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“I don’t know,” came out of my mouth.
“Benjamin, bless him, rang me far too early this morning, and we’ve made some plans that will sort you out. By the way, you are staying here until further notice, so don’t even think about going anywhere else. Unless you have other friends you’d rather stay with.”
They weren’t asking. They were telling, and I managed to nod as they popped more painkillers into my mouth.
“Just to take the edge off. We’re not going to hospital, so take that worried look off your face. We’re going to go see Annabelle. She used to work for us. Great waitress. She and I hang out at the same place. A charity for people like you and me, okay?”
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t, and before I knew it, I had trainers on my feet and what must have been one of Benjamin’s jackets over my shoulders.
Mabel talked nonsense all the way through our taxi ride to some office block where we got buzzed in and then I collapsed on the floor, thankfully without hitting my head, as someone caught me.
I didn’t remember much else until I woke up laughing because this day had been so weird. Small fragments of my memories were trying to piece themselves together.
“Hey.”
A stranger. Nice smile. I could hear beeps. Shit. Hospital.
“D’you know where you are?” she asked.
I didn’t. Couldn’t care less, because the pain was gone and my head felt too heavy. I wouldn’t have been able to lift it if I tried.
I drifted off again.
“Hey, Hugo.”
Shit. Dodgy French chef. I’d smelled him before I’d even opened my eyes.
“You okay?”
“I think so.” A more accurate response would have been clinically alive but dead inside, but that probably wasn’t appropriate with strangers.
“Don’t move.” He laughed. “You’ll get the drip tangled up.”
It was strange, my head slowly clearing like this. Like I was awake but wasn’t. Or was I? But there was Benjamin Desjardins, adjusting the wires coming out of my good arm. The bad one was in a plaster cast.
“Broken,” he said. “But then we knew that, didn’t we?”
We? We were awenow? There was nowein my life. There was me, and the bullshit that trailed along with my life.
“You awake yet? Want a cup of tea before I update you on what’s been going on? You’ve been out for three days, but that’s good. Had to sedate the shit out of you. You’re really funny when you’re mad, by the way, and even funnier when you come down off sedation. I’m not going to repeat the stuff you shouted at the nurse. I’ll keep that for another time.”
God, I hated him. I had no idea why I was smiling because he got up and just left me looking around in disbelief. Hospital. Fuck.
Drip. Yeah. Probably full of those delightful, nutritious minerals and stuff I was so good at depriving myself of. Before I knew it, I’d be back on those nutritional shakes that were supposed to keep me from starving to death.
I’d been here too many times, and my head was screaming because I had no rules for this, no set of actions to abide by. I hadn’t chosen this. I didn’t know what the expectations were, and having Benjamin walk back through the door with two cups of tea, a piece of toast balanced on top of one? I hated when people did that. It made the toast all soggy ,and the steam melted the butter.
“Toast,” he said, sounding uncertain. “I don’t know much about eating disorders, but the nurse offered toast, so I went with that. And tea.”
“Oh.”
“And please don’t shout at her when she comes back in.”
“Why would I shout at her?” I managed to wriggle myself up a bit. He put the cups of tea down and adjusted the pillow behind my back like I was an invalid. The thought made me grimace because I kind of was, and the tape holding the drip in place was itching and I couldn’t scratch it because the plaster cast went all the way up my shoulder and…
“Here,” he said and held the tea up to my mouth. I took a sip. Oh. Good tea.
Next, he held out the toast, which I managed to grab hold of before he fed it to me like a baby.
