I couldn’t sleep.

By all rights I should have been utterly exhausted – and I was. During the last week I’d barely slept more than a few hours at a stretch, beyond the occasional afternoon nap when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. When I did manage to sleep, it was always interrupted by the same nightmare – one that terrified me and that often saw me waking up completely shaken and biting back a scream. Being in constant pain from frayed, misfiring nerves and aching joints wasn’t helping much either.

That night, the last of nearly a week of washout that had felt like an eternity, I didn’t lie awake in the dark for hours on end, wishing for the pain in my hands, wrists and knees to stop. I didn’t close my eyes and try to sleep, the faintest hope in my head that I wouldn’t wake up halfway through the night from yet another nightmare. As far as I was concerned there wasn’t much point in either.

“Mum?” I called out quietly as I left my room, unsure if Mum was still awake or not. I’d seen light coming through the gap underneath my bedroom door, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the hall light or from elsewhere in the house. A quick glance at the glaring red digits of my alarm clock as I’d dragged myself out of bed had given the time as half past one.

It wasn’t long before I got my answer. The first thing I saw when I stepped into the lounge at the back of the house was Mum sitting at the dining table, nursing what looked like a cup of tea and reading the newspaper. She looked up as I dropped into one of the chairs, crossed my arms on top of the table and put my head down on them.

“You should be in bed,” she said, her tone not quite chiding. “It’s late, and you look exhausted.”

“I can’t sleep,” I said. “And it’s not just because I’m aching all over. Though that’s not helping.”

Here I felt Mum begin to run her fingers through my hair, and I let my eyes drop closed. “I know you hate feeling like this, love,” she said, sounding sympathetic. “I know.” I turned my head in Mum’s direction and cracked an eye open at her. “And no, I’m not going to say it will get better, because I know you hate it when people say that.”

“You know me too well,” I mumbled, and let the eye I’d opened drift shut again.

“I’m your mother, it’s my job,” Mum replied, her tone only slightly teasing, and I just barely held back from rolling my eyes. “Did you take anything for it?”

I nodded without raising my head. “A couple of Panadeine just after dinner. Didn’t really help.” I straightened up and rubbed my eyes a little. “Dr. Emerson prescribed me some stronger painkillers, but I didn’t want to start taking them until I absolutely had to.”

“I think you need to start taking them, Tay,” Mum said. “There’s no point in putting up with pain when you don’t have to. What did he prescribe for you?”

“Tramadol,” I replied. Sharp, shooting pain flared in my left hand, radiating out from my wrist and into my fingers, and I bit down hard on my bottom lip in an attempt to distract myself from it. “Ow.”

There was a quiet scraping sound, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Mum getting up from her seat. “Are they with all your other tablets?”

I nodded again. “Yeah, they should be. There’s a packet of Panadol in there too, I have to take two of those as well. Dr. Emerson said they’ll work better that way. Kick in faster or something.”

I didn’t say a word as Mum busied herself in the kitchen, choosing instead to listen to the sounds around me – distant traffic, late night trains on the nearby railway line, the foundations of the house as they settled, cupboards opening and closing, the tap running in the kitchen sink, and the click of the kettle switching on. It didn’t take her long to find what she was after, and she was soon setting a glass of water and two pill packets down on the table in front of me.

“I’m going to make you a cup of tea while you’re taking those,” Mum said as I popped two tablets out from each packet. “And I know you don’t like chamomile tea,” she added as I went to speak, “but it’ll help you sleep. Goodness knows you need it.”

“I know it will. Not going to make me like it, though.”

By the time the kettle had finished boiling, the shooting and searing pain I’d been in for almost a week had dimmed to the point where I could ignore it, and I let out a silent sigh of relief. Some small part of me didn’t want to jinx it, even though I knew it was highly unlikely that I could.

“Something else on your mind?” Mum asked as she set one of my coffee mugs down in front of me. It was full nearly to the brim with steaming water, and had what I recognised as one of Jessica’s tea infusers hooked over its rim. It was shaped like a cat. I drew the mug closer to me, pulled the sleeves of my hoodie down over my hands, and wrapped my fingers around it.

“I keep having that nightmare,” I said. “The…” Biting cold threatened to overwhelm me, like it did every time, and I shuddered. “The one where I’m in that hospital corridor, and that doctor tells you and Dad, and Isaac and Zac, that I’ve-” I broke off, not wanting to say that last word. “And every time I wake up nearly screaming,” I finished quietly.

“Oh, love,” Mum said softly. She scooted her chair closer to mine and slipped an arm around my shoulders. “It still scares you, doesn’t it?”

“Terrifies me.” I dug the knuckles of my left hand into my eyes. “I don’t care that it was years ago. I still nearly-” I stopped short again, picked up my mug and studied it – it was yellow, with a bright green frog that had been outlined in black painted across one side. “I still nearly died.” More than once, I added silently.

“I know, love. I know.” Her thumb started rubbing in slow circles on the back of my left shoulder, over my tattoo. “It’s not going to happen, not anytime soon.”

“Doesn’t stop me worrying.” I picked the infuser off the rim of my mug, put it down on the table and started drinking my tea, not wanting it to go to waste.

“It doesn’t stop your father or I worrying either,” Mum said, and I looked over at her. “Even if you didn’t have everything hanging over your head, I would still worry about you.”

“I like it when you worry about me,” I said between sips of tea.

“Good.” She ran a hand over my head, smoothing my hair down. “Finish that, then I want you to go back to bed. And I don’t want to see you awake again until after sunrise, all right?”

I hid a smile behind my mug. “Yes’m.”

That night, I slept better than I had in almost two months. My old nightmare didn’t rear its head, and while I was hurting again when I woke up it wasn’t unbearable. I wandered into the kitchen just after ten o’clock the next morning, rubbing my eyes and yawning as I walked, to find the plastic basket that was home to all of my medication, the pill cutter I had bought a few days earlier and an empty glass on the bench next to the fridge, a folded-over piece of paper balanced against the glass. I picked the piece of paper up and unfolded it to find a note from Mum.

I’ve gone out to Woolies and will be back soon. If there’s anything you would like me to get for you, send me a text. Be careful, take your medication, and I’ll see you when I get home.

Love Mum

I managed a small, tired smile as I finished reading Mum’s note, and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie before beginning to sort through all of my medication in search of the half-full packet of Panadeine that lived in the basket on a nearly permanent basis, and my two newest meds – my old enemy Aropax, and the Andepra that would stabilise my moods and stop my nerves screaming at me. At least, I hoped it would.

The rest of that morning and the early afternoon were uneventful. Mum marked assignments from her classes and baked a batch of date scones for lunch, and I texted Ruby and managed to make my hands behave long enough to play the piano for a little while. It was quiet, and right now that was what I needed most.

Just before three o’clock was when everything went to hell.

I’d been dozing on and off most of the afternoon, so I didn’t hear my phone ringing at first. It took distantly hearing the opening riff of Burn Your Name through my jeans pocket and feeling my phone vibrating against my hip for me to wake up enough to answer it. “H’lo?” I mumbled once I’d picked up, rubbing sleep from my eyes one-handed.

“It’s about fucking time you answered,” a very cross voice replied. It took me a moment or two to identify its owner, and I quickly sat up.

“Lisbeth?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

I pulled my phone away from my ear and quickly checked the caller ID. Ruby’s name stood out in bright, white letters against the dark background of my phone’s screen. “Why are you calling me from Ruby’s phone?” I asked.

“Because Ruby is in no state whatsoever to be calling anyone,” Lisbeth replied. In the background I could hear Ruby loudly protesting what Lisbeth had said, and I bit back a snicker.

“Is she all right?”

When Lisbeth didn’t say anything, I immediately knew something was up. “Lisbeth, is Ruby all right?” I repeated, a cold ball of fear beginning to form deep in the pit of my stomach.

“She thinks she might have broken her arm,” Lisbeth replied, and I winced. “I’m taking her to Wollongong Hospital to get it checked out. Meet me there, okay?”

“All right. I’ll see you soon.” I hung up, shoved my phone back into my pocket and eased myself to my feet. Dizziness overtook me for a few moments, and I shook my head to clear it. “Mum?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” Mum said as she came into the lounge room. “What are you doing?” she asked, right as I brushed past her on my way to my bedroom.

“Going to the hospital,” I replied. I stepped into my bedroom, picked up my runners and sat down on my bed so I could put them on.

“Hold on a second,” Mum said. I paused halfway through loosening the laces of my left shoe and looked up at where she stood in the doorway. “Why are you going to the hospital?”

It took every bit of self-control I possessed to not be snide or snarky. Instead I went back to putting my runners on, replying, “Ruby’s hurt. So one of her friends is taking her to the hospital, and I’m going to meet them there.”

“And you’re planning on driving there, correct?”

“I’m sure as hell not walking there,” I retorted, unable to stop myself. Mum raised an eyebrow at me, and I let out a quiet sigh. “Sorry. Yes, I’m going to drive there.”

“I don’t think you’re in any fit state to be driving anywhere right now, much less to the hospital.” Mum came and sat down next to me. “I know you’re worried about Ruby. But right now, I’m worried that if I let you go haring off on your own, you’ll end up in hospital as well.” She put a hand on my left knee. “So how about you try to calm down, finish putting your shoes on, and we will go to the hospital together. All right?”

I closed my eyes for a few moments. Mum was right – there was no way I could drive myself into town. Not with two new meds in my system, one of which I had no real idea of how it affected me.

“All right,” I agreed.

The drive into Wollongong was quietly tense. I spent the ten minute drive staring out the windscreen of Mum’s car, hands tucked under my knees so that I didn’t start biting my fingernails out of sheer nerves. For the first time since Ruby and I had met, I was truly worried about her – a feeling that I knew wouldn’t ease up until I saw for myself that she was okay.

“I never thought I’d ever come back here,” I said as Mum and I walked into the hospital. And really, I hadn’t. The last time I’d set foot inside any part of Wollongong Hospital had been more than ten years earlier, on the day I’d finally been officially turned loose after seven long months as a patient. I hadn’t wanted to come back.

“At least this time you’re only visiting,” Mum said, and she gave me a smile I tried my best to return.

“Yeah, true.”

Lisbeth was sitting on the floor just outside the swinging doors that barred the way into the Emergency department, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around her legs. She looked up as I nudged her with a foot. “Hey,” she said quietly, and eased herself to her feet. “Oh, hey Mrs. Hanson.”

“Lisbeth, right?” Mum asked, and Lisbeth nodded.

“That’s me. Ruby’s just through here,” she replied, before pushing the doors open. “She’s feeling just a bit sore and sorry for herself right now.”

I hate this place, I couldn’t help thinking as Lisbeth led the way through the doors. It was just as busy and noisy as I remembered it from the last time I’d been here, and I could have sworn I felt a faint ache along my hairline. I did my best to ignore it, instead choosing to focus on the reason why I was here in the first place.

It didn’t take us long to find Ruby. She was sitting on the edge of a bed on the opposite side of the large room, staring straight ahead, her left arm hidden inside a sling that had been knotted at the back of her neck. As I got closer I could see that her face was so pale that it was almost white, and I bit down hard on my bottom lip. I knew she had to be in an incredible amount of pain.

“Hey, I’m back,” Lisbeth said as she hopped up on the bed on Ruby’s right side. Rather than sit down on Ruby’s other side and risk jostling her arm, I found a couple of chairs for Mum and I to sit down in, and offered Ruby a smile when she looked at me – one that she barely managed to return before she burst into tears.

“I feel so stupid,” she said between hitching breaths. She swiped roughly at her eyes with the right sleeve of her shirt. In that moment, all I wanted to do was give her the biggest hug I was capable of, but I held back. Something like that could wait until after she’d had her arm looked at.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We were walking Sadie,” Lisbeth replied, once it was obvious that Ruby wasn’t going to say anything. “And Sadie must have spotted a fox or something, because she just…she just took off and dragged Ruby along behind her.”

“I should’ve dropped my end of the lead,” I just barely heard Ruby mumble. She let out a quiet hiccup. “But I didn’t, and I tripped and landed on my left arm. I felt something snap when I hit the deck.”

“That must have hurt quite a bit,” Mum commented, and Ruby nodded.

“Not so much at the moment because one of the nurses gave me some really good painkillers,” she replied. “But yeah, it hurt like an absolute bastard. Sooner I can get it x-rayed and whatever the better.”

Almost as soon as Ruby finished speaking, as if summoned by her words, a nurse stepped into view. They had a wheelchair with them, and for half a moment I swore I could see Ruby frowning at it. “Ms. McCormick?” the nurse asked, and Ruby nodded. “They’re ready for you in Radiology.”

“So what exactly happens after I get my arm x-rayed?” Ruby asked. “I’ve never broken anything before, so…” Here she gave a small half-shrug.

“If the x-ray shows that you’ve broken your arm, it’s very likely that you’ll have it set straight away,” the nurse replied.

“So I won’t be coming back here, gotcha.” As she spoke, she was easing herself down off the bed. I quickly got back to my feet to steady her as she sat down in the wheelchair. “Can I have someone come with me?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

I was almost certain I could hear Ruby letting out a sigh of relief at this. “Tay, can you come with me?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course I can,” I said without even hesitating.

“Thank you.” She gave me a relieved smile, and I reached down to give her right shoulder a quick squeeze. “Lis, I hate to do this to you-”

“I’ll go pick Sadie up from your neighbour’s,” Lisbeth said. “D’you want me to take her to your parents’?”

“Not there,” Ruby said immediately. “That would mean explaining why I need them to watch her when it’s not tour time, and I really don’t feel like doing that right now.”

“Take her to my place,” I said, and started digging in my pockets for my keys. “I’ll give you the key to the side gate so you can let her into the backyard.” I quickly found the key I was after, slipped it off my keyring, and handed it off to Lisbeth. “Please don’t lose it.”

“I won’t,” Lisbeth assured me. “Rue, d’you want me to get you anything else from your place?”

“Just my pyjamas, my meds, my walking stick and a change of clothes for tomorrow for now,” Ruby replied. “If I think of anything else I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll be in the waiting room when you’re done,” Mum said, and I nodded.

“We shouldn’t be too long,” I said.

Ruby’s x-ray was over quickly. I hadn’t been able to go into the room with her so I had sat out in the corridor to wait for her, almost compulsively running my left thumb up and down the long, faint scar on the inside of my right forearm the whole time.

“I don’t want to do that ever again,” she said as she sat down next to me. I immediately, and very carefully, slipped an arm around her shoulders. “My arm feels even worse now, if that’s actually possible.”

“Painkillers starting to wear off?”

“They better not be.” She let out a frustrated-sounding sigh. “Hospitals suck.”

“Preaching to the choir a bit there, love.” I leaned a little closer and pressed a kiss to Ruby’s right temple. “And hey, if it turns out your arm is broken it’s not all bad. You can get Lis to be your slave for the next six weeks.”

“Lis would make a terrible slave. She backchats too much.” I stifled a snicker, at which Ruby stuck her tongue out at me.

Anything that either of us might have said after that was interrupted by the arrival of a doctor. She was carrying a large white envelope in one hand. “Ruby McCormick?” she asked, and I felt Ruby nod. “I’m Dr. Spencer – I have your x-rays here.”

“How do they look?” Ruby asked, sounding more than a bit worried, and I wasn’t sure I blamed her.

In response, Dr. Spencer opened the envelope and put the x-ray inside up on a wall-mounted lightbox, and switched the lightbox on. “You’ve sustained what’s known as a Galeazzi fracture – essentially, you’ve fractured your radius, at what we call the distal-third fracture site.” Here she pointed out where Ruby had broken her arm, about a third of the way down her forearm. “And unfortunately, you will need surgery to set the break.”

“How soon?” I asked.

“As soon as possible.” At this Ruby let out a quiet ‘fuck’. “At the earliest, that’s tomorrow afternoon. I can admit you overnight, or you can come in tomorrow for day surgery. It’s entirely up to you.”

I almost felt like Ruby barely needed to think about it. “Tomorrow.”

“All right then. Tomorrow it is.” Dr. Spencer gave both Ruby and I a smile. “For now, you’ll need to have the fracture reduced and a cast put on your arm to keep the break stable until your surgery – you’ll be able to go home after that.”

“Can I have someone with me while you’re doing that?” Ruby asked. For the first time since I’d known her she sounded scared, and I found her right hand just in time for her to start holding on for dear life.

“Of course you can.” Dr. Spencer switched the lightbox off and slipped Ruby’s x-ray back into its envelope. “Follow me, please.”

The lift ride up to the second floor and the walk (or in Ruby’s case, the wheelchair ride) to the day surgery unit was a familiar one. Ruby kept a tight hold on my hand the whole way, one that only relaxed once a nurse had given her a sedative through the IV that had been placed in her right arm. I traced lazy circles on the back of her right hand while Dr. Spencer set the break and wrapped Ruby’s left hand and forearm in a white bandage from the palm of her hand all the way up to a hand’s width below her elbow.

“Now, are you Ruby’s next of kin?” Dr. Spencer asked once Ruby had her cast on, and her IV cannula had been removed.

I shook my head. “I think her mum is her next of kin. But I’m her partner, and she’ll be going home with me.”

“All right. I’ll write this down for both of you, but for the next twelve hours at least she needs to take it easy, to give the sedative a chance to completely wear off. She will probably want to sleep most of this afternoon, and I have no issue with her doing so.”

“Yeah, she’ll definitely want to do that,” I agreed. “What about tomorrow?”

“Nothing to eat after eight o’clock tomorrow morning, and nothing to drink after midday. If she takes medication, she should take it as usual tomorrow provided it’s before midday.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Tay?” I heard Ruby mumble a few minutes later, and I looked over at her. She had one tired green eye open and squinting at me, and as I watched I could see her trying to lift her left arm up. “Why…why is my arm all heavy?”

“You broke it,” I reminded her gently. “And you’ve got a cast on it until tomorrow.”

She seemed to be considering this for a moment or two. “Oh. Okay.”

“How are you feeling, Ruby?” Dr. Spencer asked as I helped Ruby to sit up. As soon as Ruby was upright the doctor pulled a stethoscope out of a pocket.

“Tired, mostly.” Almost as if proving her point, she yawned and rubbed her eyes a little. “I just want to go home and sleep.”

“You’ll be able to do just that very soon. Can you move your fingers and thumb for me?”

Pretty soon, Dr. Spencer had pronounced Ruby none the worse for wear, apart from her broken arm, and cleared the two of us to leave. “I want you to take two Panadol and two Nurofen every eight hours, until tomorrow morning,” she said as she handed a thin sheaf of papers to me. “I’m also going to prescribe you some Endone before you leave, which I want you to take every six hours. Your instructions for tomorrow are in the papers I just gave to your partner. All right?”

“Okay,” Ruby said quietly.

It wasn’t hard to work out that between being in pain from her broken arm and just having come out of sedation, Ruby was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I helped her down off the bed and back into her borrowed wheelchair. “Come on, Rue,” I said, and bent down to kiss her forehead. “Let’s get you home.”

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