The Deepest Cut

by Natalie Flynn

  Nathan stood, rigid, looking at the Stanley knife in his hand.

  My whole body exploded in terror and I was up, and at Jake’s side.

  I helped him to the bench.

  He wasn’t talking.

  I pulled his hand away from his thigh and he screamed. He was bleeding badly.

  Nathan had stabbed him.

  He’d stabbed Jake.

  Adrenalin took over and I launched myself at Nathan, punching him in the chest over and over again. He didn’t move. He didn’t even look at me. He was just staring at Jake.

  Sarah was crying, and screaming, and pushing him. ‘What have you done, Nath?’

  Lucy stood at the edge of the crowd with her hand over her mouth.

  Danny was standing with his hands on his head. The colour had drained from his face. ‘What the fuck have you done?’ He said.

  Nathan and Jake’s eyes were locked on to each other.

  ‘Put the knife away, man,’ Danny said. ‘We need to get out of here.’ He turned to the crowd. ‘Go,’ he shouted.

  They all ran off, fast, in different directions.

  ‘Nath, come on,’ Danny said. When Nathan didn’t move, Danny shook his head. He got up close in his face. ‘If you go down for this, don’t you dare take me down with you.’

  Nathan’s head snapped towards Danny. ‘You told me to teach him,’ he whispered.

  ‘Did I tell you to stab him?’ Danny asked. ‘No. Now let’s get the fuck out of here before the feds turn up.’ Danny ran off, shouting for Nathan to catch him up.

  Nathan put the blade of the knife away, and put it in his pocket. He looked at me, then back to Jake, but there was no emotion in his face.

  ‘We need to go,’ he said.

  ‘We can’t just leave him here,’ Sarah was crying hysterically.

  ‘Sarah, Adam, let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? We can’t leave him here,’ I said.

  ‘He’ll be fine. It’s just his leg. Let’s go,’ he said. He pulled me by the arm and we started to move.

  I stopped. Jake was sitting on the bench holding his leg. He looked up at me. His face was full of pain and fear.

  ‘Come on, Adam,’ Nathan shouted back. ‘Come on, he’ll be OK.’

  I was full of panic. I couldn’t breathe.

  Nathan ran back towards me. He grabbed my arm. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘He’ll be fine, he’s gonna limp home to Debbie and she’s gonna put a plaster on it. Come on.’ He shook my arm.

  I looked back at Jake.

  I heard a siren in the distance.

  ‘Come on, you two,’ Sarah shouted.

  The siren was getting louder. Nathan and I looked at each other, nodded, then legged it out the park as fast as we could.

  Dad collared me the second I walked through the front door.

  ‘Where the fucking hell have you been?’ He screamed from the kitchen doorway. He was standing in just his jeans. His hair was a mess. His face was angry red.

  I froze on the spot.

  ‘What happened to Jake?’ He asked.

  ‘What?’ I tried to work out how long it had been since I left Nathan. Half an hour at the most. Long enough for Jake to hobble home and for Debbie to call my dad.

  ‘What happened to him?’ He asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ my dad spat.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Don’t fucking lie to me,’ he was shouting loudly.

  I took a step back. He took one forwards.

  ‘Where is he? What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Last time I saw him he was–’

  ‘He was lying in the park unconscious?’

  My blood ran cold. It couldn’t be. I knew it wasn’t right. There was no way …

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Unconscious? But–’

  ‘Now tell me what the fuck happened.’ Dad was right up in my face.

  He was demanding to know what had gone on, but I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t stop the panic enough to tell him. I pushed past him.

  ‘I need to see him,’ I said. ‘I need to see him. How was he unconscious, Dad? How do you know? How do you know that?’

  He grabbed me by the hood of my parka jacket. ‘Because I’ve just had a frantic Debbie on the phone, wanting to know why the hell some random stranger has just answered Jake’s phone and said there were paramedics there, and she couldn’t talk to him because he was unconscious, and they were rushing him straight to hospital.’ He stopped and caught his breath. ‘Now tell me what the fuck happened.’

  My legs went weak. I walked to the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Paramedics. A stranger. He was unconscious. It didn’t make any sense.

  ‘It all happened so fast,’ I said.

  Dad’s hands came down on the table in front of me so hard, and he shouted in my ear so loudly, I jumped. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘There was a fight, that’s all.’

  ‘What happened to his leg?’

  I looked up at him.

  ‘Adam, I haven’t got time for this. Tell me what happened to his leg. Debbie is doing her fucking nut with worry.’

  ‘He was stabbed,’ I said, but it barely came out.

  ‘Oh my fucking God,’ Dad said backing away and putting his hands on his head. He stopped. ‘Not by you, please God, not by you?’ He was pointing at me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Adam. Don’t fucking lie to me.’

  ‘Nathan did it.’

  ‘Nathan?’

  ‘Is Jake OK?’ I asked. I wanted to get up and go and find him at the hospital. I needed to say sorry. I needed to make sure he was OK.

  ‘Nathan?’ Dad was saying over and over again. ‘Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ.’

  I stood up. ‘I need to get to the hospital, I need to see him,’ I said.

  He ignored me, barged past me into the hallway and picked up the phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked him from the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Calling the police,’ he said. His voice was calm now.

  I flew down the hallway so fast and tried to grab the phone from him. ‘You can’t, Dad. You can’t.’

  ‘I can and I bloody will,’ he said. ‘This is serious, Adam. Fucking serious.’

  ‘Dad, I just need to see Jake. Please drive me to the hospital,’ I pleaded with him.

  He looked right into my eyes. He put the phone down. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m over the limit.’

  That was it, I grabbed the front door handle, and went to open it, but he pulled me back.

  ‘Where are you going?’ He asked.

  ‘To find Jake.’

  He picked the phone back up again. ‘Dad, don’t. Let me see him first,’ I said.

  ‘I’m calling a cab,’ he said.

  ‘I’m waiting outside,’ I said.

  I stood in the drizzling rain and tried to work out in my head how Jake had ended up unconscious. There must have been a mistake. He was stabbed in the leg. There was no way that would have made him unconscious. Maybe he’d just fainted or something. That wasn’t serious. He’d be OK. He’d be sitting up in one of the cubicles when I got there, flirting with the nurses and giving me evil, pissed-off looks for leaving him there.

  I was going to have some serious grovelling to do.

  I jumped out of the cab, leaving my dad to pay, and ran into A&E out of breath.

  ‘Jake Coldridge,’ I said to the receptionist.

  She came out from behind her desk. ‘This way,’ she said.

  She walked me through some doors and down a busy corridor to a private waiting room.

  Debbie was sitting on a chair.

  ‘Oh my God, Adam,’ she ran over and grabbed my shoulders. ‘What happened? Please tell me, what happened to Jake?’ Her face was so full of anguish. She must have r
ushed to the hospital; she was in her pyjamas with a jacket over the top.

  ‘There was a fight. Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Please God, no,’ she said. ‘What happened, Adam? Please tell me?’

  ‘Him and Nathan,’ I said.

  ‘Nathan?’ She stepped back. ‘No, I won’t believe it, not our Nathan.’

  There was such a bad feeling in the room; the air was thick with worry. I just wanted to know where Jake was. I couldn’t understand why Debbie wasn’t with him, and why they hadn’t taken me straight to him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Debbie. It was a bad fight, really bad,’ I told her.

  ‘What, why? Why?’ She was pacing and it was making me nervous.

  ‘I don’t know. Where is Jake?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know, they haven’t told me anything.’

  The door opened. We both jumped and our heads shot round. It wasn’t Jake. It was the woman from reception bringing my dad in.

  ‘Did you tell her?’ He asked.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Debbie was waiting for me to speak. My dad was glaring at me, waiting for me to tell her.

  I said nothing. I couldn’t.

  ‘Look, Debbie, Nathan stabbed Jake in the leg. I think that’s what Adam wanted to tell you. I’m really sorry.’

  Debbie shook her head. ‘I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Is this true?’ She asked. I’d never seen her like this before. She looked terrified.

  She was waiting for me to answer.

  I nodded.

  She sat down. Then she shot back up and started pacing. ‘But it was just his leg, though. He’ll be OK? He will be OK. Just some stitches, they’re just stitching him up now, aren’t they? That’s why they’ve not come out?’ She looked at us. ‘Right?’

  My dad sat her back down, and held her hand, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could say.

  ‘Where is Nathan?’ She asked.

  ‘I don’t know, we …’

  ‘You what?’ Dad asked.

  ‘We left. I left him there. I left Jake there. So did Nathan. He said Jake would be OK. I panicked.’

  A wail came from Debbie and my dad shook his head at me.

  ‘That’s why he was on his own. Oh my God, this is not happening.’ She started crying. ‘Why haven’t they come out and said he’s OK?’

  I went to walk out the room. I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I had to go and find him; find out what was happening.

  ‘Don’t you think about going anywhere. The police will want to talk to you. I called them when I was getting out the cab,’ Dad said.

  ‘The police?’ Debbie looked at my dad in horror.

  ‘Deb, this is serious,’ he says.

  ‘Jake will be fine, they’ll make up,’ she said.

  ‘Debbie, Nathan stabbed Jake in the leg.’

  She put her head in her hands. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said over and over again.

  We fell into a suffocating silence. I walked up and down, struggling to breathe. It was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. With each second that passed, the tension got worse. I didn’t know if I should sit down, stand up, pace, cry, scream, or go to the toilet and throw up.

  And every time the door opened, we all jumped up like there were springs in our feet. Was it going to be Jake? Was it going to be a nurse with news?

  It was neither this time, it was a girl in a nice outfit like she’d been out clubbing. She was older than us, maybe in her twenties. She had mascara running down her face. She told me her name was Amy and she was the one who found Jake there. I had so many questions for her, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask – it was like I was protecting myself from the truth: that it was a lot more serious than I’d thought.

  ‘Why were they fighting?’ Debbie asked. Her voice cut through the silence.

  ‘Nathan thought Jake took his phone.’

  ‘So he stabbed him in the leg?’ Dad asked.

  ‘It happened so quickly, we didn’t even know until …’

  ‘Why would Jake take his phone?’ Debbie asked.

  ‘He didn’t, Nathan just thought he did.’

  ‘Did that Danny boy have something to do with it?’ Dad stood up.

  ‘Dad, please,’ I said.

  ‘Well, since Nath’s been hanging around with him–’

  ‘How would you know what goes on with us? You’re never home and you never listen,’ I was fuming with him. He couldn’t just come in acting like he knew everything and start bossing me around and that.

  ‘I’m here now, ain’t I?’ He said.

  ‘Yeah, left Jackie at home in bed though?’

  ‘What’s she got to do with it?’ His voice was raised and I didn’t like it.

  ‘It’s got everything to do with it,’ I shouted back at him.

  ‘Look, just shut up, both of you,’ Debbie stood up between us. ‘I want to know what’s going on with my son, not listen to your arguments.’

  So we went back to the suffocating silence again.

  The door opened and we all stood up. A man in trousers and a shirt walked in. He had a hospital name tag on and one of those hand gel things attached to his belt.

  ‘Mrs Coldridge?’ He looked at Debbie.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, but her words were so quiet and scared I could hardly hear her.

  I looked at his face for clues. My heart seemed to have stopped inside my chest. It had stopped beating and I had stopped breathing.

  ‘Why don’t you take a seat?’ He said to Debbie.

  ‘No, just tell me what’s happening with my son. Is he OK now?’

  The doctor took Debbie by the arm. ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, we did everything we could to try and save your son–’

  ‘Save him?’ I asked. That was the strangest thing for him to say.

  ‘Shut up, Adam,’ Dad said.

  The doctor carried on. ‘He suffered a stab wound to the leg. When he arrived here, he’d lost a considerable amount of blood. The knife severed his femoral artery and we did everything we could, but we …’

  I stopped listening.

  I swallowed down the sick from the back of my throat.

  Debbie’s screams tore right through me.

  My legs gave way underneath me and I fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

  Jake was dead.

  Oh my God, he was dead.

  There was a thin curtain separating me and Jake, and I was scared. I didn’t want to open it because he was on the other side and he was dead.

  I stood there, staring at it, still in shock. I wondered what he’d look like, if he’d started to go a funny colour. Would his lips be blue? Would they have closed his eyes?

  My dad’s hand was on the small of my back. ‘Go on, son,’ he said, but I didn’t want to. All the time I didn’t see him, I could pretend it wasn’t real. I could pretend in my head that they’d got the wrong person, and it wasn’t him, and he was at home in bed wondering where we all were.

  I knew it wasn’t true. Debbie had already been in to see him, and her screams could have brought down the walls of the hospital.

  My hand shook so hard as I put it forward to feel for the gap in the curtain.

  I put my head down and closed my eyes.

  ‘I don’t think I can do it,’ I said, and turned away.

  ‘It’s up to you,’ Dad said.

  I’d never seen a dead body before, not a real one, only on the TV. I felt sick but I needed to see him. I needed to make sure it was him before I spoke to the police and told them everything that happened.

  I pulled back the curtain. I lifted my head up and there he was. He was lying on the bed like he was asleep, but I knew he wasn’t because he slept on his front with one leg out of the covers – not on his back with his arms straight.

  My legs buckled; my dad held me up and helped me walk nearer.

  There were no signs on him to say he was injured, but I knew t
hat beneath the thin sheet and blanket, there was a single stab wound to his leg … A stab wound that killed him.

  He was still. His chest wasn’t rising and falling and he wasn’t snoring. I wanted so much for him to open his eyes and smile at me. I wanted a nurse to come in and tell me I could help take his temperature, like the time he was in hospital when we were younger.

  He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t smile at me. I was staring at him, but he wasn’t moving.

  ‘You OK?’ Dad asked. He was looking at Jake, too.

  I counted backwards three hours, to when we were sitting on the bench before the fight happened, and I remembered him thinking I was blaming him for starting trouble. I was suddenly worried he still thought that. I worried he died thinking I blamed him.

  I didn’t.

  I blamed Nathan.

  Bile rose up in my throat and I swallowed it down. I wasn’t sure if my brain was registering what was in front of me, because there was no way it could be true. There was no way he could be there one minute and gone the next. It didn’t work like that.

  But he wasn’t moving. He still wasn’t moving.

  I was brave. I walked forward and took his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered to him. I wanted to speak more, but the emotion took over and I couldn’t breathe.

  I fell into my dad’s arms and he carried me out of the cubicle. When we got outside, my legs gave way and I collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  If I hadn’t left him there, I could have saved his life.

  My best friend was dead and it was my fault.

  Twelve

  It had been two days since I’d finally got out what happened that night, and I’d only left my room to go to the toilet. I wasn’t well enough. My head was still spinning, not just mentally but physically, too. My brain felt like a waltzer car that wouldn’t stop. It was just going round, and round, and round. It was making me feel dizzy and sick; it didn’t matter if I was sitting down, lying down, standing up, walking, pacing up and down, up and down – it wouldn’t stop.

  I spent most of the time curled up on the floor in a ball, crying, desperate for my thoughts to leave me alone.

  Every time I closed my eyes I saw Jake’s face. It wasn’t his happy face, it was his face the last time I saw it when it was begging me not to leave him.

  I couldn’t make it go away. I could see the blood, pouring out of his leg, and the life pouring out of him.