Love You Better

by Martin, Natalie K

  Oliver looked at her with his face set into a blank expression. ‘What are you talking about?’

  She looked back at him, feeling as if someone had wiped all of the confusion from her mind. Despite the alcohol and tears, she’d never felt clearer about anything.

  ‘I don’t know if I love you.’

  Oliver stopped the car in the middle of the road. Outside, the rain fell, and for a few seconds, water on metal was the only sound in the world. All at once, the expression on Oliver’s face changed from being blank to confused, and Effie knew that it was true. She’d never loved him the way she’d loved Smith.

  ‘You what?’ His hand was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles popped white against his skin.

  ‘I don’t love you.’

  It was abrupt, but now that she’d admitted it to herself, she couldn’t pretend anymore, not even to spare his feelings. Even though everything she thought she knew about the ‘new’ Smith was based on lies, she couldn’t bear to bury her head in the sand for a minute longer.

  ‘You don’t love me?’ Oliver echoed her, his voice dripping with spite like acid. ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

  A car pulled up behind, and the driver flashed the headlights at them, but Oliver didn’t move.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘There are people behind.’

  ‘Wait. This is his doing, isn’t it?’ He looked at her, and she saw the flash of anger behind his eyes. ‘I fucking knew it.’

  He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, and Effie flinched. Suddenly, she was thrown back to that night when he’d launched himself at her, punching her in the face and kicking her on the ground. There was no way he’d do the same now, surely? Not when he knew that her friends knew what he’d done, and definitely not with an impatient driver behind them. Right on cue, the driver behind beeped his horn. With cars parked on either side of the narrow road, there was nowhere else for them to go.

  ‘I knew it. I knew there was something going on with that little creep, but I told myself you wouldn’t have cheated on me.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Effie replied, shaking her head, thankful that nothing had actually happened with Smith. At least she could say she hadn’t lied, unlike some.

  ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? You and Lou? What did you do – swap notes on how to sneak around?’

  The car behind beeped again, and Effie’s heart raced. The atmosphere was too charged, and she knew better than to trap herself with Oliver when he got angry. She pulled on the handle to get out, but it was centrally locked.

  ‘Can you unlock the door?’

  ‘How long has it been going on for?’ he asked, ignoring her as he looked at his hand on the steering wheel. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was fighting his anger, but she’d seen how quickly he could flip. Tears pricked at her eyes as fear started to creep its way up her back.

  ‘Olly, will you open the door?’

  ‘Why?’ He snapped his head to look at her. His face dripped with scorn, and goosebumps prickled Effie’s skin. ‘So you can go back to your lover boy?’

  She kept a hold on the handle as her chest heaved. ‘I mean it. Open the door.’

  He looked at her with his cold blue eyes. ‘Why the hell should I? So you can go back to my house and lock me out again?’

  She backed into the door, yanking the handle down with a trembling hand. ‘Oliver, you’re scaring me.’

  Effie fumbled for the window control and pressed it down, the cool air and rain brushing against her cheek as the glass wound down. Oliver barely even seemed to notice as he swore.

  ‘I’ve given you everything, and you’ve thrown it back in my face. I’ve begged you like a fucking idiot, and now you’re doing this?’

  She stuck her arm outside and reached for the handle. As the door unlocked, she swung it open and leapt out.

  ‘Get back in the car.’ Oliver leaned over to the passenger seat, but Effie moved away, looking at the car behind, beeping its horn. She looked at Oliver, staring out at her with his red, scowling face, his hand still gripping the steering wheel.

  ‘Will you move your fucking car?’ The man in the car behind stuck his head out of the window and shouted at her.

  ‘Get back in the car, Effie.’ Oliver’s voice was as hard as stone, but as she stood in the road with the rain hitting her skin like bullets, she shook her head. She couldn’t. He’d tried hard since she’d taken him back, but the simple fact was, she didn’t trust him and now she realised she never could. How could she trust someone she was afraid of?

  She slammed the door shut, turned and ran down the street. She needed to get as far away from Oliver as she could, just like she’d needed to get away from Smith. She just wanted to be alone.

  The white beam of the BMW’s headlights rushed past her, followed by the tail lights of the angry driver behind. Oliver turned right into the next street, and Effie ran in the opposite direction. Up ahead, traffic roared past on the high street, and she ran towards it, the Converse on her feet slapping loudly against the pavement as the adrenalin continued to pulse through her veins. Black wheelie bins blocked the pavement up ahead, so she wove herself between two parked cars.

  The headlights of a car lit up the darkness around her as she ran out to cross the street, and she put a hand up to shield her eyes just as the front bumper hit her knees. The metal of the bonnet felt cold against her skin, and the air rushed from her as she slammed into the windscreen.

  As her body was thrown up into the air, Effie saw the grey-blue clouds in the sky, shielding the moon, and then flipped over to see the ground rush up towards her. The side of her face thumped against the wet tarmac, and her vision blurred as she looked at the bright red tail lights of the car. She winced at the pain in her head, and everything went black.

  28.

  Effie’s eyelids fluttered. They felt heavy and thick, like she’d had too much sleep, and her mouth was dry. A slither of light burned her eyes as they inched open.

  ‘She’s awake. Get the nurse.’ A voice echoed in the room as she tried to swallow and almost choked at the tightness of her throat.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sweetpea. You’re alright.’

  Mum?

  A warm hand pressed against her arm, and through the blurriness, she saw emerald-green feathers in a sea of grey.

  ‘You’re alright,’ the voice said, and the familiar scent of sandalwood washed over her. Effie closed her eyes.

  The next time Effie opened her eyes, she kept them open and blinked against the bright lights as she turned her head as slowly as she could. As her eyes focused, she saw cards standing on a table next to her, along with an array of jagged, coloured crystals. Her cheek brushed the pillow as she turned her head as far as she could. There, on the plastic chair next to the bed, was her mum. She hadn’t dreamt it. The green feathers she’d seen were woven into her mum’s grey hair, and she looked small, wrapped under a blanket with her head resting on her hand as she slept.

  The door to the room opened, and Smith stepped inside holding two cups. An unexpected wave of anger and disappointment swept over her, and she knew, without a doubt, that something had happened with him. When he finally looked towards the bed and saw that she was awake, his face flooded with relief, and he put the cups on the table.

  ‘You’re awake. Thank god.’ He went to lean over and kiss her forehead, but something made him stop, and he sat on the bed next to her instead. ‘You just missed Lou. How do you feel?’

  ‘Thirsty,’ she croaked, her throat seemingly lined with rusted razor blades. He poured water from a jug into a cup and held it in front of her, putting the straw in her mouth.

  Effie drank warily. Something was telling her he was as on guard as she was. She could tell by the way he was looking at her, like he was waiting for her to say something. He had bags
under his eyes, and his skin looked paler than usual. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days. She stopped drinking, and he took the cup away, setting it down on the table.

  ‘Do you remember what happened?’ he asked.

  She shook her head a little.

  ‘You were hit by a car after you left the barbecue.’

  Effie frowned. She’d been knocked over? How?

  ‘You left with Oliver,’ Smith said, matching her frown with his. ‘He came to pick you up, but somewhere between leaving and getting home, you got run over. Do you remember anything?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head a little. ‘But Olly must know what happened. Where is he?’

  A look flickered across Smith’s face. ‘He said you’d stormed off from the car.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Effie frowned.

  ‘You were drunk and upset . . .’

  Smith tailed off, and Effie looked out of the window flecked with specks of rain. Rain. It had been raining. She screwed her eyebrows together, willing herself to think back to the barbecue. She hadn’t wanted to go; she remembered that. And she remembered giving Smith his present. What else?

  The rain . . . standing under the gazebo . . . Lou and Mickey going upstairs . . .

  The image of Smith walking past her ran across her mind, accompanied by a sinking feeling in her stomach. She looked at him again.

  ‘I was upset because of you, wasn’t I?’

  He nodded and she didn’t miss the shame flicker across his face. He’d looked like that at the barbecue too.

  Claire.

  Slowly, the scrambled pieces of the jigsaw that was her memory started to slot back into place.

  ‘Thailand.’ She tried to turn away from him and winced at the pain in her ribs. ‘I remember now.’

  ‘You left before I had a chance to explain.’

  ‘You don’t need to explain. You just need to leave.’

  She didn’t turn to look at him. She couldn’t. As if she wasn’t in enough pain already, the realisation of her memory added to it. She remembered that he’d lied and how it had made her heart splinter.

  ‘Effie . . .’

  ‘Just go, Smith. Please?’ She winced again at the effort it had taken to raise her voice enough to show how serious she was.

  ‘What’s going on? She’s awake?’

  Penny’s voice cut through the air, and Effie turned to see her mum getting up from the chair. Involuntary tears fell from her eyes as her mum sat on the bed.

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’ Penny asked, looking at Smith.

  ‘It’s only been a couple of minutes, and you needed the rest. I wanted to try and talk to her, to find out what happened—’

  ‘I know what happened,’ Effie interrupted. Now that she’d remembered why she was angry with him, she couldn’t see anything other than the look on his face when he’d realised she knew the real reason he’d left Thailand. ‘You lied, like you always have.’

  ‘Maybe you should go,’ Penny said, smoothing down Effie’s hair as she looked at Smith. ‘She shouldn’t be upset right now.’

  He looked at Penny and then at Effie. God, he was good. He looked utterly crestfallen, but Effie knew it was all for show.

  I am done.

  Her own voice echoed loudly in her head, and fragments of their argument played out in front of her like a film. She’d meant what she’d said. She still did.

  Smith nodded and picked up his jacket. ‘Okay, but I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Effie muttered, wishing she could stop the tears from falling.

  As Smith left the room, Effie looked at her mum without blinking, afraid that if she closed her eyes, even for a second, she’d open them and Penny would be gone. She couldn’t quite believe she was really there.

  ‘When did you get here? How long have I been out?’

  ‘Three days,’ Penny replied and wiped the tears from Effie’s cheeks with her thumb. ‘Lou called me, and I took the next flight out.’

  For the first time she could remember, her mum was there, right when Effie needed her the most. She looked at her again, taking in the soft lines on her face, and sobbed.

  ‘Oh, Sweetpea.’ Penny lay down next to her, propping an arm around Effie as best she could before kissing the side of her head. ‘You’ll be fine. Mummy’s here.’

  Severe concussion, a fractured eye socket and three broken ribs. If it weren’t for the pain in her chest every time she took a breath, Effie wouldn’t have believed that the list of injuries Penny recited described her. The ‘severe concussion’ part had terrified her. She’d had swelling on the brain. That was serious. As Penny had told her, she was lucky to be alive.

  Effie sighed as the police officers left. It was beyond frustrating, trying to grasp at the fragments of what she did recall. She remembered the moment before the impact, when the headlights had shone in her face, and she remembered looking at the red lights on the back of the car afterwards. Her shattered memories of that night had slowly come back to her over the two days she’d been awake, but the central piece, remembering anything about the car that hit her, was missing.

  Her marriage was over; she knew that much. She saw Oliver’s face, hurt and angry as he sat in the driver’s seat when she’d told him she didn’t love him. She looked at the cards on the table next to her from Mickey, Lou, Smith and her colleagues at Archive. There was even one from Smith’s parents. Her mum had read them all out to her, but despite their well wishes, she couldn’t think of anything other than that there had been no mention of Oliver since she’d woken up.

  Her mobile had smashed in the impact of the accident, and Smith had brought her round a new one. She’d taken it from him without looking him in the eye. She didn’t want to make eye contact with him, not when she knew she couldn’t trust a word he said. He’d sloped away, and when she put the SIM card into her new phone, she’d been stunned to find nothing from Oliver. He hadn’t sent a single text, and she had no voicemails or missed calls from him.

  ‘Why hasn’t Olly been?’ Effie asked, looking at her mum. She might’ve told him their marriage was over, but she was still his wife. She’d nearly died. Surely he’d have come to see her, even if he had accepted what she’d said.

  Penny moved a pink crystal on the table closer to Effie’s bed. ‘Did you know that rose quartz is amazing for emotional recovery? I’ve got you some clear quartz as well – the master of all the crystals.’

  Effie frowned. Why was her mum talking about crystals? It wasn’t as if her body hadn’t been pumped full of painkillers for the last few days. ‘Mum?’

  ‘This one is blue kyanite.’ She held up a fragment of dark blue crystal. ‘It’ll help your bones heal quicker.’

  ‘Mum,’ Effie said firmly, ‘where’s Olly? Why hasn’t he visited?’

  Penny’s face darkened as she left the crystals alone. ‘He has.’

  ‘When? Why haven’t I seen him?’

  If he’s been once, then why hasn’t he come back?

  ‘When did he come?’ she asked again, and Penny sighed.

  ‘Soon after you were brought in.’

  ‘So why hasn’t he come back?’

  It made no sense that he’d simply disappear, regardless of the last things they’d said to each other. Effie watched her mum’s face. Slowly, the realisation of the truth dawned on her. Penny’s silence wasn’t because she didn’t know; it was because she didn’t want to tell her the truth.

  What could have happened while she’d been lying unconscious? Oliver would’ve crossed paths with Lou – that was for sure. She knew what Lou was like, especially in an emergency. She would’ve panicked and lashed out, and she’d bet that Lou would’ve told Oliver exactly what she thought of him. It was obvious. Oliver was giving Effie a wide berth because his secret was well and truly out.

 
Penny tucked a strand of hair behind Effie’s ear. ‘We’ll talk about it later, when you’re feeling a bit stronger. All you have to worry about right now is getting better.’

  Her mum knew everything, and she’d have to tell her about how her life had got into the state it had. Effie’s eyes pricked as Penny picked up her book and settled into her chair. At least she wouldn’t have to do it straight away.

  Effie studied the picture of a man meditating on the bright red cover. As she read, Penny played with the small pendant in the shape of a palm with an eye in the centre, hanging from a silver chain around her neck. Penny had always flitted from things – houses, jobs and men – but the one thing that had always remained the same was her way of life and what she believed in.

  What did Effie believe in? She looked up at the ceiling tiles. In such a short space of time, everything she’d thought she’d known and wanted had been turned on its head. At that moment in time, she’d have traded the world to have something in her life that remained unchanged. She’d almost died, and the one person she’d expected to see when she’d opened her eyes had been Oliver. Instead, she’d seen Smith and her mum.

  ‘When can I get out of here?’

  ‘In a couple of days, probably,’ Penny replied, turning the page of her book. ‘Because of your head injury, they need to monitor you awhile longer.’

  ‘When do you have to go back?’

  Penny put the book down on her lap. ‘I don’t have to go anywhere. I’ll stay as long as you want me to. Until you’re better, at least.’

  Her mum had taken the first available plane and flown across Europe to be there for her and would stay for as long as it took. If she hadn’t been able to see it for herself, she’d never have believed it. Effie frowned as Penny went back to her book. Where was she staying? Hotels weren’t really her style – not when she liked to be in the middle of nature. She thought about Ibiza, imagining the heat on her skin. It was no wonder her mum would rather be there than in England.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, Sweetpea?’

  ‘When I get discharged, can we go to Spain?’