Micky will never hate me

 

 

“HELLO?”

Benjamin sounds like Micky—all twangy and cowboy film–like. I can’t speak. My mouth opens, but that’s as far as I get before my brain seizes up and I can’t decide what to say.

“Hello?”

With a sigh, he hangs up.

Feeling even more nervous, I dial again. Diana gives me an encouraging smile, so I turn around and do my best to pretend she isn’t watching and listening.

“Hello?”

I know he’s going to hang up quicker this time, so I say hello back really quickly. “Is this Benjamin da Silva?” I remember to ask.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“It’s about Micky….” Crap. I swallow. “I mean Dominic.”

“Dominic?” he says a little breathlessly, and I can sort of picture his whole expression suddenly transforming into one as full of hope as his voice.

“He’s in hospital.”

“Oh my God. What?” he says, somehow managing to sound at once shocked and confused and questioning whether I’m telling him the truth.

“In St. George’s Hospital in London.”

“Is he… is he… okay?”

“No. He had a heart attack.”

His breathing goes all funny.

“Oh my God,” he repeats over and over. A voice in the background asks him if he’s okay, and I think he must say yes, because everything goes quiet.

I wrap my arm around myself. I don’t know what to say.

“Are you… did I speak to you at the Albert Hall?”

“Yeah,” I say when I realise he can’t see my nod. “Micky doesn’t know I’m calling you.”

“What’s your name?” he asks quietly.

“Danny.”

“Thank you, Danny! I’m in Berlin right now, but I’m… I’m going to try and get a flight tonight…. St. George’s Hospital? In London.” I hear paper rustling, voices. “It’s just me, okay. I’m going to come on my own. If Dominic is worried I’m going to tell the rest of the family, I promise I won’t. Will you be there?”

He speaks fast like Micky.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I’ll be there.” Sleeping in the corridor if needs be.

“Do you have a phone number?”

I have my phone—Micky’s phone—in my pocket. I give him the number.

“Thank you, Danny. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

 

 

DIANA DRIVES me back to the hospital in her car. The only reason I accept her offer of a lift without question is because I know it’s going to take me longer to walk and I want as much time with Micky as possible. When we get there, she says she’s going to grab a cup of coffee and wait in one of the waiting rooms for me. I don’t know how to tell her not to.

 

 

MY HEART does this excited leap when I see Micky sitting up in bed as though he’s not sick at all, just resting in a bed in a weird hotel full of other slightly sleepier people and their strange machines. The way he smiles and the way his eyes fill with tears when he catches sight of me, like I’m what he needs more than anything and he hardly dares to believe I’m there, is almost enough to break me. He holds his arms out.

“I’ve done something, and I’m scared you’re going to hate me,” I say, not letting myself go to him without getting this out.

“Whatever it is, I can guarantee I will never hate you,” he says croakily, as though he has complete and utter faith in me. “Come here.”

I sit on his bed and let his arms wrap around me, feeling how trembly and weak he is. I press my face into his hair and stroke my hand across his back, letting my fingers trace his ribs. I want to take care of him so badly, but I don’t think I know how.

“I called Benjamin,” I say, listening carefully for any change in his breathing, but all that happens is Micky hugs me tighter.

“Are you angry?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.

“No.” His voice is muffled against my top. “Not angry, I promise.”

“I didn’t know what to do.” I don’t know how to express what I mean by that—how to explain how overwhelmed I was and how much it scares me.

Micky pulls away, looks at me, strokes my face. “I’ve never seen you cry and I don’t want to be the cause of it if you do.” He tilts my chin up. I see my reflection in the blue, how pained my expression is, so I change it to a happier one. “I’m sorry, Danny. I’m so, so sorry. Do you know what the doctor told me?”

He waits for me to shake my head.

“He said my body is shutting down because I’m not giving it enough of what it needs. I did this. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

His face scrunches up, and I can see he’s trying not to cry, but a sob bursts out of him loud enough that one of the nurses comes over to glare at me. All I can do is hold him tight and stroke his hair as a hundred more sobs wrack his body.

Eventually they stop, but he’s completely drained. Micky wants me to lie on his bed with him, but the nurse at the nurses’ station should be called Hawkeye because she shakes her head slowly and mouths “Don’t you dare” when I move to bring my legs up.

Micky rolls his eyes, and his smile is worth any amount of disapproval from those nurses. But at the same time, I don’t want them to chuck me out.

I look at all the machines in the room, fascinated. Leaning to one side so Hawkeye can’t see, Micky pulls the tape off his wrist and shows me the cannula pushing into his skin. He lets me touch it, presses my fingers against it so I can feel the hard plastic inside him. One night he told me he wished I could touch all the places inside him no one has ever touched, but because that would probably kill him, he let me into his mind instead.

After the cannula, he tells me the long tube it’s attached to is feeding him intravenously and it makes him feel disgusted and he knows that’s fucked-up. Careful to keep the blanket covering everything below his belly button, he lifts up the hospital gown and shows me the electrodes stuck to his chest that are monitoring his heart. I try to keep my eyes on all the hospital stuff, but when Micky places my hand on his stomach, against his warm smooth skin, I lose focus… until Hawkeye comes over and insists Micky keep his clothes in place, anyway.

Visiting time is over too soon. I ask to stay, say I’ll sleep on the floor and they won’t even know I’m there. But Hawkeye says, “Not a chance.” She does give us two more minutes, though.

“Did you tell Benjamin I was in hospital? Did he say he was coming here?” Micky picks at the tape on his wrist and doesn’t look at me. It’s the first time he’s mentioned me calling his brother.

I nod.

“Do you know where he was?”

“Berlin.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel like you didn’t know what to do,” he says miserably.

“No more sorrys.” There’s no point. I know he doesn’t want this to have happened.

“One more,” he says, pushing himself up with a wince and wrapping his arms tightly around me. He doesn’t say it, though.