Even After Everything

The days following my brief stint in hospital drag by, as I basically do nothing for the entire 24 hours. I’d get breakfast, watch telly, eat lunch, listen to music, eat dinner, then sleep. It’s that exciting.

I just cannot be bothered. It’s times like this that I wish I really was in university.

By the time I’d woken up from my coma, half the school year had gone - if I’d have started then, I’d have had a serious amount of catching up to do. It was generally accepted that I’d start the following year, so I went along with it. And now all my friends are studying, and I’m bored stiff.

Except right now, I’m walking through Shrewsbury Park, earphones jammed in and still as bored as I would have been at home. Plus I think I’m being stalked. There’s this lanky kid in a hoodie that just seems to be everywhere I am.

I’m awoken from my thoughts by the song, Seed, blasting out through my phone’s speakers. I inspect the screen to see a random number blinking at me. There’s no name, so that rules out anyone in my phonebook, and it’s not a withheld number so it’s not Sana. Who else do I even know?

I press the answer button and hold it up to my ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Hannah?!’ The voice is shrill and panicky, and it belongs one Charlotte Grange - possibly the most sinfully annoying person on the planet.

‘Yes?’

‘Is that you?!’

‘Is that who? If your asking whether my name is Hannah, then quite obviously it is as I responded when you said it to me,’ I snap agitatedly. ‘If your asking however, if I am a specific Hannah, then how am I supposed to know? You could mean anyone.’

‘Never mind - I don’t know anyone else who gets PMT quite that severe. It’s obviously you.’

I glare at my phone as she continues.

‘Anyway. I completely forgot about the recital this weekend and now everyone’s paired up - I don’t suppose you have a partner?’

‘The recital?’

I twist my face in confusion, not saying a word. Oh fuck, the recital!

When I came out of hospital after my coma, my doctors told me to take up some sort of hobby - something to poke my brain back in action. I’d spent four months asleep and had a hard time doing even the simplest Sudoku puzzles - so I started Sana’s singing class.

I know, singing isn’t exactly cranially straining, but I was told that it would limber up the right side of my brain, whilst I could take up other activities for my left. Remedial math or something.

Pretty needless to say, I haven’t done anything about that so far. Who in their right mind would choose to study math? And in their own time? So the left side of my brain is remaining decidedly asleep - who am I to complain?

In any case, Sana left after my first month, and I was stuck with Charlotte Grange - twittering and scuttling after me as the class formed harmony groups. Still, it could be worse.

Possibly.

After a couple of months of going, we were told that the drama and singing classes would be performing a joint recital to the public - well, to devoted parents and blackmailed siblings at least. I begged and begged my teacher to let me pass on it, but she was having none of it. She gave me a choice. Drop out of classes altogether, or perform. Grudgingly, I chose the latter.

Even though I hate recitals, and have done ever since I got a little over excited with my cello bow in a school concert six years ago. Some poor old biddy was rushed to ER because it had hit her spectacles and smashed glass into her eye.

I’ve always said that no good comes of wearing glasses, aesthetically or otherwise.

But where was I? Ah yes. So we had a choice of performing in pairs or on our own. Had Sana still been going I’d probably have liked to pair with her - she has an amazing voice that I often get very envious of - but that’s blatantly not going to happen. So I decided to go on my own. The other people at my class weren’t really that good so it was the obvious choice.

‘You know what Charlotte, I think I’m going on my own.’

‘…Why would you do that?’

‘Because I want to,’ I bluff, opting to spare her feelings.

‘But that’s so…lonerish.’

‘Then I’m a loner. Look I’ve got to go now - I’ve just seen my friend,’ I lie. The only people I even vaguely recognise is the hoodie boy and a particularly grotesque specimen of Sana’s ex’s.

‘Oh -okay. Well will you meet me outside at least? I don’t want to go in on my own…’

I sigh. ‘Yes, yes, fine. How about I meet you by The Music Hall barriers at seven?’

‘Okay, bye Hannah - Oh! Wait, what are you wearing?’

But it’s too late, I’ve already hung up. Rude you may think, but when you’re on the phone to Charlotte Grange, it’s necessary to keep your ears open constantly for a chance to end the conversation. They’re so few and far between that I’ve often been on the phone to her for hours at a time, talking about rubbish. Seriously, I can drop the phone on the sofa, go get a drink, come back and pick the phone up, and she’d still be chattering away. It’s mental.

That reminds me actually, I need to ring the class and tell them what I’m singing.

I wander along the winding path to the river in a state of absolute indifference. I may as well not even be here, I think as I sit on a bench, glaring at the stagnant water before me. I throw my head back and close my eyes, willing the sun to come out for the first time today. As I relax and as the soothing tones of The Academy Is waft in between my ears, I feel myself falling asleep, slumping into the bench with mouth hanging open.

‘Hannah?’

A soft male voice is calling me, but I turn hopelessly, unable to see anything in the pitch black darkness that seems to be everywhere.

‘Hannah? Are you there?’

A pair of spindly hands close around my wrists, and I try to shake free, before feeling a gentle puff of air on my face. I stop struggling and wrinkle my nose, bewildered, and I hear a quiet giggle.

‘Who’s there?’ I venture, but my voice comes out distorted and strange as though I were underwater - and suddenly I am, sinking down, the hands falling away as I choke.

I wake up with a gasp, horrified to find myself rolling in muddy water. I look from the bench, to where I sit, and back to the bench again, before I realise what happened.

I’d obviously fallen asleep and slipped off the bench, falling into the shallow part of the river where the canoes would be tethered. What an idiot!

I get up angrily, shaking the mud and water off my clothes as I march off towards the town, practically running to the bus station as I cover my face.

Humiliated doesn’t cover it.