Break

Chapter 3

Courtney had spent more than enough of her life wrestling with herself internally over boys, and friends, and jobs, and more boys, and her mental health – but never wrestling with herself quite like this, where she feels like she's fighting to maintain her own existence. She doesn't really have a gauge of time, but at some point, the darkness she's been floating in for as long as she can remember right then is suddenly full of a mumble of voices. It's only a mumble, though, and she can't make it out, letting herself fall back into darkness not long later.

She can make out voices a bit more clearly a while later. She can make out someone saying her name in a voice she can't recognise, and then she hears her Dad's voice, answering them, and she hears the occasional word, but they don't really make sense together.

It feels like ages before she hears anything else – but, again, time seems weird – but when she does, she suddenly feels her ears fill with the clear sound of her Dad saying something about Shayne. It confuses her – she knows they spend time together when she drags Shayne as her platonic plus-one to family events sometimes, but they aren't close – and it sends her mind into a pit of worry. Why is her Dad talking about Shayne? Is he okay?

He has to be okay.

The next time her mind engages, everything suddenly makes sense.

She's instantly relieved when she hears Shayne's voice. All he says is "yeah", but she knows it's him. He's soon joined by a female voice, which seems to be explaining something to him – something medical. She talks about a broken leg and a cast, a heart monitor, an IV-

"Brain activity?" she hears Shayne ask, his own voice worried as he does. It's a particular type of worry – she usually pretends not to recognise it, but she knows it's when he worries about her.

Her growing suspicion is confirmed when she suddenly feels his hand take hers. She tries to twist her fingers to entwine with his, but they don't move, and a few moments later he starts speaking.

She wants to tell him she loves him too, she fucking adores him, but she can't speak either. It quickly becomes obvious from his words and his sharp sobs that she's the one in, she guesses, a hospital bed, surrounded by machines and god knows what. She drifts between sleep and a half-awake state out of her own control, but she starts living for the times when she can hear Shayne beside her, soft voice continually telling her he loves her, he misses her – and he's looking after her cats. She knows they'll love that. Bones and Birdie love him more than they love her. She doesn't blame them.

She hears her Dad and her Mum and an increasingly familiar cohort of who she guesses are nurses, too, but it's Shayne's voice that makes her feel vaguely warm and comfortable and like she would really like to crush him in the tightest hug ever if she could work out how to do that again.

She still has no concept of the passage of time, but she's heard Shayne and her Dad talking about their schedules for visiting her, and she uses it to start marking out her own days. She knows Shayne is there every morning. She's confused, though, when, on what she thinks is day 4 of him visiting, she feels his hand in hers and hears him begin to talk softly to her for the second time that day, not long after her Dad and Mum have left together (which is weird enough in itself. They've barely talked since they divorced). Has she missed an entire night? Is it already the morning of day 5?

He wishes her goodnight when he leaves, though, and she silently thanks him for the accidental guide posting. Okay, so it's night. He'll be back in the morning. She still tries desperately to reach out for him as he drops her hand to move, of course. She feels her hand twitch, she feels the movement shoot up her arm, and it's more than she's felt for, well, as long as she's been like this, she guesses – but it's all she manages, soon falling back into darkness and sleep.