Hunger in my Heart

Chapter 7

Kimberley watched as Sarah and Nicola marched into the waiting room. Uh oh, she thought, they both looked pissed. She supposed if she wasn't quite so emotionally and physically exhausted she would go find out what was wrong. Looking up she noticed they had spotted her slumped into the corner of the most comfortable couch in the waiting room, which wasn't that comfortable at all, and had changed course heading straight for her.

Sarah strode up to her and flung the glossy tabloid onto the coffee table where she was currently resting her feet.

"What do you suppose that fucker was thinking?" Sarah spat out, while indicating the picture and headline on the front cover which proclaimed in large type. "Cheryl Cole Near Death!" accompanied by a less than flattering file photo of Cheryl from last year and a brand new picture of Derek outside this very hospital talking on his cell phone.

Kimberley sighed and sat up, grabbing the magazine, she quickly scanned the story noting that a 'source' had revealed that Cheryl was "on death's door" and a 'close friend' said her family and her boyfriend Derek were keeping a bedside vigil, while her band mates had been banned from seeing her. Even though Kimberley was used to pure shite being printed about all of them on an almost daily basis, this infuriated her. It had been decided that no one would reveal to the press the extent of Cheryl's illness. But obviously someone had.

Nicola flung herself onto the couch beside Kimberley and grabbed the magazine quickly reading through the contents, having only seen the headline when Sarah flashed it in front of her face. With a disgusted snort, she looked between Kimberley and Sarah who coincidentally were both scanning the waiting room looking for the object of their ire. Quickly coming to the same conclusion as her band mates she also started to look around for Derek, Cheryl's dancer friend.

"Where is that bugger anyway?" Nicola asked with disdain when she couldn't spot Derek skulking around in the waiting room like he had for the past two days. So far, Cheryl's American friend had not created a great impression amongst the band's inner circle. He continually used the hospital main entrances getting papped numerous times and fueling speculation in the tabloids, and his relatives had made comments to the press about Cheryl in spite of Sundraj and Hilary asking him to get a grip on things.

To them, Cheryl's family and friends, her illness was a traumatic event that they didn't want played out in the media. No one else had been photographed coming or going from the hospital, so it could be done, everyone else used the parking garage. Derek seemed to be using the circumstances and his tenuous connection with Cheryl in order to raise his own profile, Kimberley thought with disgust. Sarah was a little blunter and had been referring to him as 'the famewhore' for the last two days. This latest infraction wasn't unexpected, but now it seemed he had somehow revealed how serious Cheryl's condition actually was, something they had been trying to keep under wraps. Kimberley couldn't stand the guy and whenever she had spoken to him, she just could not comprehend that Cheryl would be friends with him.

It made no sense whatsoever, Cheryl usually had a pretty good instinct for people, although Kimberley noted with a grimace, she did marry Ashley. God, she hoped with everything she had that Cheryl wasn't blinded by love again. Kimberley had barely managed to keep her façade intact around Ashley, who she initially thought was a bit dim but harmless, however she had eventually come to loath him after he hurt Cheryl. But this guy was clearly a leech; he was merely using Cheryl as a trophy, a stepping stone to greater fame. Kimberley shook her head; Cheryl was normally extremely selective about letting people into her inner circle. She really hoped that Cheryl wasn't demonstrating her less than stellar taste in men again, she didn't think so, but nothing about this made sense. Kimberley's brain refused to acknowledge that there was even a possibility that Cheryl had a romantic connection with the dancer, because she knew that she couldn't even pretend to like this guy.