Dr O’Rourke didn’t argue with me, he simply nodded and leaned against the wall next to me.
“Aren’t you going to wait in the waiting room?”
“No,” he answered, glancing down at me. “I need to be close to her too.”
Something changed between us in that moment. He was still Dr O’Rourke, but he was also my mother’s partner. I wasn’t the only person in the world who loved my mum, Dr O’Rourke did too. He looked at her like she hung the galaxy, never mind just the moon. He was a good man and I was happy Mum had found him, but right then and there, I was really happy that he was the man she picked.
“You’re a good man, Dr O’Rourke,” I said, offering him a tired smile. “My mum really does love you.”
“I love her too,” he replied, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he returned my smile. “I think we’re goin’ to get along just fine movin’ forward, what d’ye think?”
“I think you’re right, we need to be a team to help Mum.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, little.”
I looked up at him, surprised he said the nickname only my mum has ever used, but touched that he wanted to forge a bond with me. Without warning, I stepped towards Dr O’Rourke and wrapped my arms around his stocky build. He returned my hug wholeheartedly.
“Everything will be okay,” I said. “Won’t it?”
“I bloody well hope so, kid.”
I stepped away from Dr O’Rourke and leaned back against the wall next to him. I checked my phone for the hundredth time and sent Risk another text. I needed him. I felt constricted with the weight of the situation I had found myself in. My mother was sick . . . really sick. I didn’t know how to cope but I knew that Risk would help me. He always did. I needed him to breathe. I needed him more than ever before.
“He’ll be here.”
I looked up at Dr O’Rourke and blinked.
“Risk.” He clarified. “He’ll come runnin’ once he knows ye need him, Frankie. He always does.”
“Frankie!”
I spun around the second I heard his voice and when my eyes landed on him, I began to move in his direction without thought. Risk ran down the entire length of the corridor, only slowing down when he neared me. When he was a couple of metres away, I could see his round, ice-blue eyes clearly. His white-blond hair that was normally perfectly styled was messy and unkempt. His handsome, freckled face was flushed from running and his clothes were an iron’s nightmare. I didn’t think we would ever get the creases out.
I wrapped my arms around his body the second I got my hands on him. I moved my arms up to his neck when Risk bent at the knee, picked me up and hugged my body to his. He squeezed me so tight that it was almost hard to draw in a breath. After a few seconds, he sat my feet back on the ground. I leaned back and his hands went to either side of my head. His eyes locked on mine.
“I’m here.” He panted. “I’m here, love.”
I could feel Risk’s worry and confusion, just like he could feel my pain and fear. Dr O’Rourke was right. He always ran to me when I needed him with no questions asked. In that moment, I didn’t know that this time would be the last time he would do so. That very day turned out to be that start of the worst week of my entire life. I had not only learned that my mother had a progressive, terminal disease that would rob me of the woman I loved so deeply, slowly over time, but I would also push the love of my life away for reasons he couldn’t understand.
I pushed him away until all that was left of him were echoes in the melody.
CHAPTER ONE
FRANKIE
Present day . . .
Today will be a good day.
I read somewhere that if a person believed in something so deeply they could positively manifest it into reality. I didn’t know whether I believed that or not, but I didn’t have much in the way of luck, so trying to manifest my wants into reality might not have been the dumbest thing in the world. I mean, what was the worst that could happen, right?
I tapped my hand against my thigh as ‘Kryptonite’ by 3 Doors Down played through my earphones while I waited for the lift to arrive on the lobby floor of St Elizabeth Hospice. It was Monday, my only day of the week that I had off work. While most people hated Mondays, I loved them because it meant I got to spend all day with my beautiful mum. Nine years ago to the day, when I was eighteen and she was forty-six, we found out the she had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Hearing those words had shattered a piece of my soul. It was hard to believe at first, even harder to accept, but nine years later and Mum’s Alzheimer’s was now as much a part of my life as it was hers.
It was odd, but I now couldn’t imagine my life without Mum having this illness. My life revolved around her because of this illness; remembering a time before it was too bizarre to comprehend. As much as I hated the disease, and I hated it with every fibre of my being, it shaped me into the woman I had grown into over the past nine years. It taught me patience, understanding and compassion on a much deeper level. It also made me adore my mother that much more. She was my hero. I had never known a woman as strong as her and I doubted I ever would.
“Oft!”
I stumbled forward when a small body knocked into mine. I fell to one knee, but before I could faceplant on the ground, a hand wrapped around my upper arm and halted my movements. I was pulled to my feet a moment later. I turned to the dark-skinned teenage boy who was staring at me with big brown eyes. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
“I’m sorry, missus,” the boy spluttered. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
I smiled and waved my hand in the air, catching my earphones because they had fallen out of my ears. “No harm done. Don’t worry about it, hon.”
The kid visibly relaxed when he realised that he wasn’t about to get into trouble. Both of our attention turned to the right when a ding sounded and the doors to the elevator I was waiting on opened wide. No one was inside, so I glanced at the boy who gestured for me to walk into the lift first so I did with a grateful smile. When I turned, I took in the rest of the boy’s appearance for the first time. It was a school day, but I assumed the boy was visiting a patient of the hospice and got the day off. The second I locked eyes on the black T-shirt that he was wearing, my heart sank.
Staring back at me was the logo for Blood Oath in bold white.
My eyes moved to the left hand of the boy and I realised he was holding a smartphone, I squinted and saw he was on YouTube watching a video of some kind. He noticed me watching it so he pulled his earphones from the jack port and said, “It’s a Blood Oath music video, in case you’re wondering. They’re a mint rock band. D’you want to watch it too?”
I recoiled from the boy like he’d hissed at me.
“Oh, no, that’s okay, honey.” I fumbled with the wire of my earphones, trying to untangle them. “Thank you, though.”
I was relieved when I pushed the pods back into my ears and another song from my playlist blocked out everything else. I must have seemed like a crazy woman to the kid because he inched his way closer to the elevator’s doors. He repeatedly tapped on the button of the floor he wanted to get off at and when the doors opened, he bolted through them quicker than a hiccup.