The Love of My Afterlife(68)

“Mr. Yoon!” I cry. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Are you a family member?” the paramedic asks, barely making eye contact.

“I, no. I’m his neighbour. His friend.” I step up to get into the ambulance, but the paramedic stops me.

“Only family members can travel in the ambulance. We’ll be at UCL, okay?”

Mr. Yoon lifts his hand and reaches towards me.

“I’ll be there soon!” I call over to him as another paramedic presses wired stickers over his chest. Mr. Yoon’s face is wet. I think he’s crying. No!

“Cooper!” I spin around. Cooper is looking into the ambulance, his face pale. “Come on,” he says. “Get back in the car.”



* * *





At the hospital we dash to the reception desk and ask for information on Mr. Yoon, who came by ambulance. The woman taps out onto her computer and asks for his first name.

“I don’t know,” I say. “How do I not know?” I turn to Cooper. “Do you know his full name?”

He shakes his head. “He’s just always been Mr. Yoon, for as long as I’ve known him.”

“Y-O-O-N.” I spell out to the receptionist. “He was born in Korea and now lives in Bayswater, if that helps?”

“Yoon. Got him,” the receptionist says. “Someone will be out to update you soon.”

“Oh god.” I turn to Cooper. “I can’t bear this.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he says, giving the receptionist my name, then taking my arm and leading me to the waiting area, where we find two free seats beside a lad with a bleeding forehead and a woman with a horribly quiet toddler.

We sit there in silence until a tall woman in green scrubs with a stethoscope round her neck calls my name. Cooper grabs my hand as we walk through, but it doesn’t feel right, so I let go. The woman pulls us into a side bay.

“You’re Mr. Yoon’s neighbour, yes?”

“Yes,” I say, the anticipation of her words making my voice shake.

“I’m Dr. Chizimu. We’re running tests because it seemed that Mr. Yoon was having a cardiac event.”

“Oh god. Oh no. Can I see him?”

The woman holds her hands up. “But it appears that he has had a very painful gastritis episode, which then set off a rather extreme panic attack.”

A panic attack? And he was all alone. My god. “Please let me see him.”

“We usually only allow family members to see patients.”

“She is his family,” Cooper interrupts. “She sees him every morning, makes him breakfast, checks he’s got everything he needs.”

I nod. I do that. “Please let me see him.”

The doctor nods her assent. “Okay. But no excitement. He needs calm. So just you.” She points at me.

“I’ll wait out here,” Cooper says, thumbing back to the Accident and Emergency reception.

I follow the doctor to a private, glass-walled room, and there, half sitting, half lying and covered in wires, is Mr. Yoon. He looks tired, but other than that, pretty much like he always does.

“Mr. Yoon!” I cry, before lowering my voice so that it sounds less frantic and more calm. I take a seat by his bed and grab his thumb, because the rest of his hand is taken up with a cannula. Mr. Yoon smiles at me and rolls his eyes as if to apologise.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there last night. I got stuck in Duckett’s Edge with Cooper and—”

Mr. Yoon chuckles silently, his shoulders jiggling.

“You’re chuckling right now?” I goggle. “Okay. That’s a very good sign actually. Good. Chuckle away. But calmly. The doctor said you need to stay calm. Stop jiggling your shoulders like that.”

Mr. Yoon lifts up his other hand and clenches his fist—the sign he used to make when he was looking for a fresh pencil before I bought him a box of a hundred.

“You want to write something?” I ask. “Now?”

He nods. I go out to the nurses’ bay and ask for a pen and paper. I expect the nurse to grumble because she’s busy doing other important things, but she smiles at me, leans over one of the desks, and hands me a biro and a fresh ring-bound notebook as if people ask for pens and paper all the time.

I take the writing instruments back to Mr. Yoon, who tries to pull himself up in the bed. I help him and rearrange the pillows so that he has more support around his creaky back. He blinks slowly, and it occurs to me that he’s probably been given sedatives.

He grabs the pen and starts to scrawl over the page, the letters neat and even but shaky.

    YOU LOOK ALIVE.



I feel myself go red in the cheeks. I probably look like I’ve had a lot of sex in a short space of time.

“I’ll take that as a compliment?” I say. “Hadn’t realised I was looking not alive but…thanks.”

Mr. Yoon smiles and writes on the page again.

    IT’S NICE TO SEE YOU LOOKING HAPPY.



My chest aches at the notion that any happiness I might be feeling is temporary. Jonah will never kiss me of his own free will and Merritt has all but disappeared. My fate is set.

Mr. Yoon soon falls into a soft sleep, his monitors beating steadily. I swallow hard, sorrow submerging me as I think about the fact that Mr. Yoon has no family. No friends. Just me. And when I’m gone, who will be there for him besides Cooper? Who will have been a witness to his life, so that he is truly remembered after he’s gone?