Plan B

Chapter Fifty-two

It appeared that Brookie and Rico were the only ones who knew the real story behind the bandage on Fran's arm. Arthur had raised an eyebrow on seeing the cut when he helped her change the bandage the next day, but he didn't comment, and Fran ended up telling Mathilda herself when the girl asked why she was injured. 

"What?" Mathilda demanded blankly, completely forgetting that they were supposed to be working on a chemistry assignment together and dropping the Bunsen burner on the floor with a loud clang. 

Fran looked away, not really wanting to repeat herself. 

"I wondered why Brookie sounded weird over the phone last night," Mathilda muttered to herself. She bent to pick up the Bunsen burner. "How are you feeling now, anyway?" 

"My arm hurts," Fran said truthfully. 

Mathilda nudged her glasses back up her nose. "Funnily enough, that's something I could have deduced from your expression of constant pain. I meant, what's going through your head? Do I have to make sure that you don't use any sharp objects during this experiment, just in case?" 

Fran considered. "I don't know. I had a long conversation with Bruno last night. At the moment, I think I want to live, but I'm worried about what might happen if I find myself on my own with something I could harm myself with." 

"Well, wanting to live is a good thing," Mathilda said decisively. "And if you don't know how you'll react to those kind of temptations, just remove the possibility of those temptations occurring." 

"Mathilda, it's not that simp—" 

"If you start complicating things, it's not going to get any simpler," Mathilda pointed out. "And I'm sure that one of the things that feeds the depressive state of mind is over-thinking things, so just try to under-think this one. Leave it at 'remove possibility of temptations' rather than 'but what happens in the dorm if Rico's not there and I find his penknife on the floor?'" 

Fran smiled reluctantly. Mathilda busied herself with test tubes and chemicals. 

"And you can come talk to me anytime, you know," Mathilda went on. "I honestly don't care if you wake me up in the middle of the night. I'd much rather miss a few hours' sleep if it meant you felt okay." 

"I'd much rather you didn't," Fran muttered. "You're very ratty when you're tired." 

"I promise to take it out solely on Joey." 

Fran actually laughed at that.

True to form, when Fran went to talk to Brookie that evening, he immediately started blaming himself for her injury. Fran clocked him round the side of the head before he'd got further than "shouldn't have left you alone". 

"Bruno said you'd be like this," she told him, "and I'm under orders to punch you as hard as I can if you continue to be an idiot and think that this is your fault." 

Brookie rubbed his head ruefully. "I still feel I could have done more." 

"And I could have done less," Fran reasoned. "But we can't change the past. I just have to figure out how to cope with my head." 

Her lip trembled. The veneer of bravado felt even faker than usual. The truth is, I'm still shaken and can't really believe I actually did that. 

"You're very calm about this," Brookie noted, searching her face. 

"I'm worried I'll go into hysterics if I'm not calm," Fran admitted. "I'm still terrified out of my wits because they actually came to this school."