Page 8 of Anxious Hearts

Kelly was in the hospital toilets, peeing. But every time she peed, she still needed to pee. She was with a patient, then she was back home and peeing again. No matter how long she peed, the pain in her bladder persisted.

She woke suddenly, afraid for a second, unsure where she was. She smelled Finn’s sheets and relaxed, but in mind only – she was absolutely dying to go to the bathroom.

Kelly walked deliberately and cautiously out of the room with her arms extended in case she missed any oncoming walls.

She was tiptoeing to keep the noise down, but being drunk made balancing much more difficult, so she settled on small and delicate steps instead.

The closer she came to the bathroom, the more the pain grew.

When she was just a few metres away, she picked up the pace, figuring it would be less disruptive to make a little bit of noise than it would to pee all over the carpet.

In the bathroom, the toilet seat was cool on her legs. She breathed out slowly to try to control the flow, but it came in such a rush of blessed relief that it sounded like a pipe had burst. She giggled.

When she was done – and unencumbered by pain – Kelly listened to the sounds of the apartment that she hadn’t noticed before: the soft hum of the dishwasher; the random crack of the floorboards; the measured and regular breathing from Finn’s room.

She stood in his doorway and watched him sleep.

He lay on his side, leaning into the bed so he was almost on his stomach.

He was shirtless under a grey sheet that fell across his hips.

Even in the shadows, Kelly could make out his obliques, his deltoids, his latissimus dorsi.

He was such a far cry from the little boy she had first met, yet he was still the same little boy in so many ways.

He had been through unthinkable trauma, experienced unbearable grief.

And his damaged and confused mind could only escape into the kind of guilt and anxiety that had crippled him mere hours earlier.

Her heart ached for his pain and her inability to cure him.

Kelly was thankful she had been here. He usually called her, but she lived with the constant background dread that one day he wouldn’t. One day she wouldn’t know and she wouldn’t be able to talk him down. One day it could all end.

She felt a drop of water on her arm and realised she was crying.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and crept to Finn’s side.

Lifted the sheet and did her best to slip into bed without waking him.

Her body barely registered on the mattress next to his bulk.

She didn’t want to disturb him, but she needed to feel him against her.

To reassure herself that he was still there.

She moved inch by inch towards his body. She had left her gym shorts on the bathroom floor, only bothering to keep her underpants on beneath her T-shirt. It was her thigh that made contact with the back of his leg. That was enough. That touch would do. He was there. She could feel him.

Kelly closed her eyes and let her body sink into the bed. She warmed herself in the heat from Finn’s body and fell asleep, knowing she was safe.

And so was he.