See Through Me. Kevin Brooks

He knows –’

      ‘I’ll have to cover my face when I see him . . . my head . . . all of it . . .’

      ‘You don’t have to hide anything from him. He’s your dad . . . he’ll understand.’

      ‘Some kind of veil might do it . . . a niqab maybe, or even a burqa . . .’ I looked at Dr Kamara. ‘Are you allowed to wear stuff like that if you’re not a Muslim?’

      She sighed. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

      ‘Could you find out?’

      She just looked at me then, and for a moment I sensed a slight coldness to her.

      ‘I think you’d better get some rest now,’ she said.

      ‘But what about –?’

      ‘I’ve got your clothes here,’ she said, holding up a bulging carrier bag. ‘Burgess Park General just sent them on to us. You need to keep your gown on for now though. You can get changed when you move to the recovery room. Your dad’s going to bring you some more things when he comes – clothes, toiletries, books . . . whatever you need. Is there anything in particular you want him to bring?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘Well, just let us know if you think of anything.’ She leaned down and placed the bag of clothes on the bottom shelf of a monitor stand just to the right of the bed. ‘I’ll leave this here, okay?’

      I nodded.

      She studied me for a few seconds, and I thought she was going to say something else, but she didn’t. She just turned round, went over to the door, and left.

      Reasons . . .

      The why of things.

      One of the things about dressing the same way nearly all the time is that you can always be pretty sure what you were wearing on any given day. It’s a fairly useless thing to know, and all it really meant that day was that as I lay there staring at the carrier bag, I automatically knew what was in it. The clothes I’d been wearing on that rain-sodden Sunday night would have been the same kind of clothes I always wore – black leggings, black skirt, black T-shirt, black hoodie, my favourite silver and black pumps. I also knew that when I was taken to BPG my phone was in the pocket of my hoodie. Whether it was still there or not was another question, and at first I couldn’t have cared less. What did I want with a phone? I was hardly going to take a selfie and post it on Instagram, was I? And whatever anyone might be saying about me on Snapchat or yapTee or Facebook . . . well, I was feeling bad enough as it was. Why would I want to read a load of stuff that was guaranteed to make me feel even worse?

      Was there anyone I wanted to call?

      No.

      Not even Finch?

      I felt tears in my eyes then.

      Of course I wanted to talk to Finch . . . there was nothing I wanted more. But I knew what would happen if I did. I knew I’d start sobbing my heart out the moment I heard his voice, and that once the tears had begun to flow, I wouldn’t be able to stop them. And all that would do was make us both feel worse. Finch would be upset because I was upset, and that would make me more upset, which in turn would make Finch more upset . . .

      No.

      I couldn’t speak to him . . . not yet, anyway.

      But maybe . . .

      I gazed down at the carrier bag.

      Could I text him?

      I thought about it . . .

      It’s Finch, I told myself. You don’t need to think about texting Finch. Just do it.

      I thought about it some more . . .

      There was a good chance my phone wasn’t in the bag anyway. Someone could have found it – a nurse, a doctor, a paramedic – and put it away for safe keeping, or it could have just fallen out of my pocket somewhere . . . and if the phone wasn’t there, there was nothing to think about, was there? So I might as well have a look . . .

      As I reached down for the bag – taking care not to pull out any of the tubes and wires attached to various parts of my body – I knew in my heart that I wanted the phone to be there, and I knew that I was going to text Finch if it was.

      It was.

      And I did.

      When I opened the phone I saw that there was a message from Finch from three days ago.

      hey kez, i’m here if you want to talk, but don’t worry if you don’t. i’m here for you anyway xxx

      Even that was almost enough to break my heart.

      I waited for the tingle to leave my eyes, then wrote back.

      hi finch, how’s it going? sorry i didn’t write sooner, didn’t have my phone. are you ok? xxx

      He replied almost immediately.

      kenzie!! ha! my favourite big sis! i knew i’d hear from you this morning, I just KNEW it. i could feel it in the air

      Then me.

      how are you? everything ok?

      Finch.

      everything’s fine. but what about you? what’s going on, kez? are you all right?

      Me.

      not really

      Finch.

      is there anything i can do? do you want to talk about it?

      Me.

      not yet. maybe later. is that ok?

      Finch.

      no prob. whenever you’re ready. i’ll be here

      Me.

      thanks. i’ve got to go now. tired

      Finch.

      ok

      Me.

      love you xxx

      Reasons . . .

      I shouldn’t have sent that last message. Finch never liked it when I told him I loved him. He thought it was a bad omen, like saying a final goodbye. It made him think he was about to die.

      Reasons don’t matter.

10

      I’d kept myself covered up since the revelation – gown, long gloves, long socks – and I hadn’t looked at myself once. I hadn’t even taken a quick peek at anything in the hope that the transparency had gone and everything was back to normal again . . . I knew it wasn’t. I could feel it. And I knew that not looking at it wouldn’t make it go away, or make it any better . . . in fact, it might even make things worse.

      But I just couldn’t do it.

      I couldn’t face the hideous reality of what I’d become.

      So for two days I just lay there in bed, cocooned in white in the dim grey light of the room, letting myself drift into a mindless nowhere. But then on the morning of the third day – I had no idea what day it actually was – everything became real again. I was told I was being moved to the recovery room, and that it had been decided that Dad could visit me today. It seemed a bit sudden – I was sure it was sooner than Dr Kamara had led me to believe – and I was a bit surprised that I hadn’t been asked if it was okay with me, but I didn’t say anything. Dad was going to be here at twelve o’clock, and while he was here Dr Reynolds would be sitting down with both of us to discuss my condition in detail. And that was that.

      Goodbye, mindless nowhere.

      Hello reality.

      It wasn’t far to the recovery room. Just along a short corridor, through a secured