by Annie O'Neil
‘Tell yourself whatever you want, Jayne. But she didn’t ask you here to be her doctor.’
She shook her head. ‘Of course she did. We all know I’ve barely been home over the past seven years. I hardly knew her kids before now. I’ve failed her. I’ve not been a good friend to her. To any of you.’
As refreshing as it was to hear her being so honest, she was really missing the point. Hadn’t she yet realised that true friendship had a way of skipping over the glitches in times of trouble?
‘Good? Bad? Doesn’t matter now, Jayne. You’re the friend she wanted with her. And you delivered. You’ve been here for her.’
He put his arm round her shoulders again and led her towards the waiting room. It was directly across from a handful of smaller, quieter rooms. The rooms where they delivered the news no one wanted to hear.
When they reached the chairs she shook his arm off her shoulders. ‘Sorry, I just—’
She didn’t sound apologetic. He got it. She was reliving bad memories. Falling back into old habits. But he wasn’t about to let her dive back into that rabbit hole again. Not after the huge strides they’d made.
‘I know you’re hurting. That you want a chance to fix something. But this isn’t work and it definitely isn’t the past.’ He took her face in his hands and looked her straight in the eye. ‘This is family, Jayne. Right here and now. And family stick together. Especially when times are tough.’
He stopped her when she started to protest.
‘She called you because she was scared—and having you here helped reduce that fear. You are not the person who should be in there delivering those babies. You are the person who should be out here, praying and hoping and doing everything else a friend who loves someone does at times like these.’
It was tough love at its cruellest.
He knew she’d been in a waiting room much like this before. Hoping. Praying. Covered in blood just as she was now.
This was a make-or-break moment for her. One he was going to have to stand back and watch even if it pulled his heart straight out of his chest.
She could either choose love, family...him...and all the messy joy that came along with that, or go back to the treadmill in London. Fixing and fixing and fixing tiny little hearts and hoping that one day it would heal the wounds she was so obviously still nursing.
As the seconds ticked past, and her eyes flicked again and again to the wide surgical doors, Sam realised that the foundations of friendship and healing they’d built over the summer would either come true...or she’d run again. Run as if her life depended on it.
Jayne’s lower lip had begun to quiver. She was visibly fighting the emotion, swiping at non-existent tears. There was a battle raging between her heart and head and he had no idea which was winning.
She blew out a shaky breath, and in the most frightened voice he’d ever heard from her asked, ‘Do you think she’ll be okay?’
It was an awful thing to admit, but Sam didn’t know. She was asking him for moral support, not false assurances, but... By God, he would have given anything in the world to say yes.
This was one of those awful cases where medicine and nature were fighting one another. It was a race against time. For Maggie. For the babies.
It might be that there would be three coffins at a funeral.
It might be that there would be one hell of a christening party.
Only time would tell.
As they sat, silently waiting, he tried to put himself in Jayne’s shoes. Imagine what it must have been like that day all those years ago, sitting and waiting, covered in bloodstains as she was now.
Though Jules had been declared brain-dead at the scene they had still brought her in. Triple-checked that there wasn’t the slightest hint of neurological activity.
Jayne had sat in a chair like this. Hoping and praying. She’d seen doctors appear, fresh from the operating theatre, sombre expressions on their faces, asking her parents to come into one of those quiet rooms. She’d heard their wails. Their cries of despair. Their pain.
Something he hadn’t remembered for years suddenly pinged to the fore. It was hardly the silver lining they were looking for, but he thought it was something worth remembering.
He enclosed her hand with his, rubbing the back of her palm with his thumb. She didn’t try to yank it away, so even though she wasn’t looking at him, he knew she was listening.
‘You know, I don’t know if this is any solace to you, but when I think back to Jules and you and me, and all the things that went wrong after she died, I try to remind myself of the good that came from that day.’
‘What are you talking about?’
There was a coldness in her tone that scared him, but he persisted. ‘The lives Jules saved.’
‘Again.’ She tugged her hands free and balled them into fists on her lap. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Jayne, c’mon... You remember. The organ donations.’
‘What?’ She looked at him as though he was telling her a story about aliens taking over the village, not recounting actual facts.
‘You must remember. The only reason your sister lived as long as she did...the reason she was able to become an organ donor...was because of you.’
Jayne’s look of disbelief had never been more complete. ‘No, it wasn’t. The reason she died was because of me.’
Now it was his turn to be confused. ‘What are you talking about? You two were out riding your bikes. It wasn’t your fault that sports car came by when it did.’
Jayne looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘It was my fault that she was there when it did.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he repeated.
The words came tumbling out. ‘She came home to celebrate our engagement. You know Jules... She couldn’t do it in any ordinary way. A huge hug and a kiss weren’t enough. She wanted to do something. So I suggested we race our bikes down to the pub. The winner had to buy the other a glass of fizz...’
Sam’s stomach turned. He knew which way this was going.
‘She wanted to race. I didn’t. So I was dawdling. I was frustrating her. Which always made her want to go faster. She said she wanted to feel the wind in her hair so she took off her helmet. Threw it in a hedge. It took me a minute to pick it up and then I couldn’t catch her. I tried so hard but I couldn’t catch up.’
Sam felt his skin go clammy as the information sucked the oxygen from his lungs. Jayne held herself responsible for her sister’s death. If Jules hadn’t come home to celebrate their engagement...
Hell. What a load to bear.
Losing someone you loved was hard enough. But feeling responsible for it in the wake of what should have been the happiest time of your life... How did a person crawl out from beneath that sort of guilt?
She had to be made to see it from a new perspective. It was the only way she could allow herself to live again.
Jayne wasn’t guilty of Jules’s death. If the logic she was using applied it would mean he was complicit too. If he hadn’t proposed...
Oh, God. Had she been trying to protect him from owning any of the guilt by heaping it all upon herself? But if that sort of logic worked it would be never-ending. Everyone would end up being involved.
If they hadn’t been at the same school... If her parents hadn’t moved to Whitticombe... If his parents hadn’t adopted him...
No. Life didn’t work like that. Jules had been an adrenaline junkie and that car had been speeding.
Plain as.
There was no way he was going to let her carry this on her own any more.
‘Jayne—you created life that day...you did not destroy it. You did CPR. Kept the blood pumping through Jules’s heart. To all her organs. That was why she was able to be an organ donor. You saved at least three other lives that day.’
‘It doesn’t matter how many lives were saved that day!’ She looked up to the ceiling, dragged her fingers through her dark hair and shook her head. ‘Urgh. I don’t mean that. Of course I don’t. What I mean is, I destroyed the one life that mattered to my family. To me.’
She may as well have stabbed him in the heart. The one life that had mattered?
Again, life didn’t work like that. His father was a case in point. His world had completely revolved around Sam’s mum...but had her death stopped him from living life? For a while. Yes. But not for ever. Grief slashed wounds into souls. But souls and hearts healed. The scars made them stronger. More resilient. Capable of a fiercer and more determined love.
Jayne had obviously never let those wounds heal.
Her blue eyes were savage with grief. A grief he was powerless to salve. Forgiving herself was the only way she could move on from this. Just as he suspected he was going to have to forgive himself for putting his heart on the line again with her.
He didn’t just ‘feel deeply’ for her. He knew that now. He loved her. He wanted to be with her. But there was no chance of that love flourishing if she was going to prioritise her baseless guilt over their battling life’s tougher moments together. So it was time for him to start asking the questions he’d been afraid to ask all those years ago.
‘Is this why you gave my ring back?’
She nodded in the affirmative. ‘I didn’t want you to be burdened with someone who’d done something so awful. I know. I know. It wasn’t fair on you. But I wasn’t exactly seeing things straight, and once I got back to London...’
She sighed heavily as memories weighted her to the chair.
‘I guess I stopped seeing everything from my point of view and only saw it from hers. The clubs she would never go to. The nights out she wouldn’t have. The surgeries she would never complete. It reached a point where I couldn’t bear knowing her dreams were going to go totally unfulfilled.’
‘So that’s why you stayed in London?’
She nodded. ‘I know. It’s horrible. And it was cruel to you because I loved you so much. But...’
Her eyes jumped to the surgical suite. A sickening feeling swept through him. The gesture spoke volumes.
Jayne had changed track on her medical studies because she had been following Jules’s dream. No wonder she’d fallen to bits when Stella had rejected the donor heart. It hadn’t been just a surgery gone wrong. It had been much bigger than that. She’d failed at making her sister’s dreams come true.
A sour taste ripped through him. The bitter taste of finality. Whatever happened with Maggie and the twins would make or break her. Make or break them.
He could walk away now. Admit defeat. Or he could hold his ground and stay true to his conviction that they belonged together. Either way, no one—not even the girl who might break his heart twice—deserved to carry that much grief around with her.
‘Jay, listen.’ He waited until she met his eyes. ‘You are not to blame for Jules’s death. Just as you aren’t to blame for what is happening today. A speeding driver killed Jules. And that man is living with the consequences of his actions at this very moment. The last person who should be taking the blame is you. It is not your fault.’
She shook her head. ‘No. You’re wrong. If I hadn’t called her she wouldn’t even have been in Whitticombe. She’d wanted to go rock-climbing that weekend but she cancelled it.’
‘Rock-climbing?’
‘Yeah. If she’d gone rock-climbing instead she’d be here right now.’
Seriously?
Jayne was spiralling. Not seeing the wood for the trees. Jules had always courted danger. As awful a thought as it was, if it hadn’t been the cycling it might’ve been the rock climbing. Or the abseiling...or old age. They’d never know. What he did know was Jayne was going to have to find a way to stop blaming herself for Jules’s death.
‘Do your parents know you feel this way?’
Her shoulders moved up to her ears and then dropped heavily. ‘We haven’t ever really talked about it. They were so... I don’t know...’ She drew in a jagged breath. ‘My mum specifically asked me to look after her. They knew she was a daredevil. They knew she needed looking after and I didn’t do it.’
‘Have you asked them if they blame you?’
Tears glazed her eyes as she shook her head. ‘Let’s just say actions speak louder than words.’
She didn’t have to explain. Jayne’s parents had never really been the touchy-feely type, and after the accident they’d kept to themselves more than ever. Even hired someone to run their art gallery so they wouldn’t have to.
No wonder Jayne was afraid to speak to them.
All her life her mother had appointed her as Jules’s wingman. The one person who would keep her safe. Hence the surgical career. And now even that had let her down. And little wonder. As much as Sam knew that Jayne loved medicine, the destiny she was trying to fulfil wasn’t hers. How could she be truly happy if she spent the rest of her life trying to make her sister’s dreams come true at the expense of her own?
But what did a man say to the girl of his dreams when all this truth came tumbling out?
He did the only thing he could think of. He reached out and held her hand.
* * *
Jayne shifted in the increasingly uncomfortable chair. It felt as if days had passed since they’d arrived at the hospital, but it had only been an hour. Maybe two. Still too long for the news they were waiting for to be good.
She tried Sam’s method of hunting for a silver lining.
They were in the right place.
Nate was on his way.
Sam’s dad had rung to say the base in the Middle East had put him on a helicopter to the nearest airbase and he would be back in the UK as soon as humanly possible. The Royal Air Force was pretty dependable on that front.
‘Through adversity to the stars’ was their motto. Through adversity to Oxford would do for today. If the heavens shone down on Maggie and her family it would show that the stars—maybe even Stella and Jules—had been playing their part, too.
She should go and get coffee. Or biscuits. Something. Make a show of thanking Sam for not bolting when she’d poured out her blackest thoughts to him. For reaching out and holding her hand when she’d needed it most.
As good as it had felt, there was still a parent-sized hole in her heart. Until she spoke to them as honestly as she’d spoken to Sam she wasn’t sure she could begin the journey of grieving and forgiveness she so longed for.
‘Hey...’ She gently nudged Sam, who was staring blindly at a two-years-old magazine. She knew he wasn’t actually reading it because he had yet to turn the page and they’d been here for two hours.
He looked up at her, his eyes impossible to read. She tried not to react. They were both going through the emotional wringer right now.
‘I’m going for a walk.’
He nodded. Unsurprised. Didn’t meet her eye. ‘I’ll call you if anyone comes out.’
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Thanks.’
He flashed her a quick smile, then went back to staring at his magazine.
As she wandered the corridors no matter how hard she tried to clear her head her thoughts kept circling back to Sam. He was such a good man. When she’d poured out her story to him he hadn’t recoiled. Or judged. He’d done what she had always hoped he would do, but had been too frightened to find out.
He’d soothed her. Assured her she’d done the best she could in an impossible situation. He had been awfully quiet since then, though. Something had shifted in him now that he knew the whole story. She saw it in his eyes. Felt it in the change of his demeanour.
The truth hit her hard and fast.
She’d chosen her grief over Sam. Over a life with Sam. Maybe it was even deeper than that. She’d chosen grief over life.
&nb
sp; Sure. She was a top-rated surgeon because of it. She saved lives. But the one place...the one heart that mattered the most...she’d left behind.
Of course Sam wouldn’t meet her eye. By revealing her secret—the most important secret of all—she’d shattered the fragile trust they’d been building together over the past few weeks.
He’d all but handed his heart to her on a plate. And she hadn’t reciprocated even when she knew damn well she loved him with every cell in her body. She’d been too afraid to burden him with the guilt she’d never wanted him to own.
She’d held too much too close.
Was it too late to put things back together again? Being here, waiting on a knife’s edge for news of Maggie and the babies, had pulled everything into crystal-clear focus. She had to confront the truth that had been staring her in the face for years.
She couldn’t live Jules’s life for her. Jules was gone. Unless she lived her own life she would never be happy. And the life she wanted included Sam. It included Maggie. It included Whitticombe and all the bunting and the sunflowers and the village fetes and everything else that came with it. Namely...her parents. The two people who had taken Jules’s death every bit as hard as she had.
She pulled to a halt outside the maternity unit window. That same spot she regularly found herself at in the London Merryweather when she needed to give her heart a bit of a boost.
She needed to see her parents. The things they had to talk about were far too big for a phone call.
A list of priorities snapped out in front of her with military precision.
Be here to see Maggie and the babies come out of surgery.
Ensure Nate was by her best friend’s side.
Give in her notice at the London Merryweather.
She still wanted to be a surgeon. But she also wanted a life outside of the hospital. The London Merryweather had been Jules’s jewel in the crown. It didn’t have to be Jayne’s.
Yes. She’d do that, then get on a plane to Scotland.
Until she made her peace with her parents she would be unable to give herself completely to Sam. It was possible she wouldn’t get any resolution from them, but until she tried she couldn’t give her entire heart to Sam.