What My Best Friend Did Read Online Free PDF Page A

distracts him. “Come on, Al,” he says as the nurse opens the door to Gretchen’s room and goes in. He leads and reluctantly I follow.
    We are just starting slowly to pull up chairs, Tom staring at Gretchen, when the nurse who came in ahead of us, who is obviously quite senior and busily checking charts, remarks to her more junior colleague, “She keeps getting ectopics. Is she normally having that many?”
    I lift my head and start to pay attention.
    “I saw a few earlier but they’re becoming more frequent,” the junior says.
    “Hmm. Keep an eye on that. What’s her potassium?”
    “Three point one.”
    Is that good or bad?
    The senior nurse’s eyebrows flicker. “We need to top it up immediately. It’s on the chart, isn’t it?”
    The junior nods and says, “I’ll go and get it.”
    As she leaves the room, Tom shoots me a curious look and I shrug.
    “Excuse me,” Tom begins to ask out loud, but he is cut short by an alarm starting to sound shrilly.
    The senior nurse ignores him and moves quickly around to Gretchen, pushing past Tom, making him yank his chair back. She reaches for Gretchen’s neck and I realize she is checking her pulse. My own responds by increasing rapidly.
    I look up urgently and see a green line going manic on a monitor; it’s spiking about crazily—but about three screens down, a red line is going flat. Oh my God.
    “Can I have some help in here?” the nurse suddenly shouts very loudly, and then things start to happen very quickly.
    Tom stands up and looks wildly at me, my mouth has fallen open in horror and I find I’m rooted to the spot with fear. Another nurse appears immediately in the doorway.
    “Can you put the arrest call out? She’s in VT,” someone shouts.
    There’s a slamming noise that makes both Tom and me jump violently as the head of the bed cracks down and Gretchen is suddenly totally flat.
    “Oh shit, she’s in VF now!” the first nurse calls.
    “What’s VF?” Tom says desperately. “What’s happening?”
    A third nurse dashes in and I hear someone, I’m not sure who, say firmly, “Can you get the friends out?”
    Then there is a hand on my arm and Tom is yelling, “No! We need to stay. What’s going on? What’s happening to her?” I’m being pulled insistently to my feet as I look at Gretchen—they are yanking blankets down, reaching for her gown and …
    We are suddenly back out in the corridor, being ushered quickly down it, away from the noise of the alarm, still going. A doctor bursts through a set of double doors and hurtles past us. I look back over my shoulder to see that a stream of medical staff is now pouring like ants into the small room.
    “They just need some space to work in,” the nurse with us says insistently. “That’s all. Come on, we’ll wait down here in the relatives’ area.” It’s a command, not an option. She tries to hurry me away, but I can’t take my eyes off what’s happening behind us. Another doctor has appeared from the other end of the passage and is running. All these people fighting for Gretchen, her life—her actual, real life in their hands. A picture of her slumped up against the wall back in her flat slams into my head. A nurse runs past me, almost banging into me in her haste, and disappears into the room. Again I see Gretchen, pills at her feet … Oh my God. Everything seems to start moving in slow motion and I’m barely aware of my own voice suddenly shrieking, “No!” And then I’m collapsing to the floor, Tom is bending and trying to scoop me up, pulling me to him and I’m crying, crying, crying … as if it’s my heart that is breaking.

FOUR
     
    H er name is Gretchen Bartholomew, for God’s sake.” I sighed, sitting on the small suitcase and trying to ignore the resulting ominous crunch that was probably every bottle in my toiletries bag breaking. “I’ve never even met the girl, but I can tell you that with a name that pretentious she can’t be anything but a massive twat.