How To Be Brave Read Online Free PDF Page B

He’s thinking of you.’
    Rose still wouldn’t look at me.
    ‘Why don’t you look at your books?’ I pulled one from under the pillow but she didn’t react. ‘Well, you can read when you feel like it.’
    Rose pushed my hand roughly and the novel flew across the room, falling like a parachute carrying life-saving supplies.
    The nurse returned with a plate of toast and fruit and some milk, which she put next to my food before retrieving the book.
    ‘ War Horse? I saw the show in London,’ she said. ‘Have you seen it?’
    Rose shuffled farther away from me, didn’t answer. The nurse put a hand on my arm and whispered that she would be unreasonable like this for a few hours. She said we should wait until then before we explained everything to her.
    But how would I ever tell Rose that the finger-prick tests and injections she’d soon endure while conscious would continue at home, forever? That what she might think was merely hospital procedure – medicine to make her better like Calpol – was in fact her new life. That if she didn’t have it, she might die.
    ‘Why don’t you eat your toast and we’ll look at War Horse together?’ I said instead. ‘Like we used to in the book nook.’
    Rose shook her head. ‘Get it away from me,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want it. You think I’m stupid. Books won’t make me feel okay. All the animals in them are dickheads – and you are too!’
    My phone began ringing, demanding attention over Rose’s outburst. I tried to calm her but had to take the call. It was Jake – as I left the room to speak to him, Rose’s words followed me; their vowels and consonants clinging to my clothes like the sterile hospital odours.
    ‘I won’t be able to come home,’ was all I fully heard from Jake. Then broken bits of explanation about how Rose was “in no danger” and her condition wasn’t what they assessed as “life threatening” and so didn’t “warrant compassionate leave.” He’d be home in two months on his already arranged leave. I could hear how distressed he was about it but my own feelings of abandonment were stronger, and cruelly I hung up on him, regretting my haste immediately.
    I went back into the room.
    Rose sat, arms crossed, and as though to have the final word she said, ‘I’m done with books.’
    All the stories died that morning.
    Until we found the one we’d always known.

3
FIND THE BOOK
    Both as well as can be expected. Extra water and food keeping us going.
    K.C.
    Four nights I slept on a foldout bed next to Rose. It was too low for me to watch her sleep, whispering the curious, nonsensical language of dreams, but also hidden enough for me to use my phone to search secretly online for information about diabetes.
    I was haunted by what I found. I heard whispered words like kidney failure and heart failure long after I’d turned my phone off. I heard blindness and hypo when being busily tutored in my imminent new care role by numerous professionals. I heard risk of stroke and nerve damage when trying to sleep.
    Often during the night I left our little room and walked up and down the main stairs, over and over, until my knees hurt and my forehead sweated and my heart raced. I wasn’t sure if I was running towards or away from something. I wanted to call out for help but had no name to call.
    When I finally fell back asleep I dreamt I was on a boat.
    It was small, perhaps only big enough for ten people, and it tipped and swayed with the waves’ motion. Tins of something clanked together at one end, and a notebook or log or something else papery fluttered nearby. I touched the rough pages – it was too dark to see much so my fingers did the reading. Beside me, never waking, someone slept. No matter how I shook him and demanded, ‘Why am I here? Who are you?’ he never stirred.
    I woke each morning to the smell of the sea, queasy with exhaustion, hoping Jake had rung back so I could apologise. No missed calls.
    I drank strong coffee, and put on