My head pounded, pulsing with a dull pain and I felt weak. I went to grab my coat from my office and snuck away from the party. I couldn’t face anyone else.

* * *

The next morning Tink left at the crack of dawn after creeping into my room and leaving a goodbye kiss on my head.

I woke a few hours later to go to the bathroom, and then it hit me. The feeling I hadn’t felt for several months: the pain, the nausea, the helplessness, the bloody evil condition that brings me to my knees.

As I lost consciousness, I just remembered thinking Why now? Tink… help…

And then it all went dark.

Chapter 16

Knock, Knock... are you there?

I could hear the phone ringing… again. As I lay on the floor of my bedroom, a perfect view of underneath the bed, watching a cluster of lint float by my face, Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ ringtone taunting me and my current predicament.

I was present in terms of being able to see and hear, but I could not muster an ounce of energy to move. I tried to send a message to my limbs to pick themselves up and move towards the sound of my salvation; the message failed.

If I were to hazard a guess, I reckoned I had been in that spot for roughly twelve hours or so. The sun had set and cast the room in a blanket of darkness.

I drifted in and out of sleep and had managed to manoeuvre myself into various foetal positions to ease the discomfort, but I never quite managed to hoist my unresponsive carcass off the floor. I was thirsty, feverish and basically felt worse than a sheikh with a broken dick being thrown into a harem of eager women.

I’d been so blind. I should have seen the signs. When I’m stressed or not looking after myself well, my condition kicks in. I have problems with my hormones, it’s something called Cushing's Syndrome, and when they are put under pressure, they can affect my already-weak immune system. It’s not unpredictable; it shouldn't catch me by surprise. It was actually like bloody clockwork, a simple formula: lack of care leads to days of hell. Accidentally forgetting to take my medication may also have hindered things for me too, and then when I’m stressed everything is knocked off-kilter and I end up in that situation – face down on my bedroom floor, and that time without my favourite fairy to fly me to safety.

The real bugger of it all was that I had medication in my bathroom cabinet, but the fact that the extreme fatigue had kicked in meant I quite literally could not move. My muscles had gone on vacation. The traitorous things had probably joined Tink in friggin’ Vancouver, because it was abundantly clear they were not here with me!

I could feel the dryness of my mouth through dehydration, fever ravishing my body, and my salty sweat was running into my eyes, causing them to sting and blur. I knew I was in trouble. I could imagine my parents blaming themselves for 'allowing' me to come to Canada. So much for fending for myself!

I was fading fast, that much was obvious; I was just waiting to see an obligatory oasis with a refreshing spring to tease me in my hour of need – that's what you see when you're popping your clogs, right?

What I didn’t expect to see was a full embodiment of Tudor North running towards me in slow motion, white as a ghost, muscles rippling against a tight white tee and a look of concerned panic all across his face, with the theme tune from Baywatch accompanying his every step.

What is it with him? I am addicted. I, Natasha Munro, am a Tudaholic. I constantly think of him, being with him, him wanting me. No matter what he does to me, I cave like a junkie to a drug. Against Tudor I have no will power, and even now, at my weakest, it’s the image of him coming to my damsel-in-distress call to the theme of a nineties TV show that I envision. I am royally f**ked up. A glutton for punishment. Then again, if I’m going to pass through the transcendental plane, his face and fine physique are a comforting sight with which to send me on my way.

Mentally kicking my own arse, you know, as my leg wouldn’t move in reality, I groaned and shut my eyes. When I opened them again, my mirage was before me, so real that I wanted to stretch out my hand to touch it, to eradicate the teasing vision.

Like a scene in a dramatic war film, the ambient sounds muted and everything occurred at a snail’s pace, a slow motion Spielberg-esque director’s cut of the end of my life. In a dramatic twist, I was suddenly scooped up from my impending carpeted doom by a pair of hulking arms and placed on my soft, warm bed, my eyes trying to fight the pull of blissful sleep.

I felt wetness on my lips, water running down my sandpapered throat, soothing it like a balm. A pillar of incredible strength held my head as the liquid began to take effect and my vision began to snap back into focus. My surroundings began to stitch themselves back together.