“Fine, His Royal Petrescu. But let me tell you this, this attitude of yours isn’t going to get you anywhere but your own personal hell. And you are going to see those friends of yours, because they have come every single bloody day that you’ve been in here, even when you didn’t know they were. And while I get paid to deal with your ass, they do it out of love. And you don’t know how lucky you are to have that.”
I know she’s right.
But it doesn’t change anything.
“You don’t know what I’ve bee-…”
“Oh yes, I do,” she practically yells at me, her hands on her hips, and I know the rest of the lecture is coming. “Whatever you think is so unique about your situation, I’ve seen it, hell, I’ve lived it. So, suck it up, maybe spending a little less time feeling sorry for yourself and more time working on your exercise, cos that’s what’s gonna save you.”
She huffs and shoves me forward while she fluffs my pillows, mumbling under her breath and then pushes me back against them. I bite back a smile. The first I’ve had all day.
She’s right. Of course she is.
“Please. Just… give me one more day. Okay? I’ll see them tomorrow, but I just need one more day.”
“Fine. I’ll tell ’em, Mister Petrescu. I’ll tell them to come back tomorrow.”
She grabs a dirty cup from my table and steps towards the door, pulling it closed behind her, shutting me in with my thoughts.
The afternoon visitor rush comes and goes and I watch night-time descend as the sky turn dark outside my window.
And I wait.
But again, there’s no music.
Fuck this. I get up and poke my head out the door.
“Robbie,” I whisper, gesturing to the night nurse and he comes jogging over. “Can I grab a pen and a piece of paper?”
He nods and brings it to me in my room.
I try to grip the pen in my right hand, and it feels awkward and stiff, but not painful. My index finger pushes too hard against the pen and it slips out of my hand and onto the floor.
“Flying sack of steaming hot fucking woolly mammoth shit!!!”
Robbie’s head pokes in through the open door.
“What’s up, J? Need help with something?”
“N-…” I bite back the trigger response of rejecting any help. “Er, yeah, would you mind writing a note for me? Still having a little trouble.”
“Yeah, no problem,” he says, picking the pen up off the floor and stands over the table, ready to write.
“Can you, um, can you just write the words, ‘Les Feuilles Mortes’?”
He blinks for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the request.
“Yeah, honestly, no. No, I cannot write… um Le Frilly Moth.”
“Les Feuilles Mortes.”
“That’s what I said. Is there a note in English I can write for you?”
“Sorry, um, yeah. How about “Autumn Leaves”?”
“Autumn… Leaves,” he says as he scribbles on the paper. “That I can do. That’s it?” He holds up the note, checking his work.
“Yeah. Well, could you deliver it for me? To… er, the woman… er, to Noemie?”
“The newbie patient down the hall?”
“Yeah.”
He just shrugs and folds the piece of paper and tucks it into his shirt, like it’s nothing. Like that note doesn’t contain the secret to my sanity.
CHAPTER NINE
NOEMIE
“Are you done?” Paige asks me, holding her hand out for my plate.
“Yeah, thanks for dinner, it was delicious.” I say, handing it to her and giving her a grateful smile. As hard as it is to deal with the energy of her visits, she’s really the only regular outside contact that I have. I’d go crazy if it weren’t for her.
“No problem. So, this place gets a tick from us?” She waves a napkin at me, pointing to the logo of the cafe the food came from.
“Definitely, but would it matter? Don’t you go there for the hot barista anyway? Isn’t that how we pick most take-out places?”
“Seems your memory is working just fine,” she says, poking her tongue out at me, and bundles up the used plates into the trash can.
“Speaking of which, can you help me with some of my memory exercises?”
She smiles and fusses with the bed, straightening out the sheets and fluffing the pillow.
“Sure, but not tonight, yeah? You look a little tired. You shouldn’t be pushing yourself.”
“I haven’t been sleeping really well.”
“Oh, do you need something to help with that?” She looks instantly concerned.
“I do, sometimes. Mostly when my head hurts though.”
She comes over and sits down next to me on the couch, gently stroking my hair. “Is it getting better?”
“The pain? Yeah, almost all gone now. And the doctor says I’m pretty healed up otherwise. It’s just that my brain is still a little foggy. Who knows when that will clear up?”
“Well, no rush, you just let your body recover at its own time.”
“I can’t stay here forever. I can’t afford that.”
“How many times am I going to have to tell you? Would you just let me worry about that? My Dad is cool with it, okay? Like he’d ever miss the money.” And as true as that is, it’s not my money to spend. I don’t tell her that the concept of paying her back is partly what keeps me up at night.
“It’s so much though.”
“Shush.” She makes a zipping movement across her lips.
“I’m shushing.”
She rolls her eyes at me, gets up and resumes fussing with the blankets.
“You going to put a mint on the pillow?” I tease her. She makes a face but doesn’t stop, pouring water into my glass and tidying up around the bedside table.
I take advantage of her not talking for once to ask her what’s been on my mind since that afternoon.
“Hey, do we, do I know someone called Jez?”
Her hands instantly stop moving and turns back to face me. “What?”
“Jez. Does that name sound familiar to you.”
She pauses and thinks, “Um, no. Should it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why do you ask?”