Except for one.
‘Give him some space,’ Florence is saying in that calm but authoritative voice she’s used on me when drawing my blood. I feel steady, confident hands grasp my ankles, propping them up in such a way that sends blood back to my brain, pump by pump.
When my vision pulls back into focus, she’s right there, kneeling beside me with a small smile on her face, two fingers resting on the pulse point near my ankle.
‘Nice of you to join us,’ she says with a crooked smile, and relief makes my breath come a little easier. If she’s joking, then I must be ok. Beyond collapsing in front of what looks to be everyone I know and love, that is. But why would everyone I know be in my flat? Perhaps this is a dream. Or I suppose there’s a chance I could have hit my head as I fell.
I snap my eyes shut again, resting a moment before tentatively opening them again. Nope, they’re all still here, looking equally horrified.
‘Why is everyone here?’ I ask Florence, reaching out a hand for her wrist. The skin contact calms me a little.
She looks up at someone in the crowd before her eyes meet mine again, her smile widening. ‘I think they were trying to surprise you. I guess it worked.’
‘A bit too well,’ Bram says, before kneeling next to me and saying, in a lower voice, ‘I’ve got you, man.’
I try to get up to speak to him, but Florence’s hand stops me.
‘You need to lie there for a couple of minutes,’ she says, adjusting the cushions underneath my legs. She looks up at Bram and he nods, without either of them having said anything.
‘Ok,’ he says to the assembled crowd, clambering to his feet. ‘Let’s give him a bit of privacy while he comes round. Emmy, Fox, could you sort everyone out with a drink, please?’
The siblings nod and lead the way out of the flat and into the bar. Only Bram, Sammi and Elias hold back.
‘Why is everyone here?’ I ask again, and this time Florence defers to Bram.
‘For your birthday,’ he says with a shrug. ‘Remember we said that because your thirtieth was overshadowed by the whole separation business, we should make a big deal for your thirty-first instead?’
Sammi snorts a soft laugh. ‘Surprise.’
My forehead creases, my brain still a little too fuzzy to connect any dots. ‘It isn’t my birthday for another two weeks.’
‘Yeah, obviously,’ Bram snorts. ‘Wouldn’t be much of a surprise if we did it on the right day though, would it?’
There’s probably logic there, but I’m not in the best place right now to find it.
‘Can I get up?’ I ask, suddenly feeling strangely vulnerable. ‘I’m feeling a lot better now.’
Bram looks to Florence for guidance, and when she nods her reply, he offers me a hand. I take it and haul myself to my feet. I feel a little shaky still, but otherwise I’m feeling much better. But when I look up, it seems nobody else is sharing that relief.
‘Do you need to get checked out?’ Sammi asks, her voice serious. ‘We can send everyone home if you need us to.’
I shake my head and flop down onto the sofa, stretching out my right arm, which is throbbing at the elbow. I must have bumped it when I fell. ‘I’ll be ok,’ I say. ‘Just need a few minutes and I’ll be good to go.’
Bram frowns. ‘It’s probably a good idea to get yourself checked. You really went down.’
Elias nods his agreement. ‘There might be something underlying there. I mean, who faints in this day and age?’
‘As a medical professional, I can assure you that people still faint,’ Florence says with a smile, and then she turns back to me. ‘You haven’t told your friends?’ she asks under her breath, but apparently it’s not quiet enough.
Surprisingly, it’s the human in the room who hears it.
‘Told us what?’ Sammi asks, her face lined with concern.
Ah, shit. Well, here they come, the inevitable consequences of my own choices.
The truth is that I could have told them. I could have, but I didn’t. I can’t even say there were no opportunities, because there were plenty. And I seized exactly none of them.
There were times it was on the tip of my tongue, a split second from being spoken, and every one of those times I held it back. I think maybe I thought that if I said it, it would make it real, like maybe this whole thing was just one long, vivid dream.