Page 69 of You Belong With Me

‘I’m having some sort of turn,’ Edie gasped, trying to smile, tucking her hair behind her ears.

‘You’re in shock,’ Declan said, rubbing her back. ‘Which is understandable. Try to get your breathing steady – it’ll help.’

Edie nodded.

‘It’s what happens when you go from boring day at work to fight or flight in two minutes flat. It keeps us safe from being eaten by bears.’

Edie smiled in gratitude.

‘Your brain will realise there’s no bear chasing you if you give it a minute.’

‘What if there is a bear?’ Edie squeaked out. ‘A sick dad bear.’

‘He’s in exactly the right place to be sick if he is sick, and you’re going to be with your sister, and everything will be OK. It may not feel like it right now, but you can cope, I promise.’

He rubbed her back again, and Edie, to her surprise, felt more in control than she had a moment ago.

A horn sounded below, and Declan got up to glance out of the window.

‘If you feel you can move, I’m going to put your coat on you and walk you down there, all right? Take it slowly.’

Edie nodded in mute gratitude. She pushed herself up from her desk and put her heavy arms into the proffered coat sleeves.

They took the stairs at a pensioner pace, with Declan’s arm around her, his other holding her bag.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Declan asked, opening the car door.

‘We can’t leave the office like that?’ Edie said.

‘Respectfully, fuck the office.’

They smiled at each other, and she said: ‘I think I’ll manage, but thank you so much.’

‘Call when you can,’ he said.

The stop-start journey in early rush hour gave Edie a chance to calm down a few degrees. She tried to count blessings. Her dad had been conscious. It was a great hospital, a huge teaching hospital. He’d be fine. He was healthy. He had two kids on hand to help him convalesce.

When she emerged from the taxi, looking up at the concrete edifice of Queen’s Medical Centre, she said: ‘Please let him be OK’ aloud, not caring if she looked mad to anyone in earshot. She’d been here with Declan just last month, in very different spirits. Life kept happening.

Edie fumbled her phone out and quickly scrolled to Elliot’s number. She’d be strong for Meg and strong for her dad; right now she missed the person who’d hold her up. She knew that with the time difference and his filming, there was no chance he’d pick up. She tried three times anyway, desperate enough to find comfort in a dial tone for a device somewhere near Elliot’s person.

Edie pressed the microphone symbol and left a somewhat fraught, vocally wavering voice note, explaining where she was and why, and that she’d hopefully speak to him later.

She did conscious, measured breathing as she walked through the sliding doors into A&E. As she scanned the crowd, Meg came barrelling towards her. She was in pyjamas with a hoodie over the top and welly boots.

She threw herself into Edie’s arms and said, voice muffled: ‘Good news! It’s a fracture and a bad sprain! It’s only his metatarsal bones!’

Edie looked at her quizzically. As Meg stepped back, Edie saw that her sister looked authentically exultant.

‘Was it? Why was he confused?’

‘He fell down the stairs, twisted his ankle and then dragged himself to his phone, which was on the counter. By the time he got there, he was light-headed because it hurt so much. Dad sounded unusual, and when he said he’d had a fall, I lost it. But he says he didn’t even hit his head on the way down! Or have a brain episode that made him fall! He slipped on a Jaffa Cake!’

‘Ahhh.’ Edie’s pulse slowed, her adrenaline level began descending, and she gathered that she’d been a victim of Meg’s tendency to hyperbole.

Edie wasn’t going to make a word of complaint about this.

Firstly, she was awash with too much gratitude. She’d have given anything for this diagnosis mere seconds ago; she wasn’t going to insult God by responding with wrath. Secondly, she’d not been a model of proportionate reaction herself. Thirdly,she wanted Meg to feel she could offload onto her, if she needed to. Sibling duties.

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