#robert sugde

Liv finds asleep on the bathroom floor at five o’clock in the morning. She yells at him to wake up, her voice high and panicked. He wakes just before she calls an ambulance. He has to pry the home phone from her hands, swearing that he’s fine, and that he kept feeling sick and didn’t want to keep trekking from the bedroom to the bathroom every time his stomach felt uneasy. No he hasn’t been sick. He just felt sick and he feels fine now and he’s going back to bed so Liv should go back to bed too. He’s fine and no, he can’t explain why he was sleeping with the light on.

(Dry toast tastes like sandpaper. Water tastes like his own morning breath. He’ll eat a proper meal tomorrow. It’s a waste to force something down only for it to come back up. His body wouldn’t be rejecting food if it were that hungry. Tomorrow is only thirteen hours away. He’ll eat then. He’s sure of it.)

Diane comes to visit one morning, carrying a covered dish and a bag of groceries. She’s here because he’s stopped picking up Vic’s calls and Vic’s worried and Vic said that he didn’t have any food in. He’s sat at the table, his laptop open in front of him. He says he’s fine. He says he’s better. His stomach doesn’t hurt anymore. He’s okay. Diane’s eyes scan his face, her lips pressed into a line and her brow furrowed. She’s ready to go into no nonsense step-mum mode. Robert straightens his shoulders and smiles, giving her no excuse to start fussing around him. He says he’s working. She should go. It’s a bank holiday weekend and the B&B is busy and she shouldn’t be worrying about him when she’s got paying customers to worry about. She tells him that he always comes first but agrees to go. Before she leaves, she comes over to his side of the table and rests the back of her hand against his forehead and suddenly he’s ten years old in bed with tonsillitis and his mum has stayed home to take care of him. Back in the present, Diane says that he should get some rest, because he’s feeling a bit warm.

(He had his tonsils out when he was eleven. When he came home from hospital his mum wrapped him in a blanket and let him eat as much ice cream as he wanted while they sat on the sofa together watching 1960’s Batman. They laughed at the pot-bellied tights-wearing superhero for hours, and Robert forgot about his clawed-up throat. After his mum died, he’d dread ever feeling a twinge in his throat, because it’s the happy memories that hurt the most.)

He’s making tea for Liv when the pain hits. It feels like a knife has been rammed into his stomach and twisted until his intestines are curled around it like spaghetti. He almost keels over. Almost cries out in pain. Almost doesn’t make it to the sink in time. Heaving up his empty stomach makes the pain worse. There are tears in his eyes. His breath comes in short, ragged gasps.

Then the pain subsides, and he’s fine again. He stands up straight, his shaking hands finding his stomach. It’s still tender but it’s fine. He’s fine. It’s nothing.

(When his dad died of a heart attack, he could hear his own pulse in his ears for weeks. It reminded him that he wasn’t the one in charge here. His heart could give out at any given moment. His throat could close up. A blood clot could find its way to his brain. Bodies are stupidly fragile, and he’d be a fool to forget that.)

He doesn’t wait up for Aaron on the day he returns. He leaves Liv watching re-runs of Scrubs and heads up to bed at just gone nine, claiming that he has a headache. In reality, he feels as weak as a newborn lamb and his entire body won’t stop shaking. He peels his shirt off his sweat-soaked back before crawling into bed in his boxers. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling which peels back to reveal a sprawling sky full of stars. He smiles and closes his eyes, drifting into a dreamless sleep.

(He always dreams. He can’t remember the last night when he didn’t dream. But tonight he doesn’t, and that’s a good thing, right? Because sickness means disturbed sleep. Sickness means nightmares. There are no nightmares tonight, he’s fine.)

He’s shaken awake by Aaron hours later. As soon as his eyes are open, his husband pulls him into a sitting position, yelling for Liv to call an ambulance. Robert rests his chin on Aaron’s shoulder. He wants to tell him that he’s glad that he’s home, but his tongue is a dead weight in his mouth. His eyes get heavy, and he lets them close, only for Aaron to shout at him to stay awake. For God’s sake just stay awake. Robert opens his eyes. There’s a figure stood by the door, half-lit by the landing light.

Mum?

The figure smiles, her face glowing.

Mum!

He reaches out, his arms clawing the air as he struggles against Aaron to get to his mother. Aaron holds him tighter, telling him that there’s no one there. That he’s sick. He’s really sick and he needs to stay calm until the ambulance gets here. Robert doesn’t listen. He can’t listen because his mum is right there and he needs to get to her. He needs to stop her leaving again.

His mother smiles and waves before turning and walking out of the door. Robert breath comes short and tears spill down his cheeks, hot against his clammy skin.

Mum! Don’t go! Don’t leave!

But she does leave.

The world splits open and swallows Robert whole.

(Maybe he’s not okay after all.)

He wakes up in the middle of the night. Not that he can tell; the hospital keeps its lights on round the clock because time is a human invention and death pays no heed to it. A florescent bulb buzzes overhead while he surveys his surroundings. Closed curtain. Muffled voices. Gentle snores. Familiar snores. To his left.

He finds Aaron asleep in a chair right next to his bed, his hood pulled up and his chin resting on his chest. Robert tries to reach out to touch his face, but stops when he feels the tug of an IV in his arm. He pulls his hand back, examining the tube that protrudes from a bruised spot on his wrist. A heart monitor beeps somewhere close by, but Robert is too concerned with getting to Aaron to search for it. He reaches out again, placing his hand on top of Aaron’s gently clenched fist.

Aaron wakes immediately, his head jerking back like someone had just delivered an upper cut to his chin. He blinks a few times and scrunches up his face, struggling to wake himself up. Then his eyes settle on Robert, and he’s all too awake.

Aaron-

You’re an idiot.

Robert goes to move his hand back, but Aaron is quick to grasp it, holding on so tight that it’s almost painful.

What happened?

Aaron scoffs.

What happened? You’re talking like you missed an episode of Line of Duty or something. What happened? You were ill. You were really ill. Your appendix burst and you didn’t come to hospital. That turned into something called peritonitis and you still didn’t come to hospital. You want to know how you finally ended up in hospital? You got sepsis. You know what that is?

I know wh-

Fucking blood poisoning. That’s what it is. You nearly died.

I’m sorry.

Aaron lets go of Robert’s hand and crosses his arms, sitting back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, blinking back tears. He asks why. Why didn’t Robert get help? Didn’t he know he was sick? How could he not know he was sick?

Robert doesn’t has an answer. Not now. He feels like he’s falling because all the memories are flooding back at once and it’s too much.

I saw my mum.

Aaron looks at him, his face finally softening. He bites his lip and his well up again. He shakes his head at nothing, before leaning forward in his chair and taking Robert’s hand. It’s warm and familiar. For the first time in days, Robert feels safe.

I know you did.

She wasn’t there.

I know she wasn’t.

Robert feels his lip start to tremble. How stupid. How childish. What kind of grown man cries because he wants his mum?

Aaron slips out of his chair and kneels beside Robert’s bed. He rests his chin on the edge of the matress so their noses are millimetres apart. His breath smells like coffee and sleep.

I’m sorry.

Aaron shakes his head, thumbing away a tear from Robert’s cheek and pressing a kiss to his forehead.