Incite (Sphere of Irony 1)

Grabbing my things, I dig out my beat up leather toilet bag and take it to the bathroom. I have to splash water on my face to calm down. My heart is still racing so fast it feels as if it might explode.

No! I can’t think about her. She’s made her decision. We’ve both fucked this up too much to fix it. I grip the edges of the sink and stare in the mirror. I look like absolute shite. My eyes are dull and have dark circles beginning to form under them. I need a shave badly, even though I’ve been sporting the rough stubble that women seem to love on me. My skin is pale, which, being an Englishman isn’t that abnormal, but it’s almost sickly looking.

I bark out a sarcastic laugh that I’m supposed to be some sexy, desirable, celebrity when really, I’m just another fucked up loser from a fucked up home.

I snatch up my toothbrush and quickly brush my teeth. Then I dig through the satchel and grab several condoms, placing them on the nightstand. No use in hiding them, Brigitte has no illusions as to why she’s coming up here. She doesn’t seem like the clingy type either, so I can get rid of her afterwards without a hassle.

A knock on the door of the suite comes right as expected. I put on my best ‘Adam Reynolds is the happy, easy going bloke’ face and answer it.

“Hello gorgeous,” I tell her, stepping aside to let her in and closing the door behind her.

Now it’s time to drink and fuck Ellie out of my head, for good. She hasn’t left me any other choice.

chapter 30

Ellie

“I have to go. No. Not now. She’s waking up. Ellie? Love? Can you hear me?”

James’ deep voice floats through the darkness that envelopes me like a thick shroud. I attempt to open my eyes, but find that they’re stuck together, almost as if they’ve been glued shut.

“Let me help you dear.”

Mum? My mum is here? I feel a soft touch, then a cool cloth gently wipes both of my eyes, removing whatever gunk was preventing them from opening.

“There you go. Can you open your eyes Ellie, dear?” I can tell from her tone that my mum’s upset but trying to hold it together. She sounded like that a lot after Dad died.

“Yes, get the doctor. She’s waking up,” James says from my other side. Why is James here? Where’s Adam?

Where the hell am I?

I try again to open my eyes, but the sliver of light that gets in is so bright, and brings an explosion of pain so severe, that I wince and squeeze them back shut immediately.

A pathetic moan escapes my throat and I clutch at my head with my hand. It feels as if an anvil is sitting on top of my skull, pressing it flat. My hand feels as if it weighs a ton, so it takes a while for it to follow my commands. Slowly, I raise it to touch the side of my head just behind my ear. Where I expect to find hair I instead find something soft and gauzy.

“Wh-what? What’s going on?

“Ellie, don’t stress yourself love,” James chides gently. He takes my hand away from my head and clasps it in his.

Again, I open my eyes, this time pushing through the agony and the wave of nausea that the brightness brings.

“The lights, please.” I can barely scratch out the words, my throat is so dry.

“Of course, love,” my mum says. She flicks a switch, taking the room from glaringly painful to dim and almost tolerable.

Blinking rapidly, I take a moment to examine my unfocused surroundings. If I look too long, things start to spin and the nausea becomes unbearable, so I only take brief peeks through my heavy eyelids.

James is on my left, holding my hand in his, his face full of worry. My mum is on my right, her trembling hands fluttering uselessly at her sides, unsure what to do with them.

The rest of the room looks suspiciously like the ones we have at University Hospital where I work. A pleasant voice that I vaguely recognize drifts from the doorway and a figure comes over to the side of my bed. James drops my hand and steps back so the newcomer can take his place.

“Doctor Grant?” I rasp, stunned. My mind is all screwed up. This can’t be the same Dr. Grant that I work with every day on the neurology ward.

“Ellie, go

od to see you awake. You gave everyone a bit of a scare for a while.”

“But, but...” I clutch at my throbbing head, so confused at my current situation. I can’t seem to grasp what is happening. “I don’t understand.” I admit to him, the pain in my skull now intensifying to the point where I’m beginning to get anxious. The loud beeping of the pulse oximeter that I now feel attached to my right index finger gets faster and faster as I start to panic.