I nod and lift my arm slightly. It really does hurt and feels leaden, but I don’t want to prolong this any more than it needs it to be. Hopefully Hannah will have the good sense to give my arm a cursory glance, tell me that I’m fine and let me out of here. Surely she doesn’t want to be here any more than I do?
She examines it slowly, carefully, thoroughly, cleaning me down with an antiseptic swab before wrapping up my elbow in gauze, before finally saying, ‘All done. I recommend a tetanus shot and a follow-up with your doctor to x-ray for a possible fracture.’
‘Fine,’ I say and can feel Amy wince at my barbed, ungrateful response.
‘She’s just tired,’ Amy tries to explain away my rudeness to Hannah. ‘Lily’s not usually this bad-tempered! We’ll take care of her from here, don’t you worry.’
‘I’m glad she’s got such great friends,’ says Hannah, her voice stammering slightly.
Amy turns back to me. ‘I’ll just drive my car around this way, so you don’t have to walk much. I’ll be back in five, okay? I’ll try to get you a hot chocolate for the ride home and we’ll have you home and dry and all cleaned up in no time.’
I nod my thanks. I wish I could walk out with her now, but I know I don’t have the strength.
Amy leaves the ambulance and then it’s just me and Hannah. Alone. She can’t leave as I’m in her care. I can’t leave because I can hardly stand. I hope she just chooses to ignore me, busy herself with some paperwork, stay quiet and spare me any awkward pleasantries.
‘Just so you know, he did the same to me,’ she says straight away.
Oh well, so much for that. Hannah never found silence easy. That hasn’t changed then. I blink slowly and keep staring at the ceiling as if I haven’t heard her.
‘Adam. He cheated on me too. Someone from his work. We didn’t even last six months. So, I guess what goes around comes around.’
Again, I keep staring. I don’t want to revisit this; it was painful enough the first time. We were friends, but we’re not now, we’ll never be again, how could we be after what happened? What does she want from me? Sympathy? Pity? A sense of outrage on her behalf? That’s not going to happen. Because I can’t give her that. I don’t have it to give.
‘Lily, I want you to know that I’m sorry. So many times I’ve wanted to call you or show up at your house and say that I was a bitch and an idiot and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t want to go back, slap myself across the face and tell myself that my best friend is the last person in the world that deserved to be hurt this way… by me.’ She leans in to me, trying to meet my eyes, pleading, her voice now broken with tears. ‘I so wish there was a way I could make everything all right. I miss you so much. I don’t know what I was thinking. You can tell your mother she was right about everything…’
My mother? Why is she bringing mum into this?
I flinch. I want to ask her what she means, but I bite my tongue because I don’t want to talk to her, I don’t want to get into this, it’s over with. It’s done. I’ve wasted enough time on this part of my life, I can’t let it creep back in and rob me of now.
‘Lily? There you are.’ The ambulance door swings open and Christopher appears in the doorway. I’ve never been so happy and relieved to see anyone in my life.
I stretch out my arms to him and he rushes in to me, scooping me up gently under my knees and around my shoulders. I don’t resist. I just want to get out of here. I can’t get away from this place and these memories quick enough.
‘The car’s just outside. Let me carry you.’ He turns to Hannah, ‘If you’re happy to let her go?’
Hannah nods her permission as I bury my head in Christopher’s chest. All I can think about is that last Hell Raiser pledge. That I am a bad-ass. That when I fall, I get back up and, most importantly, I don’t look back.
So I let Christopher carry me out of the ambulance and I don’t look back. Like a moth to the flame, I just go. I just let him take me and I don’t resist. I can’t help but melt with the heat of him, the solid, strong warmth from his chest, the tightness of his hold on me. I let my good arm reach up to his neck and my fingers curl around his skin, in to his hair. Even in the midst of all this chaos, the pain, the cold, the shock of Hannah, I can’t help but feel my heart soar, because I am in his arms and it feels phenomenal. My stomach flips and I close my eyes, to settle myself, to calm down. I’m glad I can blame the cold for the quiver in my fingertips and the incessant swallowing I’m doing because I can hardly catch my breath.
I often wondered if I would ever get close to a man again after what happened. And I wondered what it would be like – the same? Different? Worse, due to all my hang-ups and fears? But I’ve just realised something. I haven’t forgotten what it feels like to be this close to a man I find attractive. Because I’ve never felt this way: I’ve never quivered at a mere touch, I’ve never felt this physically lit up by Adam or anyone else. This isn’t reliving a distant memory. This is all brand new. And I like it.
I settle into the front seat of Amy’s car and she starts the engine, and I’m homeward bound with Dylan, Mark, Jasmine and Christopher. My team, the people I can trust, the people who won’t leave me behind.
My team.
My friends.
Buckley’s Bucket List
No. 2 – Hell Raiser!
There’s something exhilarating about facing all your fears in one day. Of course, I was scared. Can I run the distance? Am I strong enough to get across rings and monkey bars? Am I going to have a panic attack in the underground tunnels? Am I going to be able to run up a half pipe and trust that someone will catch me (hello control issues!!)? Can I handle thrashing around in ice water? Will I get shocked? Will I hurt myself? Will I chicken out?
The old me would have let these questions get the best of me and I would have made up an excuse to get out of the race entirely. The new me took this as a challenge and used these fears to push me to do something out of my comfort zone… That’s where the magic happens, you know! Something mysterious and inexplicable that made me rethink some things I already thought I understood. Certain ideas I held true about myself and about others seemed to take on new angles, become more complex. Or maybe I’m just delirious because I’m on super-strength painkillers. I’ll keep you posted!
I could not have made it without my teammates. They were crucial to my success. They helped me over walls, through waist-deep mud, ice-cold waters and miles of treachery. Being with my work colleagues was great; it made me push myself to keep up and give it everything I had.
During this challenge, there was no time to think about fears. Only time to jump in, without hesitation, and OVERCOME. I did hurt myself, mainly because I experienced a bout of recklessness due to brain-rust and hurled myself against an obstacle without thinking straight. Luckily, it was nothing but a scratch, some swelling and a touch of melodrama on my part, and I was rewarded with a tetanus shot in my poor sore bum and the best battle scars of all six of us.
We were mud-caked, bruised, wet, cranky and mentally confused, but there were also tears of accomplishment mixed with pride. Someone has already marked it on the office calendar for next year. Give me some time to recover and, you never know, I might just do it all over again. Because all those things I thought were so scary weren’t so scary after all. I left my fears at that finish line and, I’ll tell you this, I won’t be going back to get them. The only thing I’ll be going back for is my ice-cold beer, which I managed to miss out on in my final fall from grace.
If you’d like to watch some footage of us making mucky fools of ourselves, click the link below! Thank you so much for your comments and support. We appreciate every single one of you, and remember, we’re in this together! Till next week, Lily xx
Fourteen
Here we are, another week down at the new and improved Newbridge Gazette. The Hell Raiser article went to print this morning and it’s already causing quite a storm. The accompanying video footage has been received really well
and turned out to be a brilliant way to engage even more readers near and far. According to Dylan, my headlong Half Pipe is a real hit. I can’t bring myself to watch it. It’s bad enough to review it in memory. But the feel-good Friday excitement is certainly catching and that’s my main focus for today.
Even Jennings is smiling as he claps Christopher on the shoulder. ‘Eighteen and a half per cent in two weeks. You’re nearly there! We’ve got to hand it to you, guys. We didn’t really believe you’d be able to make it, but it’s happening. You guys are making it happen!
‘Your digital vision is thriving, we have new income streams opening every day – businesses, corporate and independent – keen to advertise long-term with us and a visible boost to our profile in national media rankings, which has never happened before.’
Tapping her pen on the desk, McArthur clears her throat. ‘Christopher. You have a very bright future with us, young man, once the Gazette is back on solid ground, we can talk. And I have a feeling you’re going to like what we have to say.’
Christopher nods along graciously and then winks at me.
McArthur picks up his cue and turns my way. ‘And you, Lily Buckley, Editor in Chief. You’ve managed to pull this office back from the brink of extinction. And with a very lean team. I’m really impressed. But that’s enough basking in glory for now, there’s still work to be done. Not only do we need to make that twenty-two per cent target as agreed with our shareholders, we need to show them that our growth is sustainable. No plateau, no dips. So, this next column has got to be good. In fact, it’s got to be the best yet.’ She nods to Jennings.
‘Don’t worry; we’ve done the brain work for you this time. We’ve already got your next activity all planned out,’ adds Jennings with a grin.
This is worrying. I have a hunch that Jennings and I will differ greatly on what constitutes a fun, entertaining or ethical way to spend my time.
‘You’ve done that already? Planned the next activity without us?’ I ask. I want to tell him that we don’t need to have the brain work done for us. We like the brain work.
McArthur passes me a thick file across the table. ‘The Shankley Hotel. It’s good for the community, showcases the history of the area, capitalises on sites of local interest.’
Before it even registers with me what she wants me to do or what’s involved, I hear Christopher cough into his hand. ‘You are kidding…’ he says, head shaking. ‘That’s never been on the list, Mags, I would never suggest that, it’s too much. I said right from the beginning that I wouldn’t ask Lily to do anything that I wasn’t prepared to do myself.’
‘That’s exactly the response we want from our readers. It’s dramatic; a radical step for the Gazette, show them how we’re breaking new ground,’ McArthur says with two raised eyebrows. ‘That’s what we’re here for and that’s why this is perfect. To quote you back to yourself Christopher, “before you make up your mind, you should open it”.’ She turns back to me. ‘You’re familiar with The Shankley, right?’
I nod, opening the bulging file of brochures, newspaper clippings and printouts of reviews and testimonies. I start flicking through, scanning each page quickly and buying time to gather my thoughts. When I arrived in Newbridge as a ten-year-old, one of the first things that Hannah and the other local school kids did was pull me into a corner at break time and ask if I’d ever heard of The Shankley Hotel.
Not knowing what they meant at first, I shook my head and they gleefully lowered their voices, checked over their shoulders and proceeded with the story. This was a Newbridge initiation. A test. If you winced or cried or shook or ran scared once you heard the history of the haunted hotel on the hill, that was it, you were deemed weak and cowardly, delegated to a lesser social group forever more, never picked for sports teams or sleepovers, proms or parties.
But I was lucky on this. Mainly, because I could never resist a good story. As an only child to a work-around-the-clock single mother, I spent most of my childhood entertaining myself quietly and that’s why reading and writing became so important to me. It could be done anywhere at any time, soundlessly and secretly, and it always held an adventure. I’ve spent the most wonderful times with dragons and witches and monsters and warriors and wizards, zombies and goddesses, fairies and werewolves, murderous ghouls, creepy clowns and chainsaw-wielding freaks. I’ve been to bed with them all.
So, the undead of any variety isn’t something that scares me one bit. In fact, I’m really excited. My granny and I used to walk the grounds sometimes when I was a teenager. But we could never get inside. The house itself was locked up for years and then only opened on request for special paying guests. And the prices back then were extortionate. Way beyond our budget although she often said she’d treat us sometime. Sadly that time never came. I never imagined I’d be one of those guests one day. My granny would be so excited. She’d be the first to read this article, even if I wasn’t the one writing it.
‘Fantastic idea!’ I tell McArthur. ‘I can’t wait. In fact, if I had been able to think up my own bucket list, this would be top of it. Thank you. This is the first one I actually want to do.’
Jennings shifts in his seat and begins to do a stiff shimmy while he sings the Ghostbusters theme tune. This idea has certainly piqued his interest and put him in a good mood.
McArthur joins him. ‘Excellent, Lily! I knew you’d love it!’
Christopher turns to me in utter confusion. ‘Are you serious? You’re going to say yes to this?’
Smiling, I show him the photo on the front of the file. ‘Of course! This is the stuff of legend! They only open to the public for a few weeks each year and that’s if you even get on the waiting list.’ I find a price list and tap my finger underneath. ‘Look here, it costs an absolute fortune for the tour, far more than I could afford myself, so I’m definitely up for this. It’ll be fun.’
Jennings clicks his fingers, two clicks then a pause. McArthur gives him a playful nudge. ‘Addams Family?’ He winks back at her.
Christopher is shaking his head, slowly turning the file pages in disbelief. ‘Fun? This is not my definition of fun. And I don’t think it will work. I think the majority of readers will turn off to this and feel as I do, uncomfortable…’
I turn to him and see discomfort in his face, a concern that I’ve never seen before. He’s been working so hard, we all have, and maybe, he’s finally reached his limit? The burnout point of anxiety and overreaction that comes with exhaustion? Or maybe he genuinely thinks we’re going down the wrong route and that this is not the right choice of focus for our feature and we could damage the great following we’ve worked so hard to build up?
It’s so confusing! I trust Christopher’s judgement completely; he’s kept his word on everything so far. But I really want to do this and McArthur and Jennings are the real experts, with decades of experience behind them.
‘Nonsense,’ McArthur says. ‘This is the perfect feature. The Shankley Hotel is what put Newbridge on the map. Folk around here have heard the stories surrounding this old building all their lives. We’ve run it by the marketing department and they agree; it’s a great hook, so we’re going with it, that’s decided.’
‘But what if something… happens?’ asks Christopher.
‘Let’s hope it does! The worst thing that can happen is that nothing happens, then there’ll be nothing to write about.’
‘Correction.’ Jennings holds up his finger. ‘If nothing happens, then you can dispel the myth of The Shankley Hotel. That’s an interesting angle, putting the ghost to bed. Either way, it opens up the discussion? Is it haunted or is it not?’
‘Oh, it’s haunted all right,’ says Christopher. ‘My friends told me stories about that place all my school life. It’s infamous up and down the country but I never realised until now that it was so close to here.’ He pulls his chair towards mine and lowers his voice. ‘Lily, believe me, once you research this property and get the full story, you’ll feel differently. You won’t be so ea
ger to even pass the gate, never mind step inside it.’
‘You’re booked to stay overnight,’ McArthur says, without looking up.
‘Overnight? For fuck’s sake.’ Christopher pulls at his collar. ‘Seriously, I have a really bad feeling on this. People have lived and died there. And it’s ancient and dark and it’ll be crumbling and rat-infested and completely unsafe. And that’s during the day. Only morbid weirdos would stay in a place like that. Have you thought about the spiders?’
‘Spiders don’t bother me,’ I tell him truthfully. They’re small and silent and utterly harmless, what’s there to be scared of?
‘Oh really? And you’re completely cool with evil spirits and eerie noises and slamming doors? You’re just going to turn in for the night and sleep through it all? Have some sweet dreams and wake up fresh as a daisy? What if you feel something, Lily? Like an icy finger on your skin or heavy breathing in your ear.’ He shivers at the thought and swats at his own neck.
I’ve never seen Christopher frightened. This is a complete role reversal. Every task so far it’s been me who has to be talked round and then talked down. Never would I expect someone as smart and sophisticated and rational as Christopher to be spooked out by something like this. It’s just a heady mix of myth and superstition. It’s not real – everyone knows this, right?
‘Ghosts don’t exist, Christopher. This is just a gimmick. It’s just fun. Like a gothic adventure to make you jump and set the scene for telling ghost stories.’ I’m sure I can get him on board, make him see the fun side. ‘It’s going to be amazing. Candles lit, great old building, all those decadent antique rooms. I bet the staff have some stories to tell. Imagine if it’s a full moon. It will feel as if you’re a character in a real story, in one of those incredible literary houses like Wuthering Heights or Ravenclaw House or Northanger Abbey…’
For Once In My Life: An absolutely perfect laugh-out-loud romantic comedy Page 15