As it was I had plenty of time to ponder on the morning’s happenings. I waited in the hospital car park for 6 hours. Not being allowed in with Bree, because of Covid restrictions. I caught up with emails, read all of my Twitter feed, took a picture of the new Nightingale Hub being built, rang a few people and studied Google maps. It appeared the map was fully updated with the new junction. There were three options, take the new road to the hospital or rejoin the motorway in either direction. Now I had even more questions. Why was the new junction so wide? Why did it span the width of the motorway and more besides, but only have one road off? I’d never seen it from above before, never been able to count the exits as I was now. As darkness fell so the mist returned. The drive home would not be an easy one.

I thought of texting Jed. I wanted to text him, but we’d only just got back together after a five month split. Maybe split is too dramatic a word really. We just drifted apart. We were never serious, living an hour away from each other and both having work and family commitments, what had started out as being a bit of fun the previous year, had turned against us. I, being self employed and working from home, was generally free to text whenever. He worked unpredictable shifts,  and I had unfortunately developed an unwanted knack of texting at the wrong time. He started ghosting, or saying he wasn’t in the mood. It was June before I realised he hadn’t initiated a text all year. I was sad, but resigned to the fact he’d probably got with someone else and didn’t want the hassle of explaining who I was. To be honest I didn’t really know who I was to him. We’d known each other for years, but I knew nothing about him really. I knew everything I shouldn’t and nothing that would be useful in a conversation. There are only so many times you can compliment a guy on the size of his dick and no, that wasn’t why I liked him. I thought he was a genuinely good guy. That was until he started acting like a complete arse last year, then I dropped him like a hot potato. I sent him a card and letter for his birthday, which he thanked me for and we chatted a bit, which was a shame really, as that set the ball in motion again. In the most inappropriate way possible. If I thought I’d humiliated myself enough previously with him, I soon realised there is nothing like a bottle or three of prosecco to get the drunk, after midnight texts flowing and the humiliation to reach unedifying heights! Luckily he didn’t reply and I made a really big promise to myself to behave, which lasted all of four days! He texted to talk about the letter I’d written with some family history snippets I’d been told. It was late at night when I found the text and despite me taking time to give a very detailed reply to his question, he didn’t reply. That was the middle of October, I heard nothing from him until 4 days after Christmas. Despite my promise to forget him I did send a Christmas card, but I didn’t enclose a letter, I wrote a few, but to be honest I was still hurting. It was clear if I didn’t contact Jed, he wasn’t going to contact me. Which was fair enough. We had no commitment to each other, he hadn’t been unkind in any way. This was my problem to deal with. The Christmas text hurt more than his silence did, as he ghosted when I replied.

We really had lost everything. I guessed he was drunk when he’d texted and when sober regretted it. If I’m honest I missed him. I hurt, not in the way you hurt after a break up though, more in the way of when you lose something really precious. Something you’ve had all your life, but then, because of your own stupidity it’s gone. My melancholy reminiscing was interrupted abruptly by the phone ringing, Bree was completely disoriented in the vast car park, I hadn’t helped matters, as I’d moved the car to get a better position to people watch. I flashed the headlights a few times and we were soon reunited. She too had spent the day waiting and people watching……

We munched chocolate whilst choosing a playlist, tentatively I’d asked which way I should go home, Bree had no hesitation with giving her reply. She wanted to see if the old junction really did exist as much as I did. Working backwards we knew we had to turn sharp left off the approach road. As it was, we needn’t have worried, because as soon as we turned out if the hospital grounds we were dazzled by what appeared to be rows and rows of lights rising out of the mist. Like runway lights, only these were higher, like street lights, visible above the hedges. They formed a huge grid, each light shrouded in a halo of mist, joined to its neighbour by a beam of light. Driving towards them was impossible, so I turned off as soon as I could. At once we recognised the road. Deserted, as it had been that morning, the lights were still visible over to the right and the road was still curiously busy with barriers, and weird markings, the most confusing being a solid white stop sign painted across the road, but nothing to stop for…..no side roads, train tracks nothing. I hesitated but seeing no other traffic continued driving. To be honest, I was beginning to feel very uneasy, the rows of lights to my right seemed to go on forever, I’d driven a fair way along the road, but still, the lights were parallel to me. What on earth could require that much light and why was this road still so dark? Bree was quiet, too quiet, I had no time to wonder why though as suddenly I was back to the new junction. Following the signs I cut across the oncoming traffic, thank goodness there wasn’t any, took a sharp left, I was on the motorway slip heading home. It was as if that was the switch, suddenly Bree was animated again, questioning, as I was in my head, what had just happened.