by Chris Taylor
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Tom.” Her voice cracked and the tears she’d tried so hard to hold at bay slid silently down her cheeks.
He cursed again and when he lifted his gaze to hers, she gasped at the hurt and desolation that shadowed his eyes.
“There’s nothing you can say, Lily. I… I’m sorry. I can’t deal with this right now. I need to get away. I need time to think. I…”
With his lips compressed into a tight thin line, he stopped talking and closed his eyes. A moment later, he opened them and her heart skipped a beat. He stared at her with a look so cold, the chill of it sent shivers coursing through her body. Desperate and defeated, she wondered if she’d ever see him look upon her with love again.
Oh, God, what had she done? She’d lost the only man she’d ever loved. With a fist pressed against her mouth, she tried to keep the pain of it inside.
“I need to go,” Tom muttered and turned on his heel.
Lily watched him disappear. With a shuddering breath, she leaned against the side of the building and let the deluge of hot tears fall.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chatswood, Sydney—present day
Cassie twisted a length of dirty blond hair around her finger and swallowed a sigh. It wasn’t that long ago when she washed her hair every other day and now she couldn’t remember the last time she’d attended to it. Her usual glossy locks hung dull and lank around her face, but she couldn’t find the energy or enthusiasm to do anything about it.
Her mom was in hospital, struggling to overcome the damage caused by a bullet wound. Her dad was in surgery. They were operating on him right now to remove a cancerous lump. He hadn’t given her the details, but she’d overheard him talking to her grandparents. It angered her that he didn’t think she was old enough to deal with such news. She was seventeen. She wasn’t a baby. She had a right to know that any moment in her godforsaken life, one or both of her parents could die.
It was a hell of a thing for anyone to face and she wasn’t dealing with it well, although if she were honest, she’d concede the downward spiral had started months before. Every time she closed her eyes and even during some waking hours, she relived with increased ferocity that time she was snatched in broad daylight from the netball courts and taken to a secluded cabin in the woods.
Sometimes, it was a noise, a spoken word, or even a smell that could trigger the flashbacks and she’d relive in crystal-clear detail the horror she felt as the man used a knife to cut open her shirt. The nightmares were escalating beyond her control and she didn’t know what to do about them. And now, both of her parents were clinging to life in the hospital. Her life had gone to hell.
Reaching underneath her bed, her fingers closed around the neck of the rum bottle and she sighed aloud with relief. At least she had something stable in her life. The diminished capacity she got from swilling alcohol was more than worth the thumping headache she’d suffer.
It didn’t matter, anyway. No one expected her to go to school while her parents were both so seriously ill. She’d tell her grandmother she didn’t feel like going, which was the truth. Grandma didn’t have to know it had nothing to do with her mom and dad and everything to do with the bottle of rum she’d all but consumed.
And now she had a little something extra to lift her from the doldrums. Richard Wales, one of the boys in the twelfth grade, had sidled up to her a week ago, before her mom had been shot, and offered her some pills. She’d been a little surprised at his bravery—everyone knew her dad was a cop—but it hadn’t seemed to matter to Richard.
At twenty dollars a pop, they were on the expensive side, but he assured her the buzz she’d feel would be far superior to chilling out on alcohol and she wouldn’t have to deal with the headache afterwards.
She’d been tempted—Richard was kind of cute and one of the more popular boys in school—but in the end, she’d smiled politely and thanked him and had declined his offer. Then, yesterday, after sleeping off another hangover, she’d remembered what he’d said. A call to a friend, who called a friend and Richard had turned up at her door. He’d told her grandma he was a friend of Cassie’s and was there to see if she was all right. He also wanted to give her some study notes from school.
Grandma had fallen for the ruse and the charming smile Richard flashed her way. Cassie had taken him upstairs and within minutes, they’d conducted the mutually satisfying transaction in the privacy of her bedroom. Now, she sat up and tugged open the drawer of her nightstand.
The five little white tablets lay in a small plastic bag, tucked under her English novel. It was lucky she’d stashed her birthday money in her wallet, rather than putting it in the bank, or she’d have never been able to afford so many. Now, she reached out and grabbed the bag and opened it and pulled out one of the pills. She’d already had most of what was left in the rum bottle, but the alcohol seemed to be taking longer to kick in. A little bit of speed was probably just what she needed.
Opening her mouth, she set the pill on her tongue and swallowed it down with a mouthful of rum. With one final gulp, she screwed the lid back on the bottle and tossed it beneath her bed. With a sigh, she lay down on her pillow, closed her eyes and waited for the ecstasy to do its magic.
* * *
Royal North Shore Hospital
Tom heard a murmur of voices and then someone called out his name. The tone was gentle, but insistent. He was zoning out, still mostly asleep and did his best to ignore it, but the voice came again, disturbing a state of comfort he hadn’t felt for days.
“Tom, can you hear me? It’s Tessa. I’m one of the nurses. You’re in recovery, Tom.”
It was a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t Lily. He’d know her voice anywhere. All of a sudden, his memory resurfaced and he frowned. Lily had been shot. Lily was in hospital, Lily still hadn’t woken up.
His chest tightened on a surge of fear and his heart picked up its pace. The nurse—Tessa, he thought she’d said—must have been hovering because her voice had a little more urgency when she called out to him again.
“Tom, open your eyes. The operation’s over. Everything went well.”
Someone shook him and then Tessa spoke once again.
“Open your eyes, Tom. Let me see that you’re okay.”
Tom gritted his teeth against the intrusion. He didn’t want to open his eyes. If he opened his eyes, he’d have to acknowledge the truth—that Lily might never be all right. It had been four days and still she lay unconscious. Nobody could tell him how much longer it might be. The not knowing was driving him mad.
“Tom!”
“Okay, okay,” he muttered and cracked his eyes open. “I heard you the first time.”
A black woman with a short cap of thick curly hair stood over him, shaking her head. An exasperated smile tugged at her lips. Tom stared at the whiteness of her teeth, stark against the dark purple of her lips.
“You gave me a little fright,” the nurse confessed, shaking her head. “Everything went well with the operation. Doctor Slee will speak to you later this evening. She has a full theater list today and we’re only halfway through. Your family’s probably wondering where you are. You’ve been down here a little longer than we expected.”
“How come?”
The nurse shrugged. “You took awhile to come out of the anaesthetic. Sometimes it happens. Everyone’s different. But now you’re awake and talking, I can call the ward. They’ll send a nurse down and a porter who will transport you back to your room.”
Tom digested the information in silence. He’d never been under an anaesthetic before, so he had nothing to compare it to, but it didn’t matter. He was awake now and that was good. The surgery was over and it all went well. It was a comforting thought. Now, he could turn his attention and energies toward Lily. She was going to make it. She was. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
* * *
Roseville, Sydney
Brady lay back in his bed and pulled the pillow over his head. Stil
l, the noise of his parents arguing downstairs filtered through. He clenched his jaw and held the pillow tighter. He hated it when they fought. It reminded him of the time his dad had hit Brady’s mom. It had only happened once. But it was enough.
His mom had come through the doorway of his bedroom holding her face, tears gathering in her eyes. She’d snatched him out of bed. She thought he’d been asleep, she thought he hadn’t heard. The truth was, he’d heard everything.
Right now, they were arguing over the fact his dad had given him the gun and had left him with the box of ammunition. His mom was shouting at his dad that this whole mess was his dad’s fault, even the police felt so. His lack of judgement giving Brady the gun had led to this senseless shooting and now their son was facing possible jail time and a lifetime of regret and misery. Brady would never have shot his teacher if it hadn’t been for his dad.
His dad was having none of it, refusing to accept Brady’s actions had anything to do with the gun. The boy was defending himself against classroom bullies. It was understandable, given the hell they’d put him through. Yes, his dad knew all about Ian Little and his cohorts. Brady had told him. His dad then turned the tables and accused his mom of being an unfit mother for not protecting their son.
“The boy wouldn’t have had a reason to defend himself if you’d paid a little more attention to what he was going through. He told me he’d tried to talk to you about it, but you brushed away his concerns, like they didn’t matter. You could have used your influence as deputy principal to move him to another class, spare the boy some of the heartache he’s had to deal with over the years. You gave him no choice but to retaliate in a way that he thought would work.”
Brady’s mother protested and tried to argue back, but his dad was having none of it. Brady pressed the pillow tighter against his face until it was a struggle to breathe. His lungs burned and lights flashed behind his eyes. Blood thumped in his ears, blocking out the sound of his parents.
And then he shoved the pillow away and gasped desperately for breath. What the hell was he doing? If he wasn’t careful, he’d suffocate. Is that what he wanted? Did he want to die?
The thought took root in his mind. It was so awful that at first he pushed it far away, but in the dark, amidst the shouted arguments and accusations of his parents, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
If he wasn’t around, they’d have nothing to fight about. Life could go back to normal. His mom could return to school and the career she loved. His dad could get back to his new family. It would be a perfect solution for everyone—even him. His days of torment and torture at the hand of Ian Little and others of his kind would be over. He’d float away on a cloud. They wouldn’t get him from there, no matter how hard they tried.
He sat up and pushed the bedclothes out of the way and then climbed out of bed. He padded across to his closet. The sunlight that shone brightly through his window seemed incongruous with his dark thoughts, but it didn’t deter him. The huge fig trees lining the street below whispered gently in the breeze, the same breeze that now ruffled his hair. It was a nice day.
With careful deliberation, he opened the sliding door of his closet and riffled through one of his drawers until his hands closed around a belt. It was a nice leather belt. Soft, but strong. His mom had bought it for him last year to wear with his pants at her sister’s wedding.
He tested it now by pulling it hard between his hands. The leather gave off a satisfying snap and he tugged it a couple of more times to be sure. It was good and strong, just like he remembered. It ought to do the trick.
He looked around his bedroom and debated about where he could do it. He needed something high enough off the floor that he wouldn’t muck it up. There’d be no failing this time. He might have become a laughing stock after all that had happened at his school, but he had no intention of making the same mistake twice. He needed to do this right.
A moment later, he found it. The brace that hung from the roof, supporting his TV. It was made of steel and should hold his weight. He climbed up on his bed and swung off it, testing it. The bracket didn’t move.
Standing on the bed, Brady threaded the belt through the buckle and pulled it tight, leaving enough room to take his head. With the belt now loose around his neck, he reached up to the TV bracket and pushed one end of the belt through the steel. It pulled tight around his neck and he stood high on tiptoe to ease the pressure. It wouldn’t work until he’d secured the belt around the bracket.
With a grunt, he managed to knot the belt—only once, but it would have to do. It wasn’t long enough to loop through again. He dragged in a breath through the tension around his throat and eased it out. He was almost done.
On tiptoes again, he thought through his plan. The bracket was almost not high enough. He’d have to throw himself out and pull his knees up if he wanted it to work the first time. He wondered if he’d be brave enough to do it.
He heard the sound of breaking glass and his mother’s scream of fear. A second later, she was shouting at his father, ordering him out of the house. With another deep breath, he swung hard off the bed and the belt pulled instantly tight.
* * *
Hannah Sutton poured herself a neat scotch from the modest selection of bottles in her liquor cabinet and threw it back in a single gulp. It was the middle of the day. She shouldn’t be drinking, but she needed something to fortify her. The last few minutes spent with her ex husband had left weak and trembling. Her hands still shook, despite the fact Colin had left more than an hour earlier. She should have called the police. She had a restraining order out on him, after all. He wasn’t supposed to come within a hundred yards of her house.
She’d called him and asked him over because she needed to speak to him about Brady. The charges, the pending court hearing, the fact that her son’s own father had given him the gun. Brady hadn’t left the house since it happened and she could hardly leave him alone. So, she’d taken the risk and called his dad and now she wished she hadn’t.
It had turned ugly almost immediately. She should have known that’s the way it would go. She was foolish to think her husband would apologize or even be sorry for what he’d done. No, of course he wasn’t repentant. He’d put all the blame on her. When he swiped at the crystal vase in a fit of anger, sending it hurtling to the floor, she’d suddenly had enough.
She’d shown him to the door, shaking with anger and fear. She was only thankful Brady hadn’t witnessed it. He’d been in his room since breakfast.
The stress of the past days suddenly crept up on her and overwhelmed her. She poured herself another scotch and blinked back the tears. Her chest went tight and she blinked hard again, but there was no way she could hold them back. They slid down her cheeks in a silent path, a witness to her pain.
What if her husband was right? What if she was at fault? Brady had accused her of as much a couple of days before when he’d reminded her how she’d done nothing to help him escape the notice of the schoolyard bullies. She remembered him complaining to her of course, on more than one occasion, but she hadn’t been lying when she told him she wasn’t in charge of the classes.
She probably could have done more to ensure he wasn’t in a class with Ian Little, but she’d wanted him to learn how to deal with the bully, rather than running away. There were bullies everywhere, even in the workplace. Like it or not, they’d come in and out of his life and there was no escaping them. It was important her son know how to deal with them, not run away and hide. No, moving Brady to another class would have only been a bandaid solution. Hiding didn’t achieve anything.
And yet, her son cried like his heart had broken when he’d told her it was all her fault and now, with the husband’s accusation ringing in her ears, she wondered if it was true. The thought sent an agony of pain spiralling through her. Lily Munro—a fellow teacher and a friend—had taken a bullet and Hannah was responsible for putting it there.
She cried out at the idea and slid down onto the sofa. The em
pty glass fell from her fingers and crashed onto the floor. Just like the vase, it hit the ceramic tiles and splintered into a thousand pieces. They glinted like diamonds in the sunlight.
With a gasp and a sob, she stepped carefully around the shards and stumbled up the stairs, unable to cope with the thought of cleaning up the mess just yet. She’d attend to the carnage in later.
With her footsteps muffled by the carpet, the only sound in the still afternoon was her crying. She needed to hold her son, her little baby boy. She needed to tell him how she was sorry and how she’d watch out for him, protect him from now on.
The tears were coming in earnest and she swiped a hand across her nose. She sucked in a ragged breath and did her best to control her pain. She didn’t want to frighten him. Besides, he might even be asleep. She stopped outside his closed door and took another moment to compose herself.
Filling her lungs and letting it out slowly, she blew her nose on a tissue she had tucked inside her bra. Feeling marginally better, she turned the doorknob and stepped quietly into the room. His curtains were thrown wide. Blinking, she let her eyes adjust to the brightness. A moment later, she saw him.
* * *
There was something in Lily’s mouth that was causing her no end of trouble. Every time she tried to swallow, the thing got in the way. She turned her head one way and the other in an effort to dislodge it, but to no avail. She brought one hand up to her mouth and felt something hard and plastic. A tube of some kind. It went into her mouth and pressed uncomfortably against her tongue.
She moved her head and must have made a sound because all of a sudden, there were people leaning over her. Her mother-in-law, Marguerite, and a woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform.