Page 90 of One Night With You

At some point Jackson went one way and I was sent another to be checked over. It was after midnight when a nurse came to find me to say he was in a critical but stable condition,and that he was being closely monitored. He has a broken leg, sprained wrist, cracked ribs and lots of swelling. He seems to be responding to stimulation, but they won’t know about any cognitive damage until he wakes up. That for now his coma is induced to make sure his body can heal. The nurse has to repeat all this three times for me to understand. They say his parents are coming. They accessed his emergency contact through his phone. I didn’t know that was possible. I don’t know what his parents look like, or what I’ll say when they get here. I’m told to wait in the family area, since I’m the one who came in with him. It’s got strip lighting and hard plastic chairs with arms. I couldn’t lie out if I wanted to. I don’t. I sit, a scratchy hospital blanket over my arms and legs, replaying everything over and over and over. I never saw the cyclist coming. If I’d have just looked to the left, I would have done. I could have stopped it. But I didn’t look to the left, and now Jackson is hooked up to monitors and I’m not even able to see him.

It’s not until 2 or 3 a.m. that I think to text Ruby. I hold my phone, the shakes I had earlier subsiding but still there. I should eat something. I’m in shock. Sugar? Do people eat something sweet after a shock?

Urgent,I type.Call me back. It’s Jackson.

I unfollowed her everywhere I could and don’t ask about her, but I never deleted her number. I thought about it. But I didn’t.

Accident,I type. I can’t make words stack up to make sentences.

Call me. Doesn’t matter what time.

I flick the button at the side of my phone to make the ringer loud. I hold it. I wait. At 4 a.m. she rings.

‘What’s happened?’ she says. ‘I’m drunk. I’m sorry. Are you okay?’

‘Jackson’s been in an accident,’ I say, my words sluggish, coming from somewhere not me.

‘What?’ she says. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He got hit by a cyclist who was going like, a million miles per hour or something crazy. She’s unconscious too. I’m at the hospital now but I’m not family, so I don’t know much else. I can’t see him. I’m just waiting.’

‘Are his parents there?’ she asks.

‘They’re on their way.’

‘Okay,’ she says. She pauses. She’s in shock too. It’s a lot to take in. ‘Hit by a cyclist?’ she says eventually. ‘He’s just bruised, surely. He’s not unconscious or anything?’

‘Ruby,’ I tell her, as calmly as I can but needing her to understand. ‘It’s bad. He was unconscious in the ambulance.’

‘Fuck,’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you okay? You were there?’

‘Yeah,’ I says. ‘I was there when it happened. It was … I mean … Ruby.’

And then I burst into tears. Big, guttural sobs that make the person snoozing opposite me in the waiting room jerk awake, look at me, and then close his eyes again. His arm. The whimpers. I can’t escape it. It’s all there behind my eyelids when I close my eyes, but it’s there at the front of my brain too, whether I like it or not.

‘Nic, I’m so sorry,’ she soothes. It’s animalistic, the noise I’m making, as if I’m traumatised. My tummy heaves in knots.

‘Hey, it’s okay. He’s going to be okay.’

I sob down the line to her, and she lets me. The other people in the waiting room are staring, but I don’t care. I can’t stop.

‘I’ll come now, okay?’ she says. ‘I have to be with my friend. I have to come down to London. I’m coming.’

I sniffle down the line. ‘On the train?’ I ask. And then, because I can’t do anything else, it becomes wholly clear to me what Icando. ‘Let me come get you.’ I breathe deeply enough to steady myself, to calm himself down. Yes. I’ll get in a hire car and I’ll drive and that is a thing I can control. ‘I’m no good here,’ I say, my head clearer now. ‘I can’t do anything. Let me drive up. It won’t take long at this time.’

I look at the clock on the wall. It’s 4.30 a.m. It’ll take four hours without traffic. I’ll be there by morning.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ she says. ‘I’ll get the train.’ She pauses, doing the maths of it. I can practically hear her decide that there probably isn’t a train now. She’ll have to wait until at least 6 or 7 a.m. anyway, and then get across London from the train station – not to mention the cost of it.

‘I’m coming now,’ I insist. ‘Please? I can’t sit here. I want to see you. I need you.’

‘I need you too,’ she says, quietly. ‘Okay.’

My hands are shaking. I feel sick.

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