Page 136 of Tabloid Princess

“She’s alive?” I slumped down. Oliver’s arm came around me tight. “I thought she was dead. I thought that’s why you bought us in here.”

Right then I wanted to fall to the floor and give thanks. I think my legs were almost there. I’d be on the floor if it weren’t for Oliver.

The doctor smiled. His face though still bore a solemn mask. “Her heart took a lot of strain. They tried to stabilise her in the ambulance, but her airways were too blocked. They tried to nebulise her, but she didn’t respond. When they admitted her, she went into cardiac arrest.”

His words didn’t make any sense.

“We managed to intubate her, and her airways have responded to the steroids and her breathing is almost even, but really it’s a waiting game to see how she manages to ventilate herself as we wake her up.”

I blinked up at Oliver. Did he understand what the doctor said? I didn’t.

“So her lungs are okay?”

“Miss Lawrence. Daisy suffered a heart attack due to the restriction of her airways and the strain her ventilation system suffered.”

She couldn’t have. Old men had heart attacks, not my blonde and beautiful girl with her wide eyes and curls.

“Can I see her?”

“Of course.” His gaze flickered between me and Oliver. I clutched onto the fingers holding mine. He was here now. I didn’t know how to deal with this without him—I knew it. I might in no way have been able to process the fact, but I knew it all the same.

The doctor gestured for us to follow him while Miss Evans hung back. A door opened into a small room and there on the bed lay my angel, with tubes in her mouth and up her nose.

“Oh God.” Oliver almost held my weight as I stumbled for the bed. “Sweetie. Oh God, Ollie. Look at her.” My hand automatically reached for him, as natural as it were to breathe through the moment. My tears splashed everywhere. I couldn’t hold them in. They rolled like the first swell of droplets in a torrential downpour, heavy and plump, splattering on every surface they met.

“How long will she be sedated?” Oliver asked. He stepped up and brushed a strand of Daisy’s hair away from where it tangled in the rubber band of her breathing mask. His touch screamed of familiarity and care. It stabbed me in my stomach. It seemed unfair that the perfect man to bring into her life wasn’t ours to keep—he belonged to everybody, not just us.

“Uh.” The doctor struggled to get his words to form. “We will give her body some more time to heal and recover, then we will gradually start waking her up.”

“And what will you be watching for; what’s the key to this situation?” Oliver had all the useful questions. I could only hold her hand, my heart squeezing in my chest. How much pain must she have been in? How scared? The pain I’ve been living with, that scorching hole in my chest couldn’t have been anything to the way she felt.

She had a heart attack? Another bout of tears flowed fresh and fast.

“We will be checking to make sure her heart is pumping effectively on its own. We can see now she’s sedated that it has taken control again, but it’s when we remove the ventilation that will be key. The heart has to pump the oxygen around the body; the lungs have to provide the oxygen to pump. Imagine two computers if you will. There’s the main server, the heart, but if the server doesn’t get the information it needs, then it can’t update.”

The doctor turned to me. “I’m going to need some family history. Do you have a history of heart problems in the family?”

I stared between Oliver and Daisy, my thumb brushing the back of her hand. Oliver nodded and reached a hand for my shoulder. “It’s okay, Leia.”

I forced the dark words out of my heart. “My mother died of a pulmonary oedema after a heroin overdose.”

I cringed under the Oliver’s intense gaze.

The doctor nodded, schooling his expression. “Do you know if she had asthma too? Lung problems are common with heroin users, but I’d be interested to know if she had underlying issues.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about her.” My eyes flew wide open. “Nana! Oh my god, she doesn’t know. She’ll be going to school later to pick Daisy up.”

Oliver held out his hand. “Give me your phone and I’ll take care of it all.”

I slid it out of my back pocket and his fingers grazed mine as he took it. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got some calls to make.”

“Calls?” It scared me. I didn’t want him to leave.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t worry. Are you going to be okay?” He hesitated, but I nodded.

I lied, but I knew I’d have to lie again if Daisy and I were to survive this; if we were to go on and live our lives as we should.

I locked the thought away and concentrated on Daisy’s little face, pulling her hand into mine and holding it as tight as I could around the drips taped to her pale skin.