Shuddering, I forced my mind back on Casper, on his sexy smirk, the taste of his skin, the feel of his tight muscles under my own as we lay together in bed. I couldn’t imagine my life without him.
“That sounds nice.”
The voice cut through the silence like a knife. My fingers stilled instantly. My heart stopped beating as I spun on the stool. Isabel stood at the top of the stairs, her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked tightly. The auditorium was a big yet basic place and the only exit was glimmering behind Isabel’s head. “Are you following me now?”
She huffed a small laugh and shook her head. “No. I actually came to say that I was sorry. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did or said the things I did.”
“No you shouldn’t have,” I replied tightly, my palms growing hot in my lap.
“I know,” she bowed her head and took a couple of hesitant steps down. “But I want to make it up to you … If you’ll let me?”
Sighing I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing. The white noise was threatening to drown even that out, but I strained every muscle to remain in control. “No I don’t think that’s a good idea. You and I are very different people Isabel. I can’t risk getting hurt again.”
“You getting hurt?” she snapped in shock. There was a hint of disgust in her voice. “Do you have any idea how it feels to tell the person who you … care about and not have them say it back?”
I thought back to all the times I’d ached to hear Casper say those words to me. Was I disappointed that he couldn’t? Of course; but I loved him more than anything. However, knowing that he still struggled to acknowledge his feelings out loud made a cold shiver run through me. In a way, I did know what it was like to some extent. Only I knew that Casper did love me whereas my feelings for Isabel had hit rock bottom the moment she’d kissed me. Flexing my shoulder, I glanced up at her. “I know how you feel, Isabel. That doesn’t mean you should get everything you want just because you feel hurt. That’s not how life works.”
“I’m not saying that!” she snapped as she stalked down the last few rows of chairs and stood in front of the stage. “You can’t just sit there and pretend I don’t exist, Avery!”
“Why not?” I murmured as I tried to ignore the anger swelling from the base of my skull.
“Because we’ve been best friends for years, you can’t just cut me out of your life!”
Rolling my eyes I turned away from the piano and stood up. I’d always towered over Isabel, but this was the first time I saw her see the threat in my height. “Why does any of this matter so much to you? You’ve been out with Ethan.”
“Only a couple of times!” she protested.
“So what? He’s a good guy and if you’re just stringing him along you’d better stop it. I’m not going to be interested in you Isabel so please just stop. It’s embarrassing.”
“Oh so now I embarrass you?” she sneered.
“No you’re embarrassing yourself.”
I needed to get out. I’d be safe in my room because at least then I could lock the door in her face. She could stand in the hallway and yell all she wanted, it didn’t change the fact that I could blast my music out loud and wait for Casper to come and glare at her until she scuttled off.
Taking the stairs down from the stage I made a bee-line for the exit. She wasn’t having any of it; she hurried over and yanked my arm back, causing me to stagger against the first row of chairs to steady myself. “Don’t you dare walk away from me Avery Fletcher!” she hissed, her long nails digging into my arm. This wasn’t the Isabel I’d grown to know over the last few years. The girl I’d respected was gone, replaced by this aggressive harpy and I had no way of knowing how to deal with her.
Tensing my arm I levelled my voice at her, “Let go of my arm Isabel.”
“Oh God, stop that!” she whined through clenched teeth. “Stop talking to me like I’m a silly little girl! I just. Want you. To LISTEN!”
“I have been listening, but so far you haven’t SAID anything!” I jerked my arm out of her grip, her nails cutting my skin. Hissing, I pressed my arm to my chest. It didn’t hurt like it was supposed to. Glancing down at my left arm I realised just how deep I’d been cut. So why wasn’t there more pain? My stomach dropped. Giving my elbow a pinch, I felt my muscle tense but nothing happened. Where was the pain?
The chairs started to warp and my legs felt like jelly. Bile rose up in my throat and my body started to perspire. I could smell it, the fear, tainting the air and letting her know I was reaching that level of vulnerability. My feet felt like iron weights as I tried to move up the aisle towards the exit.
“Jesus Christ, sit down before you hurt yourself!”
There was a tug on the back of my shirt, my foot slipped off the step and I felt myself hurtling backwards. The wind punched out of my lungs as my back hit the floor. There was a loud shriek and something giving way. When I loosened my fist, I vaguely made out a long strand of Isabel’s hair sticking to my palm. “You fucker!”
Shaking her hair off, I shifted upright and tried to focus, but my skull was throbbing like I’d been hit over the head with something heavy. Where was that ringing coming from? The panic set in. Scrambling back on my hands and knees I moved as far away as I could until I was up on the stage my back pressed against the piano stool. Isabel didn’t try to follow.
The noise was becoming too much. The buzzing, the throbbing, everything was making my heart drum noisily through the din. It was beating too fast; every vein felt like it was hooked to a car battery. I pressed my hands flat over my ears. I began to pant in a desperate attempt to breathe. All I could hear was the roar of my blood.
‘Be normal, you can do it! Just like you practiced. Breathe … Two … Three! In and out, come on it’s not so hard!’
Try as I might it wasn’t working. The panic gripped my throat and I choked, saliva bubbling down my chin, dripping between my knees. Why had I left the nurses office? Why had I persuaded Camilla to let me go? Why wasn’t I with her now, crying into her white pillows taking some paracetamol to kill the inferno in my head? In the distance there were muffled voices, an argument perhaps? Something thumped down close by and then the spasms started. Hyperventilating, I lurched and found myself latching onto someone, desperately trying to breathe.
“Hey, hey, hey now it’s alright. I’m here, it’s okay.”
The voice was calming and the hand rubbing circles in my back was soothing. It broke through the awful din and my mind stuttered, focusing on the sensation of being touched. Choking back on loud sobs, I just about made out a familiar face through the tears.
Casper.
Relief slammed against me like a wall as I broke down in his arms, the raw screams erupting from my throat. I clung onto his shirt, stitches popping, as he cradled me.
Whimpering I realised I was dripping tears and snot onto Casper’s jeans. I tried to pull away but he held me fast, his hand never ceasing its soothing caress on my back. My breathing was calming a little, my chest didn’t ache and my body didn’t spasm as much.
Casper’s hands cupped my cheeks and titled my head up. Despite the dim lights I squinted up at him, tears running down my face. He wiped them away and looked into my eyes, “Avery, focus on my breathing okay?” I did as I was told.
In … Out … In … Out … I was doing it!
Closing my eyes I tried not to tremble too much as I focused on the action alone. My lungs were no longer screaming for oxygen. “We need to get you to Camilla. She won’t be pleased about this but there’s not much we can do about that.”
‘Good,’ I thought tiredly, ‘Camilla will make me better.’
“Can you stand up?” Casper asked his hands on my shoulders were firm. I said nothing. “Alright, one arm around my neck and put the other on the stool for balance, okay?”
Nodding I obeyed, my damp palm slipping on the leather seat as I struggled to my feet. My knees were still
wobbly and buckled at least once as I straightened my back, bracing myself on the piano keys. They gave a long, dull ‘twang’. I clenched my eyes shut. The sweating was starting up again.
“Is he alright?” Isabel’s asked.
“SHUT UP!” My voice was loud, raw and like that of a hellish hound. I didn’t want to hear her. I didn’t even want to be in the same room as her. She was the cause of all of this. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d done this. “JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIFE!”
“I was trying to show concern!” she glowered from where she stood at the edge of the stage.
“JUST STOP TALKING!” My voice was getting shrill. My hands pressed down over my ears and I shook my head, trying to block out her voice, her words, everything about her that drove me insane.
“Avery –”
“God you just won’t listen will you?!” I snapped. I looked at her through my raging eyes and felt something inside me snap. She was the reason I struggled to find someone to love, she was the reason I second-guessed myself, it was always about her, her, her!
I shoved past Casper and grabbed the piano stool. With a burst of adrenaline, I crashed it down onto the stage. Wood splintered and creaked but it didn’t break. Slamming it down again and again, I made enough noise to drown them all out. My skull was burning from the inside out, but I didn’t care! I just needed to stop her from talking! The wood finally cracked enough that two of the legs swung free.
“Avery stop!” Casper snapped.
For a moment I almost did as he asked. Almost. The adrenaline was burning through me, igniting the hatred that had been stewing for weeks. It took a few stamps of my foot to wrench a leg free before wielding it like a baton and turning to face Isabel. Finally! There was genuine fear in her eyes. She didn’t know the full story of what had happened over Christmas, so there was no way for her to know just how close I had come to hurting Katie. However, this was different now; I loved Katie, whereas Isabel might as well have been a stranger to me. She was nothing, I felt nothing, she was merely a face in a crowd.
“You’re gonna love this,” I hissed at her as I took a step closer and raised the leg. Her eyes widened as she backed away. A weight dragged my elbow down and I lost my footing. She screamed.
Crashing to the floor I felt battered and bruised as the wind was knocked out of me for the second time. The stool leg wasn’t in my hands anymore; it had skittered off to the side. Rolling onto my back I stared up at the ceiling. The mania that had bubbled inside me was subsiding. It felt as though I’d torn my muscles. My skin was sticky. My mind was frazzled. I rolled onto my side to see what Isabel was whimpering about.
That’s when I noticed the blood; it was only a little bit at first. I didn’t even realise I was staring at Casper’s shirt until I caught sight of his profile. His head was turned from me, his body unnaturally still, blood running down in thin, spidery lines from his forehead. The world around me disappeared as I dragged my body over to his. Why wasn’t he moving? I tried to stay still for a moment to see if his chest was moving, but I was shaking all over. I felt sick. Forcing my arm under me I leaned up and looked down at his face. My cry rang in my ears. His face was pale and damp. The blood was slowly trickling from a wide gash on his temple. What had happened? I glanced own at my stinging palm and then over at the broken stool.
Had I …? No, God please don’t tell me I did it! Choking down bile, I looked down at my hands, shaking and dotted with blood. Was that mine or his?
“God no!” I rasped out as I reached out with trembling fingers and stroked his fringe aside. How badly hurt was he? He wasn’t moving. I didn’t know what to do. For once my mind was completely blank.
Wait … Isabel!
Twisting to look over my shoulder I yelled, “Call an ambulance! He needs help!” She stood there, looking at me with an unreadable expression. “For God’s sake woman just be useful and get help! PLEASE!”
I didn’t hear her scramble around. I was too focused on Casper. Crawling over to him, I adjusted my position so that I had his head against my chest. Hot tears rained down my cheeks and snot dripped over my chin but I didn’t care. He wasn’t awake to see me. What if he never woke up?
“STOP IT!” I snapped at myself. He needed to wake up. He had to wake up. I pressed a kiss to his forehead, my mouth trembling over his cool skin, blood smearing against my lips. My body was shaking again as the shock consumed me. “Please wake up,” I wept, my voice latching. I clutched him tighter. “Casper, please, doesn’t do this. You have to wake up. Please, Casper, please wake up!” He didn’t respond. His breathing was ragged in my ears as I fisted his shirt over his heart. It was still beating.
But for how long?
Chapter Thirty-Three
They wouldn’t let me see Casper. I rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital but I think that was mostly due to the fact that they didn’t know what to make of the situation. The siren had been loud as we’d rushed through the streets. It felt like my eardrums were going to split. Both our parents had been called by the time they hurried Casper into his own room with an IV drip wheeled alongside him. Camilla had been called.
It had taken them quite a while to get information out of me as I’d paced back and forth in a sterile room, tearing out chunks of my hair and cursing at them to let me see Casper. They wouldn’t even tell me if he was alright and responding well. I wasn’t a family member, and only family members were allowed to see him or know information. Thinking of his family made my blood run cold. There was no way they would let Casper and I be together after what I had done. I didn’t know if Isabel had given a statement of what happened, but I knew that she’d twist it all to make her look like the victim.
I don’t know how long I was in there, forced to eat, take my pills and stuck with numerous needles to ‘calm me down’. It was such a loud of crap. I’d feel calmer if they just told me how the fuck Casper was, but they left me to stew in the pit of my mind.
It was on the eighth day that Camilla came to visit me. My parents wouldn’t be coming down until the weekend. Apparently my being hospitalized wasn’t worth ditching work according to Katie. Frankly, I didn’t care if they never came at all. I was just glad she’d made sure that I was alive at the very least. For all I knew my parents wouldn’t even turn up. Suffice to say, I was not disappointed.
A knock on the door drew me out of my morning musings. I turned away from the large window. The car park had lost my interest anyway. Camilla smiled tightly from the doorway before edging inside and closing the door behind her. She looked so much nicer out of her work clothes; she looked softer, more nurturing. “How’ve you been doing?” she asked as she walked on over and wrapped an arm around me.
“Pacing a hole through the floor,” I murmured against her shoulder as I hugged her back. “Katie called last night; told me that she wouldn’t be coming down until my parents can be bothered.”
She frowned disapprovingly, “Even when her own son is in the hospital your mother can’t be bothered with you? And here I was thinking I couldn’t hate her any more than I do.”
Shrugging stiffly I went over to a chair beside my bed and slumped into it. “If Katie was old enough to drive she’d be here at least.”
Sitting opposite me she was silent for a few moments before saying, “That’s not what you really want to talk about is it?” I looked up at her and shook my head. I didn’t even need to say anything for the sympathetic look in her eyes. “Well I have been to see him.”
My ears perked up. “Casper?” I rasped softly, “How is he?”
“Alive, awake and making every nurse and doctor suffer for keeping him away from visiting you.”
“Dr Malcolm said I’m not allowed visitors until she’s convinced I’m not a danger to him.”
“Then what am I doing here?” she gave a cheeky smile. My heart thumped in my chest. If Camilla was allowed to see me –did that mean I was allowed visitors aside from her? “Although whether or not they’d let you an
d Casper in the same room is another story.” All at once my hope deflated like a balloon in the desert. “However, I have seen his parents and they’re both pretty shaken up. It took a while for them to understand that it was Isabel you were going for and not Casper.”
Letting out a loud groan I dropped my head in my hands, “God, so he told you about that?”
“No,” Camilla shook her head, “He told the police officer that. He needed to give a statement.”
“Then why haven’t the police come to see me?”
“You said so yourself, unless your doctor is convinced you won’t be a threat to anyone you won’t be having visitors.”
“I’m assuming they only really let you in because you’re a nurse too.”
She nodded, her dark curls bouncing as she moved. I’d rarely seen her without her hair in its natural style. It looked nice. “I think that Casper’s dad –what was his name? Martin? –I think he wants to speak to you. I’d lie and say it won’t be bad, but he’s got about as much expression as a brick wall.”
“Well the last time his dad and I had a talk it was full of the ‘protective dad’ vibe. Something tells me he’ll be less than kind this time around.”
“Well if it’s any consolation, your uncle is out there talking his ear off.”
I jerked upright in the chair. Brian was here? My uncle had driven all the way from Brighton just to see if I was alright? I felt my eyes burn with tears. Cuffing my eyes, I felt my body tremble a little. “So … they’re all out there right now?”
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