A Girl Like You - A Girl Like You Part 40
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A Girl Like You Part 40

'I still don't see why . . . why he had to pretend to want to be with me.'

'I think he does . . . or did. I think he wanted it to work with you, it would have made life easier, particularly with the wedding coming up, where he knew Bella would be . . . But he's still in love with her.'

'Why did he bring her to Hong Kong?' I say, in a little mewing voice. 'Why did he lie to me?'

'I don't know,' says Robert softly.

'I think I'm going to be sick,' I say.

'Don't be so dramatic,' says Robert, rolling his eyes.

'No, I mean, I really think I'm going to be sick.'

Robert just gets me to the bathroom before I start throwing up.

Chapter Thirty Eight.

I can hear Robert talking on the phone. He sounds angry.

'You must have a doctor on call. She's been completely out of it for 24 hours, it could be serious. Fine.'

He hangs up. I try hard to open my eyes and can just make out Robert standing next to the bed. 'Thank you,' I try to say, but I have no voice, so it comes out in a husky whisper. I'm boiling hot and my bones are aching, I feel like I'm sinking through the mattress.

'I feel sick,' I whisper. Slightly redundantly.

'I've got some cold and flu medicine for you, Abby, darling. I rang my mum, I think you just have the flu . . . Try to keep it down.'

I lift my head off the pillow and drink the orange liquid that he offers me.

'Good girl.'

'Don't push your luck,' I whisper.

Robert grins. 'Well, at least you're talking. It's been a day since you made any sense.'

'So it's Sunday?'

'Brilliant deduction. Listen, do you want to have a bath so I can get housekeeping to change the sheets? Between the vomit and the sweat, the bed is pretty minging.'

I blink slowly and nod. Oh, nodding hurts. Won't do that again.

I fall into a mini-sleep while he runs me a bath and then shuffle to the bathroom. As I pass the toilet, my legs buckle, and I get my head over the bowl just in time to throw up the cold and flu liquid. It tastes so nasty, and I feel so sorry for myself, that I start crying. Again.

'Oh, Robert. I feel like I'm dying.'

'Self-pity alone isn't fatal, Abby, darling,' he says, picking me up and helping me into the bathroom. 'Do you need me to help you bathe?'

I narrow my eyes at him. 'No. I'm good, thanks.'

He grins and shuts the door behind him. I have a long bath, then wash my hair, dry myself and dress in the clean t-shirt and shorts that he's left for me. The whole process is absolutely exhausting. I wrap my hair in a towel turban, and clamber back on the magically-clean-and-new bed. My body aches so much. I want to roll over but I don't have the energy.

'You need to dry your hair,' says Robert.

'I don't care,' I say, and am asleep in seconds.

My dreams are exhausting. I'm always running, trying to find someone, but I don't know who. Now and again I throw up, but I'm not sure if it's in my dream or reality. Then I dream about trying to find my parents, but when I do, my dad is shaking his head in disappointment. I'm sorry, I keep saying in my dream, I'm so sorry.

I'm very hot, and someone makes me drink lots of water, and at some point I hear two voices in the room, but I can't catch what they're saying.

The next time I'm properly awake, it's Monday night. 'I'm starving,' I murmur.

Minutes or hours, I don't know later Robert is next to me, spoon-feeding me chicken soup. I'm too out of it to even be embarrassed or make a sarcastic comment. Then I fall back to sleep. This time, my dreams are easier, and the stress and panic is gone.

When I wake up again, it's early evening. The sky outside has a soft peachy glow.

I feel almost normal.

I blink a couple of times. How light my eyelids are today! I stretch, noticing the long-sleep stiffness in my arms and legs has replaced the heavy ache of the last few days. Then I roll my head up and look around the room. Robert's at the desk, on his laptop.

'Hey you,' I say. My voice is back, but croaky, so I clear my throat and say it again. 'Hey! You.'

Robert turns around. '"Hey you?" Is that all you can say?'

'I'm much better.'

'I can see that.'

I sit up in bed, and the sudden movement makes my head spin. 'Whoa. Low blood sugar level. What day is it?'

'Tuesday. I'll order you some food,' says Robert, grinning. It's so lovely to see him smile that I beam back. Then I replay what he just said. I've been sick for four days? 'Robert, have you been here the whole time?' He nods. 'Thank you. I don't know what would have happened without you.'

He picks up the room service menu. 'It would have been . . . difficult.'

'Did I have swine flu? Bird flu?' I ask cheerfully, hopping over to the mini-bar. It's so good to feel like myself again. 'If I don't eat something now, I'll pass out.' I tear open a Toblerone and start munching.

'Two ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, two vegetable soups, and lots of warm bread rolls please,' says Robert into the phone. 'And two large apple juices.'

'I'd like a burger and chips and a beer, actually,' I say, through a mouth full of chocolate.

'No. And by the way, it wasn't swine or bird flu. Just plain ol' gastric flu combined with total exhaustion and mild hysteria.'

'Well, that sucks,' I say in dismay. 'I was sure it was more serious than that.'

'Sorry. Did you know you giggle in your sleep, by the way?'

'Really? How adorable of me.'

'Ah, it's good to have you back to your annoying self again.' I lie back on the bed and look around the room. My suitcase has been unpacked, and is standing in the hall next to a carry-on case and suit carrier.

'Where have you been sleeping, Robert?'

'Next to you on the bed, some of the time,' he says, typing at his laptop again. 'But you thrashed around and talked a lot. So I slept on the floor a bit, too,' he pauses and looks over at me. 'I'll get my own room now that you're feeling better. I didn't want you to wake up and be sick and alone.'

'You're so lovely,' I say, without thinking. He looks so exhausted. I bet he's barely slept at all.

Robert shakes his head and frowns, turning back to his laptop. 'Anyone would have done the same.'

I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that we're in Hong Kong and that Robert flew all the way here to find/rescue/nurse me.

I think back to my flight, which has taken on a strange fuzzy haze, and my nightmarish hours in the hotel, and then gingerly, like someone testing a sprained ankle to see if it still hurts to seeing Dave and Bella kissing in the hotel lobby. Did that really happen?

Strangely, that memory doesn't hurt as much as it did before. It feels like a scene in a movie seen long ago.

So to test the potential pain I think about Dave lying to me. And about the fact that he could have been cheating on me the whole time with Bella. The girl he always loved. I feel a dull ache, but the searing, clutching, shocked pain is gone. The urge to cry is gone.

'I don't feel that upset about Dave anymore,' I say in astonishment. 'Not like I was.'

'Good. He's not worth it.'

'Perhaps the hysteria was shock and tiredness. Or perhaps the last four days was a concentrated mourning period,' I say thoughtfully, chewing a piece of Toblerone. I think about the flight, the first night in Hong Kong, the sleepless, obsessed feeling when I didn't know where he was. What was I thinking? 'God, what a nightmare. Perhaps I went temporarily crazy.'

'Perhaps,' echoes Robert distractedly.

'I've missed my flight to London!' I gasp. 'It was last night! I should call work, I need to get back-'

'No way. I've told your office you're very sick, there's no rush.'

'Should I call Andre? I was here to talk about a job, I-'

'For once in your life, stop being so conscientious. I delayed your flight by a week, but you can change it whenever you want. Just relax.'

I lie back on the pillow, processing all of this. 'You're like my guardian angel.'

'That guy Andre sent you those flowers. Someone else called Rich sent you those other flowers. You're quite popular in the Far East, aren't you?'

I can hardly even remember the meeting with Andre. How would Rich know I'm here? . . . Oh, Henry.

'Maybe I should call Rich,' I muse aloud. 'He's Henry's brother, you know, we dated a couple of times. Though he might want to go out, or something. I'm definitely not ready for anything . . . like that. Probably best to ignore it.'

I shuffle to the bathroom and take a look at myself. My hair is so greasy it's changed colour, and I'm very pale and visibly thinner, especially around my face. The cut on my cheekbone has almost completely healed, and my black eye is now just mildly greeny-yellow. My first black eye, I think mournfully, and I couldn't even really enjoy it.

I lift up my top a few inches and see that my stomach is concave, and my hipbones are protruding more than normal. Why is it that I can't help but be slightly thrilled at this? I mean it's wrong, surely.

I shower, dress in very old jeans and a white top (there's no Pretty With A Punch today; I'm not feeling pretty and I'm too weak to punch), and stretch out on the bed. Robert is still working. I can see out the window to the twinkling lights across Hong Kong Harbour. I wonder where Dave is, and if he's with Bella. I want to ask Robert, but at the same time, I'm not ready for the answer.

How could I have gone from confident bastardette to insecure man-chaser in the space of just a few months? Dave was the cool one, the detached one. I was . . . it's like it wasn't even me. Perhaps we all have a desperate little bunnyboiler inside us, just waiting to hoppityhop out. I remember Plum acting un peu psycho around previous boyfriends, and even Sophie. I always thought, that could never happen to me. What is it about some men that make us crazy? I didn't feel loved, I wasn't ecstatically happy . . . I just wanted him. And I wanted him to want me.

And for what? For a spark when he kissed me?

Then again, it was a pretty fucking good spark.

I sigh deeply.

'You alright?' says Robert, sitting next to me on the bed. He reaches out and strokes my head again, and I look up at him and think for the tenth time today how glad I am that he's here. And not because he rescued me from a misery meltdown and nursed me back to health. But just because there's no one else I'd rather see.

I smile at him, and he smiles back. For the first time since I woke up, I feel calm. What's done is done.

'I'm fine,' I say. And I mean it.

Room service arrives, and we set ourselves up on the little sofa-coffee-table area and start eating.

'I don't think food has ever tasted this good,' I say, tearing into my ham and cheese sandwich.

'Take it easy, Abby, darling,' he replies. 'Chew. Please don't relapse. I've never seen someone throw up green bile before.'

Raising an eyebrow sternly whilst chewing with enthusiasm is almost impossible. Try it.

'You scared the shit out me when I arrived. All that screaming and crying. I thought you'd lost it.'

'I had. But then I found it again.'

'He's not worth it,' says Robert.

'I know. I can't, um, explain why I acted the way I did.'

'You can't control who you fall in love with.'

'Well, you should be able to . . . anyway, it wasn't love, it couldn't be. It was more like I was addicted to him,' I say slowly. 'I wasn't happy. But I couldn't . . . control myself.'

Robert nods. 'I know exactly what you mean.'

'Are they still in the hotel?' I say quietly.

'I told them to change hotels.'

We finish our meals in silence, but again, I'm struck by how calm I feel. Like I'm exhaling a breath that I've been holding in for months.

After dinner, I call my parents and Sophie and assure them that I'm not on the verge of death. And then, because I'm shattered again, I put on clean pyjamas and curl up on the bed. Robert has been working the whole time. It is only midday in London, I guess.

'Does your office mind you being out here?' I say.