Unperfect

Mia

The coughing was one thing, but struggling to breathe was a whole other pain in the arse that I could do without. Even walking to the kitchen had left me breathing so hard that I had to lean against the counter for a moment before I could reach up to get a cup. Distracted by another coughing fit, I forgot to use my left arm and reached up with my right hand, which couldn’t even make it to the shelf the mugs were on. I swore under my breath and sensed movement in her peripheral vision.

“If you’re ill you really shouldn’t be in work,” Max told me and I held back an eye roll. He’d come in last week carrying the viral plague so he was on shaky ground taking that line of argument.

I ignored him and switched hands to grab a cup with my left.

“It’s just a cold,” I said, stifling the next coughing fit with a vicious swallow. The very last thing I needed was to be sent home. I was home.

“You get here pretty early, huh?” Max asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his hip against the counter next to me.

“I’ve always been a morning person,” I muttered, handing him a tea, which was brewed to his exact specifications. Since I’d overheard him on the phone after I started here I’d made sure that I made him tea every day. Usually I managed to leave it in his office for him without having to speak to him, like some sort of tea ninja. He scowled down at the cup I’d just placed in his hands and I sighed. There was no pleasing some people.

“Look, I’ll hide in the copy room for the day. There’s loads of menial stuff needs sorting in there and I can keep my germs to myself.”

“You’ve got a weird obsession with the copy room. You’re way too talented to be stuck in there.” He sighed. “Use my office. I’m out this morning anyway.”

My reservations about using Max’s space were quickly overridden by the realisation that I was properly ill. As the day went on, every breath and cough had become excruciatingly painful in the right side of my chest – like a hot knife stabbing through my ribs. And then there were the sweats. They’d been happening all day, despite the fact I felt chilled to the bone. I desperately needed a shower to warm up. I had managed to sneak into the leisure centre for one yesterday, but there was no way I was strong enough to able to repeat that tonight. And besides, all I really wanted to do was curl up in my sleeping bag and go to sleep, which I could happily do if only everyone would just bugger off for the day. It’s six o’clock people! Don’t you all have families to go to? Once they were gone, I wasn’t going to be cautious and wait until nearly midnight to bed down. I would curl up as soon as possible. As a precaution I’d sleep under one of the desks. Another coughing fit wracked my body and I almost collapsed with the pain.

Maybe I should try to get checked out? But I couldn’t exactly go to the GP. They would want my address and some form of identification (something which Verity had been hounding me about lately as well). That was why I hadn’t replied to Heath’s text about the physio. He’d asked which GP I was registered with and I realised that in order to have any physio things would have to get a whole lot more complicated. So, no GP. No emergency department either. The last thing I needed was a curious Heath hovering over me if he was on shift.

No, it was probably just a virus anyway.

I could sleep it off.

But by the time the last person had left for the day and I had crawled into my sleeping bag, I realised I’d made a big mistake.

Max

I shivered in the morning air as I pushed through into the building. It was after seven. Maybe I should have set up the heating to come on earlier? It was brass monkeys right now – I could see my breath in front of my face. I stopped by the boiler to make sure it was cranking up and blew into my hands as I strode through to my office, pausing as something caught my eye under one of the desks. I frowned and cocked my head to the side. Had someone left a pile of coats on the floor? As I rounded the desk I realised that this no pile of coats. It was a sleeping bag containing a person, and that person was Mia. My eyebrows went up into my hairline and I sucked in a shocked breath.

“Mia?” I called and she stirred. Her eyelids flickered but then closed again. I crouched down in front of her and my chest seized. She looked so small lying there curled into a tiny ball. The air in the office was still frigid. I cursed myself for being too tight to keep the heating on overnight. But how was I to know that women were going to take to sleeping under desks? She’d said she had financial problems – she hadn’t said she was homeless. “Mia?” I reached out and gave her shoulder a light shake. She made a small sound and her eyelids flickered again, but still she didn’t wake up.

It was then I noticed that, despite the cold, her face was covered in a sheen of sweat and she looked deathly pale. I laid my hand on her forehead and swore when I felt the burning skin under my fingers. Her breathing was laboured, and as I withdrew my hand she started coughing. Goddamn it, I’d heard her coughing over the last couple of weeks. But she’d always reassured me she was fine. So I’d ignored it, just like she’d been ignoring me. I’d been trying to forget about her somewhat to be honest. I’d thought my preoccupation with her was unhealthy, so I’d squashed down my concern and done what I did best – bury myself in work. It was how I coped with losing Rebecca and Teddy’s recent rejection after all. Burying things and working like a maniac was what I did best.

Mia’s coughing was a terrible hacking sound that wracked her entire body, but still didn’t seem to be enough to wake her up. I was starting to get scared now. I shook her shoulder a little more forcefully and called her name again, but still only managed to elicit that small eyelid flicker. Standing up from my crouch, one of my hands went to the back of my neck as I stared down at her. My mind ran through all of the options. I could ring Heath (but who knew how long he would take to get here and what he could actually do without any equipment?). I could call an ambulance (maybe the most sensible option, but again, how long would we have to wait?). Or I could take her to hospital now myself. Looking at her curled up like that on the ground, I went with my gut instinct.

“Max, what’s going on?” Verity called from across the office. I looked up and saw her standing with Yaz, both of them staring at me and the crumpled figure at my feet. “What on earth?”

Verity’s eyes widened as they approached Mia. Ignoring Verity and Yaz, I crouched down and slipped my arms underneath Mia. Trying to be as gentle as possible I pulled her out from under the desk, sleeping bag and all. Once she was out it took no effort at all the lift her up against my chest. In fact I was a little frightened by how easy it was to pick her up. She weighed next to nothing. To my relief lifting her did seem to be stimulus enough to pull her back to consciousness.

“Wh – what?” she said in a hoarse whisper. I looked down at her face and those chocolate eyes met mine. “I-I-I …”

“You’re sick,” I said, for once managing to gentle my voice. I moved the arm that was around her back so that I could tuck the sleeping bag more firmly around her neck.

“I don’t think – ”

“You’re not going to do any more thinking,” I said. “Clearly your thinking about your health and welfare has been less than stellar. I’m going to be doing the thinking now. We’ll start by getting you to hospital.”

Despite the exhaustion I could see written all over her face, her eyes filled with panic. “N-no, I can’t– ” she was cut off by another coughing fit. That horrible hacking sound filled the office, her whole body tensing and bending with the force of it as she lay in my arms. After she was done she looked up at me again. Her mouth was set in a grim line and the panic in her eyes was replaced with pain. Her breathing was back to that unnatural rattle.

“Okay,” she whispered as her eyelids fluttered closed again. If anything she looked paler than before. I was starting to get really scared now and her acquiescence worried me even more.

“I’m taking her to A&E,” I told Verity and Yaz. They were both staring at me with openly shocked expressions now.

“Don’t you think we should call an ambulance?” Verity said. I ignored her, tucked Mia’s small body closer into my chest, and strode out of the office.

Mia

The first thing I thought as I blinked open my eyes was that the lights were really bright. Painfully bright. And something was covering my mouth. Reaching up I felt a plastic mask over my face, and quickly pulled it down to below my chin. My left hand also felt restricted, and when I looked down I saw bandaging around it, securing some tubing. My eyes followed the tubing up to a drip-stand next to the bed I was lying on, and that’s when I saw them: two huge feet, clad in boots that had seen better days. My gaze drifted up from the feet to large legs spread wide, a broad chest, stubbled jaw and finally that face in all its chiselled perfection. Max’s eyes were closed, his hands resting over his flat stomach and his head at an awkward angle on the chair. In sleep, and without his perpetual scowl, he was so handsome it almost hurt to look at him. I tried to push up to sitting and the coughing started again.

“Put the mask back on,” the familiar growly tone caused me to flinch on the bed. Max’s green eyes were open and alert now, his scowl firmly back in place. He looked so annoyed that I decided I had better do as he asked, pulling the plastic over my mouth again, despite the claustrophobia it induced.

God, I hated hospitals.

They made me feel trapped. I associated them with pain and hopelessness.

Clawing through my memories ,I tried to piece together how I’d come here. I remembered waking up in Max’s car with another coughing fit. He’d been driving too fast and had kept glancing back at me as I lay with my head on Yaz’s lap, which I thought was dangerous but didn’t seem to have the breath to tell him so. After that, things were a little fuzzy, but I did have flashes of Max carrying me into the emergency department and shouting for help. I’d been put on a trolley and there had been what seemed like hundreds of people bustling around me – sticking me with needles, asking me questions, examining me.

I’d had a chest x-ray – that I remembered. Heath was there and had told me I had pneumonia. Pneumonia? He’d introduced me to another doctor – a short, efficient woman who told me she was a medical consultant and that I would be admitted into the hospital under her care.

They’d wanted to know my NHS number.

I wasn’t proud of it but I faked falling asleep to make them go away. But I must have fallen asleep for real in the end because here I was.

“What’s … er, what … what are you doing here?” I asked, annoyed by the mask muffling my speech.

“You’ve gone and got pneumonia,” Max told me. His voice sounded accusing, as if it was my fault I was ill.

“Well, yes but …’

“So, when I told you to take time off. When I told you to go to the doctor, you probably should have bloody well listened to me.” He sounded really cross now.

I closed my eyes to block out his scowling face. I didn’t have the energy for Max right now. Max was a very exhausting person. In that moment, I didn’t seem to have the energy to cope with much more than breathing. When I tried to clear my throat, another coughing fit was set off. I sat forward with the violence of it, trying to hack up whatever seemed to be lodged in my chest. Tears streamed down my face and I felt a large hand come to rest on my back.

“Okay, love,” he murmured in his low voice. “You’ll be right. Everything’s going to be fine.” He was rubbing circles around my back now and the sensation was oddly calming. When the coughing subsided he helped lower me back onto the pillows and then wiped the tears from my cheeks before I could reach them. His expression had gone from anger to intense concern within the space of seconds.

“I’m sorry,” he said, still using that low, soothing voice. “I can be a right bastad when I’m worried. Brings out the worst in me.”

There he was again – apologising for just talking sharply to me. Something he’d done out of worry. It just wasn’t what I was used to. I didn’t know what to say. I glanced up at him with a frown and then looked away quickly.

“I … er, it’s fine. You’re fine. There’s no need to–” I broke off the doctor from yesterday came into the cubicle.

“Mia?” she said. “I’m Dr Firth – the consultant in charge of your care.’

“I remember,” I said from behind the mask.

“You’ll have to stay a little while with us,” she told me. “Have you heard of sepsis?’

“Er, I think–”

“Sepsis is the body’s response to overwhelming infection. Your pneumonia set up that response. You’ve been very unwell. Often we can treat chest infections in the community with oral antibiotics, but you’re going to need intravenous treatment for at least the next forty-eight hours. I–” She broke off and glanced up at Max. “Are you her partner?” Something was off about the way she said it – there was an edge there, as if she was angry. But that didn’t make any sense.

“No I–”

“He’s my boss,” I put in.

“I’m Max, a friend of Heath’s. I brought her in.”

“Ah, right. Max, of course. Heath’s mentioned you before,” Dr Firth said with obvious relief. That angry tone left her voice and some of the tension around her mouth relaxed. “Okay, Mia. I need to speak to you alone. Is that okay?”

Max’s large hand had enveloped mine since the coughing fit and for some reason I felt … safe. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I should send him away but I was just so exhausted.

“Can Max stay?” I asked in a small voice and he squeezed my hand. Dr Firth looked surprised.

“Well, yes but …” Dr Firth paused, glanced at Max again and then sighed. “Mia, it’s not normal for someone of your age to come down with pneumonia so severely.”

I stiffened. Where was she going with this?

“Unless … Mia, unless they are malnourished and underweight. That can put them at risk of pneumonias and other infections.”

“Ah. I–”

“Mia, do you know you’re underweight?”

“Well–”

“Heath told me about an incident a few weeks ago. You were hypothermic? He had concerns at the time and he has some … ongoing concerns.”

She’d sat on the edge of the bed now and I could tell where she was going with this by the expression on her face.

Pity.

She knew.

Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a good idea for Max to be here with me.

“Your chest x-ray didn’t just show a pneumonia, but you know that. Don’t you, Mia?”

My eyes shot to Max who was frowning in confusion at Dr Firth.

“On second thoughts, I’d really prefer to speak to you alone, Dr Firth,” I rushed out before she could go on.

“Of course,” she told me. “Max, would you mind?” Max looked between me and the doctor, a muscle ticking in his jaw and concern in his expression.

“Max?” Dr Firth prompted when he didn’t move.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered. “I’ll – I’ll go and get a coffee.” He squeezed my hand again before letting it go. “I’ll be back soon, love.”

When the door closed behind him Dr Firth turned back to me and her voice softened.

“So, the old rib fractures you have there aren’t a surprise I’m guessing?”

“No,” I whispered.

I looked away from her kind face and over at the tap in the corner of the room. It was dripping. Surely taps in hospital rooms shouldn’t drip like that?

“Mia, I talked to Heath about your previous admission as well.”

I nodded. I should have expected that.

“We’re going to need your real name. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded again. I was tired of fighting all the time. Fighting to survive, fighting for my freedom, fighting to just be. I’d always hated lying, but Nate had slowly, insidiously, made my entire life a lie until it became almost second nature.

“My name is Amelia. Amelia Banks.”