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‘Ah cool. Good, isn’t it, working for yourself? But hard to get the whole thing started. Bet it must be annoying when people keep asking you to bake cakes for them too? Ya probably like a good takeaway when you’re not on camera,’ Ish chuckled to himself.
‘Yeah, it is a little something like that,’ Helen smiled. ‘Well this is my street, it was nice meeting you, Ish.’
‘Yeah, you too. I’m @Ishtory if you want to follow us on Insta. No pressure though! You take care of yourself, all right?’
‘I will. I will this time.’
Chapter 14
‘Squeeze that juice … mmmph! I’m here as your conduit. I’m here to transport you. Release yourself to me and … warrior two, triangle, reverse triangle, side angle pose, and flow!’ The lithe instructor barked into his headset, tattooed arms raised to the ceiling.
Helen thought he would make a great Jesus at Halloween.
Helen was at yoga, hoping that by doing something spiritual and calorie burning she could counterbalance the night before. She felt guilty. Guilty for trying to find Brody. Guilty for drinking far, far too many margaritas. Guilty for not getting a cab home – but why shouldn’t she be able to walk home?Because strange men try to attack you Helen!Her thoughts kept tumbling out in a tangled mess.
Mainly she felt guilty for limping in through her front door, too tired to sleep, more upset than she wanted to admit, and trawling social media for trace evidence of Brody’s life.
She’d gazed at her screenshot of him from Connex (could she recognise anything in the background??), had looked at small pixelated images of him on the True Materials site, and still wanted more. She peeled off her too tight leggings, took some leftover chicken satay sticks out of the fridge, and spent hours basking in the glow of her phone, mind whirring.
Deep down she knew what she wanted to find: she wanted proof that they could never be together.
A picture of him on social media, arms around another woman, an incriminating comment on some gorgeous Instagram model’s post, a discovery that he was with someone else right now …
If she could just get the proof she needed it would be over, and she could retreat back to being normal, hopeless Helen. It was better that way, better than feeling like she could have almost been happy.
By 3am she had rearranged her pillows, drunk a large glass of water, squinted at her smudged make-up in the bathroom mirror, almost fallen asleep, needed to pee, and flicked her phone back open. She sat uncomfortably in the darkness, her mind persistently awake. She felt down her legs, ‘what are they?’
Helen switched on her lamp and examined a field of small red bumps running up her inner thigh; it didn’t look normal. Her skin had developed a mottled red tone. She had chorizo for legs.
Was it itchy? She speculatively gave it a scratch. It certainly wasn’tnotitchy.
Quickly she googled, ‘rash on legs.’
Flea bites?
Helen sat slightly less comfortably on her bed.
Eczema?
No, her mum had that and was always sending Helen close-up pictures of the latest.
Shingles … Could it be shingles?
She pressed her hand to her forehead, not too warm, but maybe a little warmer than usual? This wasn’t good. Perhaps she had somehow gotten so stressed with the whole Brody saga that she’d triggered something in her immune system? The train! She knew she should have stayed in her seat.
She was feeling a little run-down earlier … Oh God why had she been so stupid to go out drinking alcohol when she was not well?
It wasn’t just a drink either, it was a lot of drinks, each one gently blotting out part of the red-hot jolt of disappointment she’d been feeling, that was now seeping back through her.
It was almost farcical to think that someone like Brody would like her anyway.
She could at least admit it to herself, it wouldn’t have worked. She was too nothingy, too average, definitely too pear shaped, and probably had some kind of autoimmune condition that she’d only just discovered.
‘What happens if you let shingles go untreated?’ her fingers typed rapidly.
‘If left untreated, some complications of shingles can be fatal. Pneumonia, encephalitis, stroke, and bacterial infections can cause your body to go into shock or sepsis.’
Helen felt a little sick. Should she call 111? No, bad idea, the last time she’d done that they had been well, a bit dismissive. She’d call the doctors first thing tomorrow. She set a reminder in her phone. Not that she would need a reminder, she just needed to look at her legs. Her disproportionately short, muscular legs, that didn’t fit perfectly into any jeans, and now had a rash all over them.
