my smile is slipping and that heavy guilt keeps me pinned to the spot as Garrett walks away and back into his office.
Not moving, I pull my phone out and feel only more weight slam down on me when I see a blank screen. Nothing. No text. No calls.
No Mina.
I lift my head to look at the lift where Jake and Sharon just left. I itch to do the same. To leave and run the miles to Mina’s flat and find out what’s going on. To then run the miles I need to get whatever Mina needs to help her feel better. To tuck her up in bed. To bring her water and food. To stroke her hair. To put a cool cloth on her head, or a warm one if that’s what she prefers. I long to do it all. To be there. To sayfuck itto work and to do what I really want to do, which is to take care of her.
But I don’t. Because Mina doesn’t want me to take care of her. Mina doesn’t even want us to be more than work colleagues and what I want to do is not what work colleagues do, especially those who are barely friends like how we used to be, like how Mina wants us to be again. What I want to be for Mina, is certainly not what work colleagues are to each other.
I hate that that’s all we are.
I hate that I can’t go to Mina.
I hate that there’s nothing I can do other than force myself to turn around, walk back to my desk and send that email I promised my new client.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I Want to Get Away
Mina
The pain is immediate, and so is the regret about waking up.
I was safe when I was asleep. I was free from pain. I was blissfully unaware of the slicing agony threatening to split my head open, of the churning of my stomach, of the stark pressure that clamps around the left side of my face, my skull and my neck and shoulders, of the tightness across my whole body as panic sets in.
No matter how many times it happens. No matter how begrudgingly familiar the pain and the panic and the pressure all are, there’s still a moment when I can’t quite believe how much discomfort I’m in. There are always a few seconds when I am convinced I must be dying because I feel that much pain, pressure and chaos in my head and body. And regrettably, devastatingly, there always follows a moment when I wish for that eventuality because I don’t want to suffer it for another minute longer.
Because the episode has already set in and I recognise the symptoms all too well, I don’t even bother to try and open my eyes or reach for my phone. Instead, I focus on the only thing I have some very limited control over: my breath. This is the only thing that I have found that helps me get through the most agonising moments as the attack digs its claws in.
Breathe in, one, two, three. Breathe out, one, two, three, four, five.
I repeat this mantra ten, fifteen, possibly twenty times and it helps stave off the adrenaline spike that I know my increasing panic would have brought about. This means I’ve hopefully avoided the feverish heat and subsequent bone-shaking chill that would have left my body descending into a hellish chaos. I try to comfort myself that I’ve avoided that at least, but it’s a scrap of relief, a crumb of hope, because the pain and pressure is still so immense even breathing hurts.
Furthermore, no matter how much I focus on breathing in slowly and out even slower, there’s no circumnavigating the queasiness in my stomach. And I almost leave it too late. Because no matter how much it intensifies the stabbing pain in my head, I have to move and quick. My stomach is lurching as I stumble from my bed, my eyes still firmly closed so my arms wave around my body so I don’t hit anything, even though the motion only adds to my nausea. I begin retching immediately as my knees hit the bathroom floor in front of my toilet. I am only able to quickly establish that the toilet lid is up before I’m heaving up the contents of my stomach. And I don’t stop until there is nothing left.
With my tummy empty, but my body still heaving, I stay in the bathroom sunken in a heap on the floor until I am certain I am not going to vomit anymore. The prospect of getting myself back to bed feels like climbing a mountain, but I know I have to do it. I have to try and get back to sleep. I have to just hope that it is still early enough in the morning and I am still tired enough that I will succumb to slumber rather than suffer through this conscious.
There is no walking my way back to my bed, instead, I crawl. It’s hellish. My limbs heavy and the pain in my head now taking on a fiery element. I think momentarily about heading to the kitchen and digging out the cold compress head wrap that’s in my freezer but that would require me to stand up and open my eyes and I simply can’t bear that idea. I will get it later, when the worst of this subsides. Please God, let it subside soon.
Only minimal relief floods me when I get to my bed, but when I curl up and focus again on my breath, I feel a drowsiness start to seep in. I will it to get closer, to wrap its arms around me and eventually it does although it’s unbearably slow.
Just before I fall asleep, I think about texting Charlie, calling work or just doing something to notify them about my inevitable absence but I don’t move. Sleep is too close and when I sleep, there is no pain. When I sleep, I am free.
*****
There is still regret when I wake again. Because it’s not over – so very far from over – and I know now that sleep will be even harder to return to now I’ve already crashed out once. But I can’t deny that the pressure has subsided somewhat and the nausea is no more. I brave a quick opening of one eye and I see then that the room is filled with an orange light as the sun shines through the pulled curtains behind my bed. It hurts, sending a stabbing sensation through my eyes and into my skull. Although the curtains filter the brightest rays, it’s still bright enough to have my eyes reacting as I squeeze them shut again.
