When I got back to Nik’s room, he was propped up in bed, and looking calmer—if a bit red around his eyes and nose. He gave me an awkward grin. Which I returned with an awkward grin of my own.
We’d never actually fought before, at least not about anything more serious than Disney princes, so this was all new ground. And I didn’t think either of us could tell if it was solid earth or eggshells or broken glass beneath our feet.
Finally, Nik said, “I’m really sorry, Ardy.”
“Honestly, you don’t have to be.”
“You’re not the boss of me. I can be sorry if I want.”
I put my hands on my hips. “I might be the boss of you. How do you know? Do you have paperwork?”
“Dude, you’re barely capable of being the boss of yourself.”
“So harsh.”
But we were laughing and it felt…too terrifyingly fragile to be normal. But it was good too.
“I’m shit scared, you know,” he said, so softly I almost missed it.
I went to sit on the edge of his bed. Slid my hand over to his and muddled up our fingers. “Me too.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to be okay.” He pulled an almost comically rueful face. “I think I’m fucked.”
“Oh Nik, you’re not fucked. Just…fondled a bit roughly.”
He laughed, then winced, his free hand curling against the bedsheets. “But what am I going to do?”
“Um, same as before?”
“Like this?”
“Well, maybe not exactly like this.”
“I might not be able to walk.”
I took a breath, hoping against hope I was going to say this right. “I know, and that is the…fucking suckiest. And everything is probably going to be really hard for a long time. But—”
“If you tell me life goes on I’m going to yank out this catheter and wee on you.”
“I guess…it’s more that your life isn’t over?”
“Are you sure? Because I saw this movie about how it’s now my social duty to euthenate myself for the sake of my loved ones.”
I nodded. “And you have to leave me all your money too.”
Nik grinned, but quickly grew thoughtful again.
So I went on more seriously, “A bunch of stuff is going to have to change. But some won’t. And you’re still you.”
“I guess.”
I unleashed a melodramatic sigh. “It’s a shame, really, that there’s never been a single scientist ever with any sort of disability.”
He glowered at me. “Stop trying to make me laugh, it hurts.”
“Sorry.”
In the following silence, I did some hospitally things. Topped up Nik’s water. Smoothed his sheets and made sure the light from the window wasn’t in his eyes.
“Anyway,” he went on. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh?”
“I mean, about what I should do and stuff. And”—he fell quiet a moment, fiddling with a crease in his sheets—“I think you should probably…I dunno how to say this…like, leave.”
I stared at him, stricken. “I’ve been that rubbish?”
“What? No. You’ve been great. Ten out ten Nightingales. But, it’s not about you. I mean, it is about you. It’s just mainly about me.”
“How do you mean?”
“You heard Dr Sharma.” He huffed out a slightly aggrieved sigh “This is going to take forever. I have to have more surgery, and then there’ll be physical therapy and all the rest of the rehabilitation crap.”
“Yes, but you should have someone with you.”
“Not you, though.”
I blinked, not sure whether I was insulted or relieved. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Well, for starters, you’re my friend, not my caregiver. And that’s how I’d like to keep you.”
“I am a pretty awesome friend,” I conceded.
Which made him laugh and scruffle my hair. “Which is handy because I need one more favor.”
“Anything.” I thought about it for a moment. “Well, except give you another hand job. I’m taken now.”
“Sorry, mate. I’m not that desperate. Do you think you could get in touch with my sister?”
“Hang on, you have a sister? Sheesh, I’ve only known you for nearly four years. Is she anything like you? Is she single?”
“I thought you were supposed to be taken.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t have my head turned. Although”—I gave the matter due consideration—“when I try imagining what your sister would be like, I just end up picturing you in a dress.” I gave it further consideration. “Actually, that’s quite hot.”
“Look, Arden. My sister’s. Well. She’s Poppy Carrie.”
My mouth fell open in such an excessive way that a tram could probably have taken a shortcut through it. “What? The Poppy Carrie? The model.”
“She’s doing more acting now. But yeah. And stop sleazing on her. She’s my sister, dude.”
“I’m not sleazing. I’m…I’m disorientated, okay?” It wasn’t that I expected—or thought I had a right—to know everything about Nik. But this was something at once so incidental and fundamental that it felt weird suddenly discovering it. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned her?”
His ears had gone pinkish. “It’s complicated. She’s why I don’t speak to my parents.”
I’d wondered what was going on there, but it had never really come up and it wasn’t the sort of question you just dropped on someone. “They have issues with her?”
“Yeah. They’re like these total Guardian-reading liberals but they got all Edwardian about it the moment their first-born son turned out to be a girl.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry.”
Nik picked idly at the covers. Then muttered, “Truthfully, I wasn’t great either. But can you try calling her? I’ve got her private number.”
It was kind of surreal, having to ring a stranger—a famous stranger, no less—totally out of the blue. I was starting to get nervy flashbacks to the telethon, except the stakes were way higher. What if Nik’s sister thought I was a stalker or a journalist or the world’s bizarrest marketing company and hung up on me?
Thankfully she didn’t.
Although I emerged from the conversation with barely any memory of it. Just this holy fuck, I spoke with Poppy Carrie feeling.
She’d called Nik Nikki.
And was going to be on the next flight.
* * *
That night, feeling oddly buoyant, not sure if I had any right to feel buoyant and finally decided to go with it regardless, I treated myself to an epic bath, pouring almost all of the free Molton Brown products into it until I had my very own watery bubble cloud. Unfortunately, it was way less fun than I thought it was going to be because it was a depressingly large tub to contain a single, smallish Arden. And woke up the beast of my missing Caspian, which I mostly kept tucked up inside me while I did other things. But sometimes, when I was alone, it shook off its lethargy and came at me with teeth and claws until I was nothing but small wounds.
Reaching for my phone, I twisted myself into what I hoped was a sultry-like position, all otter-sleek and glistening, one shoulder and my tattooed hip emerging naughtily from a shield of foam. Holding the lens above me at an angle, I gave it my biggest, best, most-inviting pout-smile. Like I was saying kiss me kiss me. Or maybe just fuck my mouth.
Snap snap. Click click.
A couple of filters.
And off to Caspian.
A few minutes later I got back: You’ve lost weight. Are you taking proper care of yourself?
One hundred percent incorrect answer, I swiped.
I’m in a meeting. Pause. You’re very enticing.
I miss enticing you.
Another pause. Then: Come home as soon as you can. You can entice me in person.
The bathwater was getting cool, so I hopped out and wrapped myself in a towel. And that was when I noticed the notification light was flashing on my non-Caspian phone. I glanced at my email out of habit, rather than interest, fully expecting something along the lines of “Dear Arden, it has been eight gazillion years since you were last on Facebook. We miss you!”
But it was an email from Milieu.
They wanted (with some edits) to publish my article.
My article…
It just went to show how much your friend getting mushed by traffic could knock you because, for a moment, I had no idea what the hell I’d sent them. And then I remembered. Dancing with Ellery in an abandoned hospital. Another world. One where getting into Milieu was everything I wanted.
And I’d done it. I’d actually done it.
I couldn’t feel happy about it yet, though. Nik was too close and this was too distant. But in the strangest way I could feel my future waiting for me. Like that long summer after my A-levels, with Oxford gleaming on the horizon. Except this wasn’t a dream created by ten centuries of other people’s expectations. It was for me. And maybe I’d fuck it up or it wouldn’t work out. But that would be mine too.
Dragging my laptop out of my luggage, I plopped myself Sarah Jessica Parker style on the bed and dug into my edits. Got them off in a couple of hours, with some sweating, and only a little bit of cursing.
The reply came back as I was getting ready to sleep.
And contained the most magical words in the universe: We’d love to see more of your writing.