Hello everybody! Sorry its been weeks and weeks since I last updated – I've been at the Edinburgh Festival for three weeks, but now I'm on the train home (free wifi, yay) so another chapter is coming your way. I have another couple of busy weeks coming up as I prepare to go travelling but I'll try and keep updating fairly regularly and then frequency should get back to normal after I get internet in my new flat out there!
Hope you enjoy this chapter. I wrote it in chunks whenever I could get computer access so I hope it is ok for y'all!
X x x
Danielle made sure to stare intently at the bed clothes, rubbing her hands together and against her face angrily, her eyes wide, until the door was firmly shut behind Roxy and Ronnie; the nurse closed the door carefully, not wanting it to slam, although a slam, she thought, might have been appropriate. The nurse, in turn, stared towards it instead of straight at Danielle, the tension in the room unbearable. Trying to gauge what to do or say once the door was closed, whether to say anything at all, she left a few seconds for Danielle to speak, but when no words came, she moved closer to her patient of her own accord, taking the utmost care with every step she made.
Danielle kept her head down as she stared, not allowing herself to look up at the window, the curtains drawn back, towards where her mother and aunt had just exited, but also reluctant to begin a conversation with the strange woman who had stayed rudely in the room. Through the window, Roxy and Ronnie's figures could be seen still standing in the corridor; they were talking, arguing, and Danielle could not bear to see them there, to see them fighting again, fighting over her.
She was so angry with them both - with Roxy even – for leaving her out again, keeping from her something which, essentially, was knowledge for her and only her. They had kept this poisonous secret from her like she was the odd one out, like she didn't deserve to know; she was so worthless that she didn't even deserve to know that her own father was dead, like she was too weak to take the news. Danielle wasn't weak, she told herself over and over. She was just unlucky, in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had the wrong family; the wrong father, the wrong mother.
No father. No mother.
Danielle could tell that the nurse was staring at her head on now, and that she had come to perch on the end of her bed, so instead of opening herself up for conversation she turned her body away, trying to make her body language as closed off as possible. She knew this wasn't the right thing to do, the sensible thing; that turning away from someone trying to help would probably make things worse in the long run, but she could not help it. This woman, Danielle knew, could not put her relationship with Ronnie back together, so what would be the point? She didn't want to know Ronnie any more anyway. Danielle had been put in this position through the careless mistakes of her own family, and this nurse could not take that away. She just couldn't.
Edging closer along the bed slowly the nurse finally spoke, "Do you need to talk about this Danielle", she asked carefully, "Maybe talking to someone would help. Help put things into perspective. I'm sure your mu…"
"No, I don't", Danielle jumped in, replying quickly before she had the chance to mention Ronnie's name or speak the word mum, "I don't need to speak to anyone, especially not them", she sniffed, "I just want to be left alone".
Roxy and Ronnie were still outside, their voices raised now, "Can you ask them to leave?", Danielle asked quietly, through tears that had begun to fall slowly, "I really don't want them to be here".
"I can", Charlotte replied, "but I really think that it might be best for you to talk things through with…"
"I said no. I can't. Not now", Danielle shook her head vigorously, perhaps a little more forcefully than she had intended. Beginning to feel light-headed, she committed her head back against the pillow behind her, not sure how else to make it clear that speaking to Ronnie was the last thing she wanted to do. Even being able to see her talking to Roxy outside the room was too much.
She had been in this position so many times – it was so clichéd, but she really was so close to the real love of a mother, but yet so far. That was the extent of her life with Ronnie – an endless list of clichés, and that simply was not enough. Not enough to constitute a real relationship; it was not enough for Ronnie to say these things - yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir – but show no evidence, to say one thing yet do the very opposite of those words. That wasn't enough; in fact, that was so much less than enough it made Danielle feel physically sick.
"If you're sure", Charlotte answered half heartedly, watching Danielle's eyes as she clearly thought about the decision she was making, "If you're really sure I can ask them to leave, but I can't promise they won't try and come back".
"If they do I want you to send them away", Danielle retorted, "Please", she added.
"Well ok Dan, if you're sure this is what you want. Is there anyone else I can contact for you? Anyone you want to see?"
Danielle thought carefully about the question she had just been asked. Had this been days, hours, even minutes earlier she would have had a list; her father, Stacey, maybe Ronnie and perhaps even Roxy. But now who did she have? Who were her real friends? Stacey had visited, yes, but she was busy with the stall and Danielle really didn't want to bother her. She was always such a bother, such a time consuming bother.
"No, I'll be fine, I don't need anyone", she decided to reply eventually. "You're sure there's no-one?", Charlotte asked as she made her way to the door. "I'll be fine for now, I really just want to be on my own", Danielle assured her, curling up into a ball and closing her eyes to the world as Charlotte opened the door to reveal angry voices filling the corridor.
