Nurse Marion’s jaw clenches. “Sepsis contracted in a children’s hospital is worse than any you can get outside, Sam. There are too many germs here, too many resistant fungi and bacteria. You see, Dr. Saul has to decide within the next half an hour which treatment to give and which antibiotics to use to combat the pathogens without completely paralyzing Maddie’s immune system.”

Half an hour? What if he makes the wrong decision? Oh please, please don’t!

We learned in biology that antibiotics always kill off a whole load of healthy cells.

“But he’s good at it, Sam. He really is.”

“Is she going to die?”

“Only the next six hours will tell. And tonight.”

Only six hours and a night. I should have been home long ago by then. In six hours’ time my mother will have had her shower and be drinking her glass of sparkling wine. I can’t leave now!

More to herself than to me, Nurse Marion says, “I always feared that one day it would come to this, and Maddie would make a decision.”

“What decision?” I ask.

“Which path to take, Sam. Whether to leave or to come back.”

No, that’s not right! I want to say. She’s escaped from the place where she has been for weeks now, alone, surrounded by an impenetrable layer. She is now on the way to herself, only she isn’t taking the direct route but searching for something else first instead.

But that might not be correct either. Maybe I simply wish to believe that Maddie’s disappearance is the beginning of a trajectory that will bring her to me, because I want to see the change in her eyes when she gets her first proper look at me. I’m scared that she won’t like me as much as I like her, but I’m even more terrified that she’ll never open her eyes again. I can’t go home now.

OUTSIDE IT’S GETTING dark. My mobile buzzes, but I ignore it. Scott sends me some WhatsApp messages. I send one back, asking him to lie that I’m staying at his house.

My mobile buzzes again, and again I ignore it. My mother leaves me a voicemail message to say that she hopes Scott and I have a good time at the cinema.

If Maddie goes, I’m going too. No one knows where I am. No one knows where Maddie is. She seems to be getting ready to swap sides.

Henri

The sinking has stopped. So have the flowing and roaring, the voices and colors.

Never turn your back on the sea: the first and most important rule.