I took a deep breath and forced my lids open to a little woman, dressed as a nurse, maybe early fifties, and a sweet smile. Another nurse, maybe a little older than I, was folding back a blanket from my lap. She smiled at me as she pushed a rolling tray to my bedside, a movement that came naturally to her, like she’d done it thousands of times. She wiped my forehead with a damp cloth.
“You took quite the tumble,” the older woman told me. She was gathering little discarded pieces of what looked like cut-up tape of tiny styrofoam pillows lined five across.
I looked around me, noticing I was in a hospital, and remembering my fall into Graham’s neighbor’s sunken terrace.
“Oh my God,” I said, still processing. I tried to bring my left hand to my face, but it felt heavy and ached badly, making me groan.
“Careful now,” she said, bringing my casted, heavy arm back down to my side.
I followed the dizzy movement and noticed I also had a cast on my right leg.
“What happened?” I asked them.
They smiled at me, still busying themselves. The older nurse said, “You had two separate fractures in your leg.” She pointed to my lower leg. “Both the tibia and the fibula, but they were clean enough to set. Your arm just had one compound fracture, which was set as well. They had to cast you past the elbow, though. They used a waterproof cast so you’ll be able to shower and swim still. Just make sure that once you’re done soaping up, you rinse the cast very well with clean water to prevent buildup.”
“That can be a bit itchy,” the younger nurse offered. “They set your arm in such a way that makes it easier to drain as well. You’ll still need to come back next week for further X-rays to make sure they were all set well.”
“I can’t do that,” I told her. “I have to get back to the States.”
“You’re not well enough to travel yet, sweetheart,” she said, taking my vitals. She reached for a cup. “I’ll need you to drink something. We can’t release you until we know you can keep something down.”
The older nurse bent over me and pushed strands of hair from my face. “Can you ring up a friend? You’ll need someone to care for you for a few weeks, at least.”
My eyes started to sting. “I don’t have anyone like that here,” I told her as I followed the other nurse’s instructions and took a small sip of juice.
Her brows furrowed in pity. “I have to release you soon, love, but I’d feel better if I could hand you off to someone. Isn’t there anyone you can call?”
Tears spilled over my cheeks. “My boyfriend broke up with me tonight, cheated on me. I really don’t know anyone else here, not really.”
The older nurse bit her lip in disapproval and shook her head.
“That’s a right bastard move, that is,” the younger nurse said.
“Louisa!”
The young nurse, Louisa, laughed. “It’s true, in-it?”
“Yes, but compose yourself,” the older nurse scolded. She turned toward me. “You’ve no other friends here?” she asked.
I thought for only a split second about calling Graham, but changed my mind just as quickly. “Th-there might be one person,” I said.
I looked at the chair in my little emergency stall and asked Louisa for my phone. I’d texted Oliver when Graham was running late once. He’d asked me to do it because he knew Oliver wouldn’t yell at me the way he would have had Graham called to make his excuses.
My finger hovered over Oliver Finn’s name on my phone. I took a deep breath.
“Oliver is my ex’s best friend,” I told Louisa. “He doesn’t like me much, but I think he’s the only one of Graham’s friends who would actually come to help me. The thought of talking to him is too terrible to imagine. Would you mind?” I asked her.
“Hand it over, sweetheart,” she said, her hand out for the phone.
She smiled and took it from me. I watched as she pressed the face of the phone and brought it to her ear. My heart pounded then stopped cold when the expression on her face changed.
“’Allo, this Oliver?” Louisa asked. She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not one of your birds from the pub.” She grabbed my chart. “I’m calling on behalf of Penelope Beckett.” She paused. “I don’t know, but I’m calling from Chelsea and Westmins—” she said, but stopped.
She handed me the phone. “He hung up.”
I sighed. “I figured as much,” I told her.
“Sorry, babe,” Louisa said, patting my hand. She picked up my casted arm and placed it on top of a pillow. “Rest up. In an hour, maybe two, when we think you’re ready, I’ll give you instructions on what to expect and how to care for yourself. For now, rest. Let the drugs wear off.”
I nodded and laid my head back. I let sleep consume me, desperate to forget I was thousands of miles away from home, to forget my broken heart and broken bones, to forget my loneliness. I just want to go home, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.
When I woke, I tried to lift my arm, but the heavy weight dragged it right back down to the pillow it’d been resting on. I moaned in pain. The drugs had worn off.
“Well, well, well,” I heard to my left.
Groggily, I turned. “Oli?” I asked.
“The one and only.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Your nurse rang me.”
I tried to sit up, but it didn’t work. Oliver stood and hovered over me. “Let me find the bed’s lift button.” Soon I was elevated and sighed in relief. “Comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
He sat back and rested his elbows on the chair’s arm rests. “Where’s Graham?” he asked.
I smiled at him, unable to hide the tears.
“I’m one of the rest,” I quoted from Oli’s own words that night at the pub, the night I’d figured out Graham had met with Chloe for the first time.
Oli ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, Penny. I feel like an ass.”
I laughed. “You are an ass,” I told him, “but at least you’re an ass who showed up.” I felt my chin tremble. “Thank you, by the way.”
“I was panicked when she told me you were here.” He cleared his throat and ran his hands down the thighs of his jeans. “Thought something terrible had happened.” His eyes met mine. “What did happen?”
I grinned at him. “Graham told me he found someone else. Said he left a few hundred pounds on our dresser for a flight back home. That I needed to be out by Monday.”
Oli ran his hands down his face. “He’s a twat,” he explained.
“I know this. Well, I know this now. Actually, you told me he would do this, but I didn’t believe you.” I shrugged my good shoulder as if my whole world wasn’t collapsing. “I believe you now.”
He leaned forward, the back of an index finger wiped away a tear. “We’re a sorry lot, Penny. You’re too good for us.”
I laughed. “I know.”
He smiled and sat back down. “Who is it?”
I knew exactly the who he was asking about. “Chloe.”
He nodded, like he knew who she was. I bit my lip to keep from sobbing. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
His hands made fists at his knees. “Graham’s my best mate, Penny.”
I scoffed at this. “At the expense of what?” I asked. “Is loyalty more important than decency?”
“For men?” he asked.
“For humans,” I countered.
“Listen, I’ve talked to the nurses,” he said, changing the subject. “You’ll need four weeks in the arm cast and six weeks in the leg.”
“Doesn’t matter. I only need you to grab that cash from Graham and my passport. I’m getting the hell out of this country and as far away from Graham as possible.”
“Penny,” he said. I looked at him. “You can’t travel for several weeks. Can I at least call Graham? I mean, I think if he knew, he’d help you.”
I shook my head. “You don’t get it, Oli. I’d rather re-break these bones a thousand times before talki
ng to him again. Besides, he wouldn’t help me if you paid him a million pounds.”
He gulped and averted his eyes.
“Oh shit,” I breathed. “You’ve already called him.”
“I had to!” he said defensively. “When I hung up on that nurse, I rang him up to see what had happened.”
“Oli!” I yelled, making him jump.
“He’s on his way.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Help me. Help me,” I said desperately, trying to edge myself into a sitting position. It was difficult and painful. “Help me out of this gosh damn bed right now, Oliver! I need out of here!”
“Calm down, Penny,” he said, pressing my shoulders back until they rested against the hospital sheet. “Just talk to him.”
“No,” I insisted.
“Please, Penelope.”
“Absolutely not,” I told him, refusing to look at him.
“Penny,” he begged.
My lower lip trembled. “It’s like glass in a wound, Oli. Like lemon in a paper cut. I believe I’ve suffered enough, thank you. Don’t force me into this kind of humiliation. You know Graham!” I whisper-yelled. “He’ll gloat over this. Please, Oli,” I asked, grasping his forearm with my good hand.
But it was too late. Graham leaned over the curtain, looking appropriately like the asshole I then knew he was. I dropped my grip on Oliver.
“Oh, Penelope,” Graham offered with a feigned pout. It felt pitifully sarcastic, which hurt. “Were you trying to hurt yourself?”
I rested my head on the bed. “What fresh hell is this?”
I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him, but couldn’t shut my ears. There weren’t enough available hands.
“Let me take you home,” Graham’s posh accent rang through my ears.
“Over my dead body,” I told him, a little bit of a forceful Texas twang popping out in my anger. My eyes opened then, but I kept them trained on the ceiling.
“You can stay with me for a few weeks at least,” Graham proposed, as if he was being generous.
My eyes burned again, but I bit down, refusing him the satisfaction.
“No,” I said with resolution.
“Penny,” Oli soothed.
I dropped my head and looked Oliver dead in the eyes. “Oli, don’t.”
“Come on, he’ll take care of you.”
I took a deep breath through my nose. “Please don’t make me go home with him. Please, Oli.”
Oli wrapped his hands around his arms and turned his eyes from mine.
The nurse came in and explained everything to Graham and Oliver on how to care for me. I would need to elevate my arm and leg for at least twenty-four hours to keep down the throbbing, but eventually I should start feeling pretty normal after that. They gave Graham a stack of discharge papers along with prescriptions and a map to a store that had more accessible medical gear, like a scooter for broken legs. In the meantime, Louisa gave me a crutch to hobble around on and a sling to bear the brunt of the weight of my arm cast.
They wheeled me out of the hospital in a wheelchair, and I waited for the cheating bastard who was my ex to pull up to the front. Oli stood next to me, but I refused to talk to him. When Graham pulled forward, I hobbled into the passenger seat. I’d been in the UK for eight months and I’d yet to get used to the flipped driver’s seat.
Oli bent over the window, his muscular forearm resting against the top of the car. “Graham will take care of you, Penny.”
I looked at him but didn’t say a word. My lethargic arm slowly found the window button and I pulled up to shut him out. I stared out the windshield as Graham got in. Neither of us said a word as we meandered through streets to Graham’s flat. When he parked, I refused his help getting out of the car. He called me a brat, but I wouldn’t let him bait me. When we got to the front steps, though, I couldn’t argue with his help because he pulled my crutch from underneath me and threw it at the top of the concrete stairs. He yanked me up—an arm underneath my knees, another around my back—and brought me into his flat, setting me down on his exceedingly uncomfortable couch because he refused to own any piece of furniture that didn’t look modern and therefore not worth sitting on.
He left the room without saying a word then returned and tossed a blanket and pillow at me.
“Good night, Penelope,” he said coldly before shutting off the light.
I tucked the stiff, square sofa pillow behind my head and tried to get as comfortable as possible, which wasn’t comfortable at all. My leg and arm throbbed something crazy. I wanted to punch Graham in the face.
“Chloe can have him,” I told the empty room.
“Penny!” someone shouted, startling me awake.
“What!” I said, bolting upright. I groaned at the pain in my arm.
“Come on,” Oliver said into the pitch-black room.
He flipped on the light, causing me to cover my throbbing face. My eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room and found him standing over me.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m taking you to my flat,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Why?” I asked him.
“I’m a daft asshole, apparently.”
We heard Graham walking down the stairs. “What’s going on?” he asked us.
“I’m taking her with me,” Oli said.
Graham laughed, making my cheeks burn in embarrassment. “What for, mate?”
“Because you’re a bit of a wanker, Graham, and for a minute there I thought you might do the right thing and care for her properly, so I decided to swing this way to see for myself.”
“She’s fine,” Graham explained. “Right, Penelope?”
I opened my mouth to tell them both to go to hell, but Oli interrupted me. “I’ll take her to my house.”
He ran up the stairs and Graham followed. I could hear them arguing from where I lay.
“Did you even fill her prescriptions?” Oli asked Graham.
“Well, no, I thought I could do that in the morning.”
“In the morning! You’re taking the piss, man! She’s probably hurting. And why is she on that damn couch?”
“I didn’t think I could get her upstairs.”
It got quiet, but I heard shuffling around the room.
“What are you doing, mate?” Graham asked Oliver.
“I’m taking it, Graham. I’ll get her back home eventually.”
I heard a thud, thud, thud until Oliver emerged from the stairs with my suitcase. “Be right back,” he told me, leaving the flat, presumably toward his car. I heard the hatch of his car open and shut, then he emerged in the outline of the door.
“Come now,” he said, yanking the blanket off my body. He picked me up much like Graham had earlier, but much more gently. He walked toward the door but turned with me in his arms toward my ex. “See you Friday,” he said casually, as if he wasn’t absconding Graham’s flat with me. “Don’t bring that girl or I might have to hit you,” he added.
He turned and walked out the door. My eyes peered around one broad shoulder and watched Graham in his ridiculous robe and slippers. I shot up two fingers in a V, the English equivalent to flipping the bird then looked back up at Oli.
Thank you, I mouthed.
“Think nothing of it,” he told me, placing me in the passenger seat of his car. “It was worth it just to be elbow deep in your skivvies for that minute,” he teased.
My good hand went to my face as my cheeks flamed. He closed my door and rounded to the driver’s side, settling in and hitting a button to start the engine of his Range Rover.
“How do you afford a car like this, Oli?” I asked, studying my surroundings.
“I work, Penny. Did you not think I worked?”
“Worked a room?” I joshed, but he didn’t laugh. “Yes.” I stared at him. “Honestly? I didn’t much think of what you might do for a living.”
“Well, I work from home so—”
“That’s cushy.”
“Gue
ss so,” he said, flipping on his blinker to indicate a turn.
The car was quiet.
“Thank you again,” I told him.
He sighed as if he was annoyed but bit back a smile. “Stop. I won’t have you apologizing every fifteen minutes. It’ll go right to my head.”
I genuinely smiled at him. “Your head couldn’t afford it,” I teased.
“You’re so clever,” he teased back.
“I’m not, though, am I?” He rolled his eyes at me. “How clever can a person be if they couldn’t see what another actually warned them about?”
“Someone in love?” he asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Being blinded by love is a characteristic for morons.”
Oli laughed. “Shut it, Pen. Trusting your boyfriend is not moronic. It’s endearing.”
“Endearing, yes. And stupid.”
“Come now, you,” he said, pulling into a twenty-four-hour pharmacy to have my meds filled for me. “Don’t turn bitter on me.” He drove through the drive-thru and handed over the prescriptions along with my traveler’s medical insurance and ID.
“Bitter is an ugly color on a woman,” I agreed, “but there’s one thing I never considered before.”
“What’s that?” he asked, driving off and parking in front when the pharmacist told us he needed half an hour to fill them.
“Most of those women never asked to wear it.”
“Ah, with that I have to disagree.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“They have the option to choose.”
“Nope. I guarantee it was flung upon them without their permission and no attempt at peeling it off will ever expose the sweet, trusting girl that once was underneath.”
“Already you reek of it,” he told me.
My mouth fell open. I ticked off each point on the fingers of one hand. “Graham cheated on me. Graham dumped me while I was tipsy and left me to walk home on my own. He left cash on our shared dresser like I am some sort of prostitute. When you told him I was in the hospital, he was a prick about taking me back, as if I was an inconvenience. And once I got home, he cruelly left me to fend for myself.” Oliver’s eyes were wide by the time I’d finished. I took two deep breaths and continued, “If that’s not a recipe for justified bitterness, then I don’t know what is.”