Plan B

Chapter Forty-five

Being in hospital was interminably dull.  Fran had never been an inpatient before, and with nobody to talk to except the various doctors and nurses, she survived three days before she began to think she was going mad.  The tinnitus in her ears was so exasperating that it made her cry, and she thought she would die if she wasn’t let out for some fresh air at some point.

It really didn’t help that she just couldn’t cope with any light, natural or unnatural, which meant that she couldn’t read, watch TV, play games or, in fact, do anything that didn’t involve sleeping or lying in the dark.

D*mn you, photophobia.

Her mood deteriorated when term restarted.  She was itching to get back to school and her friends, but it was still extremely painful to move and even she had to admit that she wasn’t well enough to do anything.

Brookie managed to visit once or twice and brought her both her laptop and her phone, but it was still one and a half weeks before she was able to function enough to appreciate them.  All in all, it was an extremely pleasant surprise when a visitor turned up midway through Thursday morning.

“Hey, sexy!” Bruno greeted her cheerfully as he poked his head around the door.  “Oh, you’ve got the lights on.  Brookie said you’d turned into a vampire.”

Fran squinted at him.  “Are you allowed to be here?”

Bruno placed a hand over his heart.  “Ouch.  You wound me, Frances.”

From experience, snorting was quite painful, so Fran contented herself with wrinkling up her nose.

“I’ve got bacterial meningitis,” she reminded him.  “I know it’s not that contagious, but you might still want to keep your distance.”

Bruno slipped inside and shut the door behind him.

“Oh, don’t worry about that.  I told them that I was Brookie, since he’s apparently been pretending he’s related to you to come and visit.”

Fran couldn’t help eyeing him suspiciously.  “Did they actually believe that?”

Bruno nearly choked.  “Of course not.  I was an inpatient for several months in the mental health unit about four years ago – I was recognised the second I set foot in here.  Though that might actually be because my mum used to work here,” he added as an afterthought.

Fran gave up.  “I’m totally confused.”

“That’s natural.  The lining of your brain got screwed up, didn’t it?  Anyway,” he crossed the room and crouched beside the bed so that his head was level with hers, “I brought you a present.”  He winked.

Fran’s heart skipped a beat.  “You?”

“Yes, me.  Why not?  I’m a wonderful person, after all.”

Doubtful, Fran squinted, trying to read his face, but failed because her vision was still slightly blurred.

“You’re not doing this because you’re perverted and creepy, are you?” she asked him.  Bruno feigned offence.

“I think you’ll find that’s Brookie and Arthur.  I mean, they did take your top off without your consent.”

Fran turned away from him.  “You make it sound so much worse than it actually was.”

“Oh, and I suppose that you were fully conscious and are consequently a reliable authority on this?”

Bruno must have seen her flushing, because he laughed and hopped up on the bed beside her.