Safe With Me

by K. L. Slater

  Carla snapped on the lamp and swung her legs out of bed.

  Her eyes felt dry and gritty behind the lids and the pounding in her head was even worse now. She was desperate for water.

  She reached for a torn slip of paper by her phone and squinted at the scrawl. Chad’s number.

  When she got to the bathroom, she screwed it up and threw it in the pedal bin.

  Chapter 17

  Present day

  Anna

  I leave Ivy’s bedroom and pad down the long, narrow landing.

  When I click on the light switch just inside the door, I immediately spot the computer and printer on a low table in front of the window.

  Liam’s room.

  Posters of elaborately chromed motorbikes cover the walls. Piles of motorcycle magazines and manuals are stacked precariously next to his single bed and wedged into the shelves next to the computer.

  The bed is unmade, and the floor is littered with dirty laundry. It looks like the bedroom of your average, messy teenage boy.

  It appears that Ivy hasn’t cleaned the room at all while Liam is in hospital. Even more annoyingly, she had instantly turned down my offer of help yesterday, claiming she could manage when she very clearly needs assistance.

  I would like nothing more than to scoot around here with my cloth and lemon cleanser. Clearing out those dusty magazines and reorganising the furniture to maximise the space would make it all look a bit more grown-up.

  I’m certain Liam would be delighted with the results.

  But I can hardly take that job on this evening. I’m not even supposed to be here in the middle of all their mess.

  Above the headboard is a poster taken from the middle of a magazine, complete with staple marks. Some slapper in a tiny pair of denim shorts, virtually showing what she’s had for breakfast.

  I had expected Liam to have better standards, if I’m honest, and I fight a sudden, inexplicable urge to tear it down.

  I have to remind myself that he’s in a difficult position. It’s probably not his choice to live with his gran, especially since his bedroom looks as if it’s caught in a time warp.

  He probably doesn’t even notice there are posters still up that have been there since he was an immature young man.

  It goes without saying that Liam would obviously prefer his own place, if he had the chance.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and take a couple of photographs of the room from different angles, so I can study them later at home.

  Over at the narrow window, I pull down the thin roller blind for a bit of privacy.

  I notice the computer station is neat and organised, contrasting with the rest of the room.

  A sign on a coiled, bouncy wire protrudes from the top of the monitor declaring,

  ‘Quiet! Genius at work!’

  I run my fingers across the dusty keyboard and touch the buttons. I wonder if Liam used the computer on the morning of the accident.

  Most people are obsessed with checking their emails or Facebook on at least an hourly basis. It was quite possible Liam had done just that before he left home on the morning of the smash.

  His fingers might have touched the keys where mine rest now, and he’d have been totally unaware of the terrible danger he would soon encounter.

  I sit down on the chair, trying to imagine Liam here, in this very space.

  It brings home the sobering thought that none of us know what’s waiting around the corner, what awful events fate may have planned for us.

  Until tragedy drops on you like a ton of bricks.

  I understand how that feels.

  A tiny green light winks at me, indicating that the computer isn’t turned off; it is merely on standby. I click a switch on the tower and it cranks into life. The monitor flickers, displaying a screensaver of a Harley-Davidson, peppered with numerous desktop icons.

  I adjust the keyboard slightly to suit my seated position and a small white piece of paper slips from underneath it. I slide it out and peer closer to try and read the cryptic scrawl.

  At first it means nothing, just senseless words and phrases. Then I realise just what it is that I’m looking at.

  A list of Liam’s usernames and passwords.

  I’ve never really been a ‘friends’ sort of person. I just can’t see the point in forging associations with people who take up all your time and want to know all your business.

  Mother never allowed us to bring friends back to the house; it wouldn’t have been right, what with her mood swings and all the other stuff.

  The terrible stuff I didn’t know about at first.

  Don’t get me wrong, part of me would have liked to get friendlier with others at school. Having people to sit with at breaks and lunchtimes would have made a nice change but let’s face it, if you start getting close to others, you just end up saying stuff you wish you hadn’t.

  Stuff that people can bring up and use against you later on.

  That’s what I think about when Roisin tries to get chatting to me at work. She seems a perfectly nice woman but, of course, you never quite know.

  I can see the appeal of Facebook in that it’s perfectly possible to maintain controlled contact with people on your own terms. Still, even within that framework there is the potential for humiliation.

  You can add people as friends all you like but it doesn’t mean they accept you on to their friends list. No, you wait and wait until you realise they have quietly rejected your request. Then you have to go into work the next day and see them in real life and pretend it’s hasn’t happened or that you haven’t noticed yet.

  I don’t know, maybe it’s just me doing things wrong. I don’t claim to be an IT expert but I can just about find my way around using the basics.

  I click on a desktop icon and the Facebook login page comes up. I enter the email address and password that’s written on the piece of notepaper, labelled ‘Fb’.

  I’m preparing myself for failure, but within seconds Liam’s profile page loads in front of me.

  I sit back and take a few breaths.

  It’s important I don’t do anything rash. I don’t want Liam to see that someone has been meddling with his information when he is well enough to come home, although I feel sure he won’t mind that I’ve been concerned enough to take a look.

  There might well be people on here who don’t know what’s happened to him, people that are trying to contact him and wondering where he is. I understand the importance that people attach to their social media, but Ivy wouldn’t have a clue about it all.

  A small box pops up to inform me that Liam has eighty-five notifications and one new private message from someone he doesn’t know.

  There is a link that must be clicked if he wants to accept the message.

  Before I can overthink it, I click on the link and wait while the message inbox loads. When it’s ready, and before I can change my mind, I open the envelope icon and take in a sharp breath.

  The message is from her.

  Chapter 18

  Thirteen years earlier

  Daniel Clarke sat upstairs on the bare floorboards of his bedroom, waiting for Father MacCarrick to arrive.

  He had missed an appointment with the school counsellor this morning, and Daniel knew Carla was the sort of person who would definitely want an explanation as to why he hadn’t turned up.

  He pushed thoughts about school away. He had other things to think about right now.

  His mother had drilled him in the sorts of questions the priest might ask and what Daniel’s replies ought to be.

  His mother didn’t know this but Father MacCarrick had already talked to him about what the correct responses should be when he called him to the sacristy yesterday.

  The priest called him to the sacristy a lot but Daniel tried not to think about that, either.

  ‘This is your chance to put right all your wrongs, to repent.’ His mother frowned earlier in the day, shadowing the sign of the cross on herself. ‘God above only know
s what Father MacCarrick sees in you. You’d better not let us all down.’

  He didn’t want to be an altar server for a number of reasons he couldn’t discuss with anyone, least of all his mother. What if they found out at school? His life would be even more of a misery than it was now, if that were even possible.

  ‘He won’t make you a server just like that, you know,’ John Peters had told him at church yesterday as Daniel sat praying. ‘Only Father Mac’s favourites get to be altar boys.’

  John was a seminarian, a student of the church, and he was often rude about Father MacCarrick when the priest wasn’t around.

  ‘The priest has to really like you. I mean really like you,’ John grinned, revealing furred yellow teeth. ‘Do you know what I mean, Danny Boy?’

  John’s clawed hand slid down towards Daniel’s crotch, and the boy swung his legs to the side to protect himself. John had grabbed his balls hard before and it killed.

  Father MacCarrick did like him, Daniel felt sure of that. Otherwise, he wouldn’t ask him to help file papers in his private office regularly or assist him in cleaning the vestments and sacred vessels in the sacristy.

  Although why the priest needed his help at all puzzled Daniel.

  Mrs Bream was the church’s regular volunteer cleaner and she had a detailed rota pinned up in the annexe which included the dusting of the sacristy.

  Daniel could hear his mother busying around downstairs.

  For once, she wasn’t lying on the sofa watching that American show that did DNA and lie detector tests on people who swore at each other and fought on stage.

  He could hear plates and cutlery clinking.

  His mother thought she was an important person at the church, but Father MacCarrick never let her do any of the special tasks, and the three ladies who arranged the flowers often whispered about her in the back when she sat praying in the front pews before service.

  His mother thought she knew everything but she knew nothing. Nothing at all.

  She was clueless about school, and she was even more clueless about what happened during the times Father MacCarrick called him to the sacristy.

  Chapter 19

  Present day

  Anna

  The next day I spend time recording the new information and photographs from yesterday’s impromptu visit to Liam’s house.

  It gives me an overview of where we are and also ensures I don’t forget anything. I can be prone to forgetfulness.

  After the shock of discovering her Facebook message to Liam, I feel as though I’m running on go-slow. I am even a little late getting to the hospital for the start of visiting time.

  It’s hardly surprising but I’ve barely slept a wink.

  The thought that she has hunted Liam down on Facebook in order to send him such a lying, conniving message beggars belief.

  Leopard, spots. . . it just goes to show that people never change no matter how much time elapses.

  She is calling herself ‘Amanda Danson’ now, so at least that’s one mystery solved.

  Before I left their house I neatly handwrote ‘Amanda’s’ message word for word, and back at home, I printed off the clearest photographs of Liam’s bedroom and filed them with the one I took of him in the hospital.

  I was disappointed to discover I couldn’t see anything more than her profile photo due to her high privacy settings. If that’s not proof she’s got something to hide, I don’t know what is.

  Still, I’m grateful I discovered the message before Liam had the chance to see it and buy into her seething lies.

  Once I copied it out, I deleted it from his message inbox. What kind of a friend would I be if I left it for him to read when he’s feeling at his most vulnerable?

  Before I get into the car, I pop next door to check on Mrs Peat. My heart sinks when she beckons me: time is tight as visiting time starts in just half an hour.

  ‘My legs are playing me up today, Anna, could you help me move over to my bed?’

  Mrs Peat may be old but she’s still quite sturdy, to phrase it kindly, and she takes some moving.

  She suffers with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, has good and bad days. Linda, her care assistant, has set up Mrs Peat’s bed downstairs, and she also has a commode in here.

  She virtually lives her whole life in this one dreary room. I feel guilty complaining; the least I can do is stay for a quick chat.

  I brace myself and hope my lower back holds up when Mrs Peat finally manages to get to her feet and lean heavily against me.

  ‘You’ve been busy, coming and going a lot lately,’ she groans with discomfort as we shuffle across the room at a snail’s pace.

  Mrs Peat might be old and sick but she doesn’t miss much.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been going to the hospital quite a bit,’ I say between breaths. ‘To see my friend, Liam.’

  ‘Ah, a friend.’ She smiles warmly. ‘Sounds like things might be looking up for you, dear.’

  ‘He’s just a friend. That’s all,’ I say tersely. I don’t want Mrs Peat getting the wrong idea.

  When she is settled in her bed I make her a cup of tea and tell her all about the accident, how I sat with Liam in the road until the ambulance arrived.

  ‘You’re an angel, Anna,’ Mrs Peat says. ‘Always thinking of others. His gran must be so grateful you were there to help him.’

  I let that one go. I’m not completely certain yet what Ivy thinks of me.

  ‘I can still see you now, sat over there in the chair with Arthur, reciting nursery rhymes or drawing your pictures. Such a bright girl, you were.’

  I make an excuse to go into the kitchen to wash my hands. At least until she stops talking about the past.

  Once I am sure Mrs Peat is comfortable again, I head to the hospital.

  * * *

  On the way, I call at the cobbler’s kiosk and get another copy of Liam’s house key cut, just in case there is no one to feed the cat again.

  And that’s when I remember: I didn’t feed Boris yesterday.

  With the shock of finding Amanda Danson’s toxic message to Liam, I forgot all about feeding the poor cat.

  * * *

  By some miracle, I find a parking space near the hospital entrance and manage to get a ticket just as a lengthy queue forms behind me.

  I am a little late for the start of visiting but so is everyone else by the look of it.

  I don’t call in at the shop, and I don’t wait for the lift. I take the stairs two at a time and then regret it when I have to stand outside the ward for a minute to get my breath back.

  They buzz me in, and I walk briskly past the reception desk without speaking to anyone.

  If you stand just outside the partial glass door, it’s possible to see straight into Liam’s private room from the ward corridor. I spot right away there is already someone sitting in there: a woman, with her back to the door.

  I take in the blonde ponytail, the pink coat, and I realise, with a dizzy rush, that it’s her. It’s Amanda Danson or whatever she’s calling herself these days.

  My face and neck feel like they’re on fire.

  I decide I’m going to call her by this fictitious name for now, at least. I don’t want to blurt anything out to Liam or Ivy about what she did yet. I have to keep my head clear and think rationally about what I’m going to do.

  Amanda is busy talking, moving her hands animatedly.

  Weaving her story, constructing new truths from old lies.

  It is clear she has Liam’s full attention. He is nodding and smiling.

  I watch as she throws her head back and laughs raucously about something. Laughs! While the man she nearly killed is confined to a hospital bed in front of her, unable to remember and unable to move.

  Something inside me seems to shrink, to pull tighter, and I have to steady myself by leaning against the wall.

  ‘You alright there, love?’ A passing nurse slows down.

  Before I can answer her, Liam looks up and spots me.

  ‘
Anna!’ he calls. ‘Come in.’

  I step away from the door, my head whirring. This isn’t supposed to happen; I don’t want Amanda Danson to see me. I need more time to plan, to think about my next move.

  It kills me to abandon Liam to her lies but I can’t blow my cover just yet.

  But then the door opens and there she is, smiling in my face.

  I ball my fists in my jacket pockets to stop myself from grasping her stringy neck.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, ‘I’m Amanda.’

  I have no choice but to stand still in the doorway and look straight at her.

  I wait for the shock to register on her face. Wait for her conniving brain to bridge the thirteen-year gap and realise exactly who I am.

  She glances back at Liam and then looks at me again. A couple more seconds pass and there doesn’t appear to be any spark of recognition.

  ‘Are you a relative of Liam’s?’ she asks.

  ‘A friend,’ I croak and swallow down a thickness in my throat that is threatening to choke me.

  I can’t bring myself to speak to her but I can’t tear my eyes away from her face, either.

  It seems she hasn’t got a clue who I am but I am fully expecting it to click any moment now.

  Her face is longer and thinner than I remember it but the features are identical. Roman nose, almond-shaped eyes that border on being sly rather than attractive. I remember she had a tiny mole on her chin but it looks like she got that removed. Her vanity doesn’t surprise me in the least.

  She stands aside at last and I move, trance-like, into the room.

  Amanda pulls another chair round, as though I’m the visitor and she is Liam’s good friend. ‘There you go,’ she says, brightly, before sitting back down in her own seat.

  I wait for the, ‘Hang on, don’t I know you?’ look that is bound to shadow her face any second now.