Lifeline (Daniel Ricciardo)

Chapter 17: Flip-Side

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I sat on Daniel's bed, surrounded by his clothes that Simon was pulling out and placing on the mattress. They needed to be put in the bag that was open on the floor. I couldn't really bring myself to do anything though.

I'd been staring into space for the past of half an hour, not really processing anything that was being said to me. Daniel was going to be heading to the operating theatre any moment now.

"Karin...did you say that you've spoken to his sister?" Simon asked, sitting down beside me on the bed that hadn't been made. The covers were still crumpled from where Dan had got out of it, and left it.

"Daniel rang her whilst I was still with him." I replied and held my head in my hands. "She says that she's booking a flight."

"Good." Simon said assertively and put his arm around my shoulder. "He'll be alright, especially with you seeing him."

"I'm so pleased that the appointment didn't get canceled, if it had done and..."

"Hey, come on," Simon cut me off, squeezing my shoulder. "You can't think like that, none of us can. We can't end up like Sam."

"Is he alright on his own?" I muttered, looking up at the person who held the second highest engineering role in the team. Sam was not fine mentally in the slightest. Not forgetting his badly broken leg.

"He thinks I've gone to get some milk...Sam can't know about Dan just yet, that'll push him over the edge."

I let out a gasp after processing Simon's words. Sam was another friend of many years, someone who had always tried to make me smile.

"Karin, look at me." Simon enforced, tilting my chin up.

"Everything is going to be okay." I tried, staring straight through Si. I didn't believe a word I was saying. "It has to be."

"Right, now let's get this bag packed so you can be there when he wakes up from his surgery."

"He will remember me, won't he?" I asked, suddenly panicked once more.

"It is impossible for Daniel to forget you."

Silence.

"You really like him, don't you, Karin?" Simon whispered.

---

Ten minutes later Dan's bag, consisting of enough clothes and toiletries to last him a week, was placed in the back of Simon's car. Simon would not let me drive back to the hospital.

Whilst Simon was placing the hold-all in the boot of his Infiniti, I gingerly ventured into the kitchen to make sure that all the lights were off and the windows were shut.

I stopped in my tracks, noticing the fridge decorated in letters and photographs. The majority of the images were Paul and Daniel, laughing, joking around together. My eyes stung ferociously as I gulped back the tears. It hadn't even been a month since the plane had gone down.

I tried and tried to tear my eyes away from from the pictures, but I wasn't having any success. It was only when my eyeline drifted higher, I noticed one of Daniel and his parents. His poor mum and dad.

Feeling my legs give way, I grabbed onto the worktop behind me. It was however no use, I ended up on the tiled floor, rocking myself back and forward. My head was spinning, my breathing was rapid. I felt like I was falling through the sky again.

I didn't notice Simon calling my name at first, in fact it wasn't until he bent down to my level that I noticed him- his arm was outstretched in order to help me up. It was a living nightmare.