The Do-Gooder

by Jessie L. Star

  Time started to blur again as the coughing fits drew closer together, destroying any sense of the relief I'd felt previously as there ceased to be any chance to catch my breath or swallow down the sputum I was spitting up. The feeling of the slippery, slimy mucus in my mouth made my nausea increase until, eventually, I had to turn my head aside to prevent vomiting all over myself. The sick landed on the floor beside me instead, a sludge of alarmingly yellow/green phlegm, the sight of which made me convulse again.

  The coughing/retching cycle continued for what felt like hours, and may well have been as, at one point, I realised what faint sunlight had been forcing its way through the rainclouds had completely faded. My room was left to be lit only by the wedge of yellow light peeking under the door to the corridor. As my head began to spin worse than ever, I started to imagine that the door led to some sort of desert wasteland; it seemed far more likely than that there were normal, healthy people just metres from me going about their business.

  Finally, after a particularly ferocious attack of the cough that seemed to drag on and on, I found that I could only suck in the thinnest whisper of air through my constricted throat in recovery. Panic added to the crushing sensation in my chest and I scrabbled at the phone still in my lap, aware, with the sort of clarity I felt so rarely, that I couldn't handle this on my own anymore.

  I needed Fletch to come back for me.

  I kept the message short, but my fingers still stumbled over the keys; autocorrect earning its keep as it struggled to comprehend my mistypes. I can't breathe.

  He'd come. I knew he'd come. He always came when I told him to, right?

  An image of the last look he'd given me before he left swam in front of my eyes and my fingers tightened around the plastic casing of my phone. Fletch'd looked...done. He'd made peace with Salida, he'd made peace with Donny, had he made peace with me now? Made peace and moved on?

  Please, I thought desperately as the spots that had been dancing at the edges of my vision started to merge to form an encroaching darkness. Please, Fletch. Please...

  ----------

  "I swear to God, mate, if you don't get out of my way I'm gonna-"

  The vehicle that had been blocking the lane finally moved over and Fletch accelerated past it, his car loudly protesting the demand for the sudden burst of speed. Bumping over rough sand dunes in search of the perfect wave his car was used to, racing through the streets with the accelerator pressed firmly to the floor, not so much.

  Tough, Fletch thought grimly. The car was just going to have to hold it together like he was.

  He'd been working on an assignment when Lara's text had come through and had, at first, ignored it. He knew, and had thought she did too, that after their spat earlier, his days of appearing by her side every time she clicked her damn fingers were well and truly over. Curiosity had won out after 10 minutes or so, however, and he'd flicked to her text, his fingers going numb as he'd read the one line message.

  She couldn't breathe? What the-?

  He'd then sat there for a further minute wondering what the hell was going on and what he was supposed to do about it. He'd meant every word he'd said to her that afternoon, had meant it for years, although he'd never thought he'd end up throwing it in her face like that. Not that she'd fought him on it, of course. No, she'd just sat there and told him straight out that her deeds meant more to her than anything else; informing him exactly where he came in on her priority list.

  And yet...

  His eyes had slid back to the text and, in the next second, he'd grabbed his keys and headed for the car. From someone else 'I can't breathe' might have been hyperbole or a cry for attention, but not Lara. From her it could only be a statement of fact.

  He knew what Daz would say if he found out Fletch had switched straight back into what he called his 'knight-in-boring-armour' mode, but he didn't care. He just wasn't built to ignore a text like that.

  The distance from his place to Lara's was usually negligible, but it didn't seem that way then as he swerved through the evening traffic, cursing almost non-stop at the other road-users. A hard knot of something resembling panic grew in his stomach with each minute that passed, until his knuckles showed up white as he gripped the steering wheel.

  Finally, he pulled up outside Lara's building and, slewing crookedly into a park, raced up the two flights of stairs until he was back outside her room. Out of habit he checked the whiteboard, but it was blank, the way it’d been ever since he'd confronted those girls a couple of weeks ago. So maybe his boring armour had some uses.

  Knocking loudly on the door, he waited a moment and then knocked again, calling out her name. There was no answer.

  "It's me," he tried again. "I got your text and I just want to check you're alright, open the door." He listened carefully in case she called out that he could enter as she had earlier that day.

  Silence.

  "Look, I'm coming in," he announced, closing his hand around the doorknob and pushing the door open cautiously.

  The smell hit him immediately; the smell of sickness and, well, just plain sick. The smell was immediately forgotten, however, as he caught sight of Lara slumped on the floor, the thin blue veins on her closed eyelids stark against her unnaturally pale skin.

  Swearing, he strode over and knelt beside her, feeling the clammy skin at her wrist and finding an erratic pulse that matched her short, uneven breaths. He was relieved to see that she was at least breathing, though, and that she seemed to be making an effort to open her eyes as he ran his fingers over her face and called her name.

  Holding her close with one hand, he reached for his phone with the other and called triple zero, requesting an ambulance in a shaky voice that didn't sound anything like his own. Some distant part of him pointed out at this stage that Lara probably wouldn't thank him for this request, suspecting that her issue with sick people likely extended to hospitals. Still, as she seemed to be having trouble staying conscious he thought it'd be a while before she could make her displeasure known. It wasn't a comforting thought.

  He rocked her slightly as he waited for the ambulance, feeling like he should be saying something comforting, but unable to force anything out. Actions had always been worth more between them anyway; their words just a way to deflect or attack.

  When the fluoro jacketed ambos arrived, he reluctantly relinquished her over to them and hung back as they fastened an oxygen mask over her face and started throwing around terms like respiratory acidosis and hypotension. It should've been a relief to have her in the care of people who knew what they were doing, but he didn't like to see her being handled by strangers; he knew she would've hated it.

  They asked him questions as they lifted her efficiently onto a trolley; queries about how long she'd been sick, what she'd taken for it, if she had any allergies. He couldn't answer most of them and with each question that went unanswered it was driven home how little he actually knew about the basic day-to-day details that made up the girl he'd been obsessed with for almost a third of his life.

  Searching for some way to not be completely useless, he caught sight of Lara's bag and snatched it up as he followed the paramedics out to the lift. She would want it when she woke. The corner of Big Blue poked him hard in the chest as he rode down to the ground floor with them, as if punishing him for waiting so long before going to its mistress's aid.

  It's her fault too, he tried to justify it, who waits until they can't breathe before asking for help? But any anger he tried to summon up fell flat with one glance at her looking as fragile and hollow as she had the night of Donny's memorial.

  "We've got her, mate," the older of the medics said as they emerged out of the building and wheeled her out to the ambulance. "You can follow on behind us."

  Fletch hesitated for a moment, but then stepped back and allowed them to load Lara into their vehicle without him; nodding curtly in thanks as they climbed in after her and shut the doors in his face.

  They know what to do, he told himself
firmly as he jogged to his own car and quickly pulled out behind them. She's in good hands. It was some consolation, but then again, all it left him with was thoughts of how the hell he was supposed to break it to Lara's mum that her remaining child, the one he'd promised to take care of, was unconscious and on her way to hospital in the back of an ambulance.

  Chapter 20 – Fault

  "You always have to take everything that one step further, don't you, La-La? So, what? You looked around, saw everyone getting colds and flus at this time of year and thought 'I can do better than that, I'll opt for pneumonia, thanks very much'?"

  I opened my gritty eyes gingerly and turned my head on the starchy hospital pillow in time to see Merry march into the small, cream room dominated by the bed I lay propped up on. She dumped her bag down onto the visitor's chair, planted her hands on her hips, and glared at me.

  In a move that had become routine in the 18 or so hours since I'd groggily regained consciousness in the hospital, I dragged my gaze over to the large date and time clock that sat on the wall opposite my bed. This clock had proven invaluable to me as I drifted in and out; keeping me straight on where and when I was each time I woke. It told me now that it was mid-afternoon the day after my humiliating decline, something that seemed extraordinary as it felt like I'd been stuck in the clinically beige hell hole for about a decade. The only thing to be said of my stay so far was that at least I had my own room; a perk of having an illness that could wipe out most of the rest of the population of the hospital.

  Refocusing on Merry, I took in the thinly disguised fury on her, usually so chirpy, face and croaked, "You talked to my mum."

  "Obviously," she agreed crossly. "It's not like there's a big sign on your door that says: 'shh, stupid idiot who got herself pneumonified sleeping', although there probably should be." She flipped her blonde curls back in a way that forcefully reminded me of the sort of move I'd usually pull, and continued, "Yes, I met your mum in the corridor, lovely woman, I don't see the family resemblance at all."

  This fantastically bitchy and un-Merry-like response made me smirk slightly, which in turn, made me feel more like myself than I had all week.

  "Well, you know me," I said as I tentatively pushed myself a little bit more upright, careful not to tug on the drip line running out of my arm, "I'm an original."

  "Oh, you're one of a kind, alright," she snorted, looking me up and down critically and then starting to rummage vigorously through her bag. "And you're in very real danger of becoming extinct if you carry on like this."

  The effort it had taken just to sit up a bit more had made my temples feel like tiny cymbals were noisily crashing away just below the surface of my skin, and I briefly closed my eyes to try and achieve a moment's respite from the clamour. When I opened them again it was to see that Merry had pulled a small canister from her bag and was now moving purposely towards me. Vulnerable as I was, I found myself shrinking back a little from the grim set of her face.

  "What are you doing?" I asked as she shook the container in her hand, eliciting the distinctive rattly sound of an aerosol, and leant over me.

  "I'm putting dry shampoo through your hair," she said bluntly, as there was a faint hiss and a spray tickled my scalp. "You look like an oily lollipop."

  "Oh." My tender throat clenched suddenly and I swallowed awkwardly as she nimbly began to massage the product into my roots without a hint of embarrassment at the intimacy of the gesture. It was a strange sensation, so different from her usual attack-hugs, but I didn't try to push her away. Merry had proven herself indefatigable when it came to appearing by my side and, somewhere along the line, I seemed to have passed straight by 'unresisting' to an almost Stockholm Syndrome-like gratification for her presence.

  "Thanks," I muttered awkwardly after a few seconds of her grooming and she gave one of my locks an answering yank.

  "You can thank me by not pulling a stunt like yesterday ever again." She stepped back to admire her work on my hair and then dropped her gaze down to my face, her expression fiercer than ever. "Your mum told me that the doctor said that people our age and without a disability or whatever don't usually get as sick as you did, do you know that? That one of the main reasons you collapsed was because of dehydration? Jesus, Lara!" She threw the dry shampoo back into her handbag with much more force than necessary. "You could've just drunk some bloody water! It comes out of the tap in your room, it's not like you would've had to go far for it. Urgh, you make me so mad!"

  She punched the outline of my leg under the covers, a physical representation of the exclamation mark her last sentence had clearly ended with, and then looked at me pointedly, clearly awaiting my response. My rejoinder, however, was to simply blink back at her, at a loss as to what to say.

  I'd expected fall out as I'd passed in and out of consciousness in the back of the ambulance the night before. I'd braced myself for more aggro from Fletch, and a certain fierce disappointment from my mum, but I hadn't foreseen the angry sort of hurt I seemed to have stirred up in Merry.

  "I didn't-" I finally started to say, before stopping and trying again. "I wasn't-" But that wasn't right either. "Sorry," I finally relented, if somewhat ungraciously.

  Merry stared at me for another, long moment and then tossed her bag down onto the ground and slumped into the vacated chair by my bed.

  "Good, you should be sorry," she announced. "We're all used to you treating yourself appallingly, but you took it too far this time."

  Piece said, she pulled a packet of hard lollies out of her bag and popped one in her mouth before holding them out to me. Heeding the unspoken demand in the gesture, I too took a candy and felt the sugar explode across my, still slightly raw feeling, tongue. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a sweet like that, but I didn't get time to dwell on it as Merry leant forward and asked seriously, "So how do you feel?"

  "Fine," I said automatically, before seeing my mistake in the shadow that crossed her face and adding, "-ish."

  "So, reading between the lines," she said tartly, "awful?"

  I wished, not for the first time, that there was a mirror in the room as, at the moment, I was only able to suppose that I looked as bad as I felt by the almost wary way my mum, and now Merry, had been looking at me. Still, with all the antibiotics and fluids that were being pumped into me, it had to be a vast improvement on where I'd been the night before, something that I pointed out to Merry.

  "No doubt," was her caustic reply, "but I don't think we can take being conscious as the gold standard of health."

  There were a few seconds of silence after that, during which she sucked loudly on her lolly and I subtly reached for a tissue to spit out my own. The glucose-y feeling in my mouth was beginning to make me feel slightly nauseous and I didn't want to have to make use of the sick bowl sitting next to me on the side-table...not again, anyway.

  The hush was eventually broken as Merry let out a huge sigh and shuffled her chair closer to the bed, the metal legs squeaking against the grey lino on the floor. "So what the hell, Lara?" She asked, in a much gentler tone than she'd used thus far. "I haven't seen you all week and then the next thing I know Fletch is calling me and telling me you're in hospital? What happened?"

  I’d just started considering how best to frame my reply when my attention shifted to the cough that suddenly ripped through my chest. A frustrated sort of exhaustion tugged at me as I was forced back through the, by now infuriatingly familiar, routine of trying to expel the gunk from my lungs. When the attack had subsided, I saw that Merry had wordlessly poured me a glass of water and was waiting to pass it across. I took it, drank, and then found myself muttering, "I thought I could handle it."

  "It?" She asked, taking the glass back from me.

  "My cold." I shrugged slightly. "Me."

  "Fletch?" Her expression was arch and, although I flinched a little at the mention of the name, I forced myself to face her question head on.

  "Him too. He came round last night and..." words failed me for
a moment as I couldn't see how I could even begin to explain what had happened when I was a bit fuzzy on the details myself. In the end I just admitted the one thing I knew to be true. "I stuffed it with him," I said quietly. "Properly stuffed it."

  "Of course you did," she said dismissively, getting up to refill the water jug from the tap in the tiny connecting bathroom. "You two are always properly stuffing it with each other. It's not healthy, but it's just how you are."

  I went to shake my head, but stopped almost immediately as it made me feel dizzy. "Yesterday was different."

  There was obviously something in my tone that made her realise how serious I was because her expression was appropriately solemn as she returned to her chair and she didn't argue any further. I almost wished she would; with her sitting there all meekly it was left up to me to ask the question that had been pulsing at the base of my throat, just as much as the need to cough had, ever since I'd woken up.

  "Merry?" I started haltingly.

  "Mm?"

  "Where is he?" I winced at the clear neediness in the question, but forced myself to clarify, "Where's Fletch? I haven't seen him since..."

  My heart sank as Merry did some wincing of her own. "I don't know," she said, almost apologetically. "I haven't been able to get him to answer his phone since he called to tell me you'd been hospitalised. I thought...I thought he might be here with you."

  Me too, I thought and my chest suddenly burnt white hot with a completely different pain than the one I'd been battling all week. I sagged back against my pillows, completely understanding why Fletch wasn't prostrate at my sickbed, but hating his no-show even more because of it.

  "I'll leave you to it, La-La."

  I’d zoned out so much thinking about Fletch, wondering where he was and what he was doing, I hadn't noticed my eyes had fluttered shut and that I'd been close to dozing off before Merry's voice brought me back to myself.

  "Feel better, alright?" She took my hand and gave it a squeeze. "Stefano and Livvy send their love. Let us know as soon as you're out so we can follow you round with water bottles or hydrating face mists or whatever will make sure you don't freak us out like this ever again."