And so I sit there cuddling Tabs and allowing myself to do what I’ve promised Brendan—to enjoy it, to soak it up, to marvel that we’ve come so far only six days post-op, and to also face some very confronting facts: namely, that I’m enjoying having him around far too much.

It’s as though that last week at work was a horrible nightmare, and this week in the hospital has been a weirdly lovely bubble. It should have been brutal, but it hasn’t been. It’s helping that I’m sleeping in five-star hotel bedding and eating delicious meals and enjoying enough poolside downtime to make parts of it feel like an actual holiday, but I’d be lying to myself if I said it was just that.

Because it’s not.

It’s having Brendan around. It’s him making everything seem fun and easy and achievable rather than terrifying and difficult and exhausting. It’s having another adult to lean on, to pick up the slack, to provide me with physical and emotional support.

And all of that is confusing and unwelcome and scary, because Brendan doesn’t actually have a place in my life aside from professionally, and even that is a bit of a shit show. So when he spoils me, when he dazzles Tabs with these crazy, grandiose schemes and, worst of all, when he’s just there, being funny and steadfast in all the quiet, normal moments, I can’t for the life of me shake that feeling that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Because the absolute worst thing about this week is that we’ve felt like a team, and that is very, very dangerous. A teammate, a partner, is something I’ve never had the luxury of. I’m the parent sitting white-faced and alone in A&E at 3 am, and I’d do well not to get used to anything else.

Brendan stays all afternoon, eats dinner with us in our room, and then pulls me out into the main corridor while a happy, exhausted Tabs is having some downtime on her iPad. I collapse onto a hard plastic bench, and he produces two bottles of water.

‘Date night. Cheers.’

I smile tiredly and clink his bottle against mine.

‘Are you cross with me?’ he asks, looking adorably boyish and annoyingly hot.

‘About Disney-gate, or in general?’

‘Disney-gate, for now.’ He cracks open his water and takes a long swig of it, and I marvel like a filthy pervert at the manly way his throat muscles contract as he swallows.

I tear my gaze away before he can see me. ‘No. I’m not angry at all. I’m grateful, and I’m so thrilled for her to have had such a lovely treat. I’d hate you to think otherwise. But⁠—’