Broken Ever After

by Natalie Graham

  “Ok, ok, I’ll sit still.” I got a big blob of sticky stuff and turned Uncle Austin in to Tintin.

  “You look funny!” I giggled, happy with his new hair. Mummy came home and saw us laughing.

  “What’s so funny? Austin, what the hell did you do to your hair?”

  “Mummy! I made Unca Austin look like Tintin!” I took the comit to her with my sticky fingers. “See?” She started laughing at Uncle Austin too.

  “Oh I see! Well, you go wash your hands and I’ll start your dinner ok?”

  “But I just had a sandwich. With peanuts and butter!”

  “Oh you did, did you? Austin what have I told you about giving her peanuts? She’s only two! What would you do if she was allergic to them?” Mummy shouted at him. Oops, it was sposed to be a secret.

  A black haze descended around me again, then there was another voice in the darkness.

  “Hey, beautiful, I came back to check on you. Please wake up, I can’t stand this.”

  Riley?

  It was quiet for a moment. He’d stopped talking; I tried to see around the darkness, but there was nothing. I could hear the push and pull of something… The ocean? In the middle of London? No, that wasn’t it, but I couldn’t place the sound. It was accompanied by a beeping noise, a car? My alarm clock? Maybe I should get up and switch it off. What time is it? Why can’t I move?

  “She’s not who you think she is.” Who isn’t? “It really did happen… No she never told me. I heard her screaming… I know they were about him… I know that. I really think you and Julie are wrong! I’m not doing it. Do whatever you want but you’ll have to get through me.” There was a loud thud. What is he not doing? Sounds started fading again leaving me in the darkness once more.

  The smell of pancakes filled my nostrils and I leaped out of bed leaving Ted on my pillow. ‘Big girls don’t need to carry their toys around all day’ is what mum told me. I walked downstairs to see Uncle Robert cooking; Aunt Julie wasn’t around so I got the orange juice from the fridge and placed it on the table. I went and gave Uncle Robert a cuddle around his waist. He jumped.

  “Oh hey, Cutie! I never heard you come down. Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes thanks.” I yawned as I got my stool so I could reach the cabinet that held the glasses. I got out three and placed them on the side.

  “We only need two, honey. Aunt Julie… isn’t here… she has erm, she’s gone out.” I looked at him to see his eyes were all red and puffy.

  “Are you ok Uncle Robert?”

  “I’m fine; can you get our plates too?” He doesn’t look ok. Where has Aunt Julie gone? I had heard them arguing again the night before.

  “Is she not coming back?” They were shouting about me again, I heard her saying my name. It’s my fault Uncle Robert is upset.

  “No honey, she’s not.” He sniffed as he flipped another pancake.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I asked as I got two plates from the cupboard too.

  “No, why would you think that?” He wiped his face with a tea towel before turning to me.

  “She always shouts and I sometimes hear her talk about me.”

  “Well she was just upset that we can’t have a beautiful little girl like you and she was sad that you always have to go home.”

  “I can stay forever if it makes her happy? And then you will be happy again too.” He came over and hugged me.

  “I’m ok as long as I’ve got my Ollie. Don’t worry about Julie or me, ok? Pancakes are ready.” He kissed my hair and faced me towards the table.

  “Yaaay!” I squealed as I jumped on to my chair.

  More darkness and the noise that I’d accepted as the ocean, surrounded me. I thought I could hear my mum but I wasn’t sure as the darkness swallowed me.

  I came to some trees through the darkness; I watched myself kneeling by the riverbank, beside a chocolate brown dog.

  “Hey Oscar, whatcha doin?” Uncle Robert was walking behind me; I grabbed a stick and ran off to follow Oscar.

  “Ollie.” He called after me.

  “What?” I yelled back to him, knowing exactly why he wanted me to go to him.

  “Come back!”

  “But Ozzy wants to play fetch.” I threw the stick and watched Oscar bound after it, then shuddered with fear as Robert whistled calling Oscar back to him.

  “Well Oscar is over here now so you can come and talk to me.” I walked over to him knowing that he didn’t want to ‘talk’. That sick feeling was in my stomach. NO! Run the other way! I urged my little self, my arm going across my stomach mirroring her pose.

  He made me sit in front of him placing my hands on my knees, threatening to tie them there if I so much as moved an inch. First his hand was in my t-shirt then down to my shorts. I didn’t like it, but he got upset with me when I tried to wiggle away, he’d hold me to him, it was just easier to sit and wait. Just watch the water, just watch the water! Was what I kept telling myself.

  From where I was stood, I could see him remove himself from his trousers. I was stuck; I couldn’t look away. The frightened little girl in front of him didn’t know what was happening. Don’t look, Liv! Don’t look! I called to her. Close your eyes! He’ll be gone soon, I promise! He’ll be gone for good! He’d learnt from the first time to remember a condom; he didn’t appreciate me throwing myself into the river to wash my hair.

  He grunted; he always did that before pushing me away. I got up and called Oscar as calmly as I could trying not to let the tears fall, but they did anyway. I took my headband off, throwing it into the river and let my long hair fall in my face so Uncle Robert couldn’t see me cry.

  “Hey baby, it’s me. Wake up for me, Angel, please. I need to see your eyes, please let me look at you. I’ve missed you so, so much.” I could feel Jamie’s warm breath by my ear. “I love you Olivia. Don’t just leave me talking, feeling like an idiot.” I tried to move but I couldn’t. I felt all heavy. “Liv? Oh my God, Olivia! Come on baby, open your eyes.” My eyes slowly opened, it was too bright; my eyes kept closing against the light. “Hey baby, I missed you.” I heard a click and it wasn’t so bright any more. Jamie leaned down and kissed my head.

  “You’re not an idiot.” I managed to get out through an extremely dry and sore throat. “You’re an arse.” He laughed, I tried to smile back at him but I don’t know if I managed it.

  “Yeah I am.” He leaned down and kissed me again.

  “Why does my throat hurt so much?”

  “You are in hospital. Do you remember what happened?” I looked around the room. Why the hell am I in hospital? “I’ll just get your parents and Austin, they’re outside.” Jamie peeked his head out of the door, then came back in and pressed the nurse call button. My eyes felt so heavy and closed again.

  “Hello, Sleeping Beauty.” My eyes fluttered open again to see a nurse walking around my bed. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?” It was Victoria, a nurse friend of my parents’; she was busying herself checking my vitals on the monitors whilst waiting for my answer.

  “My throat- is sore.” God, it felt like I’d swallowed razor blades, my voice was barely a whisper.

  “That’s from the breathing tube you had, sweetheart, I’ll fetch you some water and go page your doctor and parents, they just went for some coffee. It’s good to see you awake again.” She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and walked out again.

  “Why- you here?” I asked Jamie. I thought he’d be sleeping in the Thames by now.

  “You don’t want me here?” I sighed and slowly turned away from him, shooting pains flying through my body. Is he that much of an idiot? “I just heard that you were here and came straight up to see you.”

  “Doesn’t- explain- why.” I mumbled.

  “I was worried about you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you.” You should have thought about that before fucking someone else.

  “But… everything…”

  “That doesn’t matter just now; we’ll t
alk about it when you are feeling better.”

  I was back to crawling out of the darkness, I was in my bed at Uncle Robert’s again. He’d crawled in the bed behind me and was slowly pulling up my nightdress; his big hands running up my legs pulling them apart. I tried to keep them together but he was a lot stronger than I was.

  “No, no, no… Don’t! Please don’t.” I started to cry.

  “Olivia, wake up baby. Come on, wake up.”

  “Jamie?”

  “I’m here, baby, shh… It’s ok, you’re ok.” I tried to wrap my arms around Jamie but it hurt, I couldn’t stop crying.

  “Olivia, when did your nightmares come back?” Mum came to stand beside me at the other side of the bed. Where did she come from?

  “Her first was last Friday night; she has two or three a night.” Jamie said.

  “It’s been over a week? Why didn’t you tell me baby?”

  “It’s over a week? How long have I been here?” I struggled to sit up but Jamie pushed me back down onto the bed. “How long have I been here? What day is it?”

  “It’s Monday.”

  “Monday? Luke?” I remembered a voicemail telling me he’d appear in court on Monday morning.

  “He pleaded guilty, don’t worry.” Dad told me.

  A doctor appeared in the door way. “How’s my girl doing?” My dad’s friend, Dr Colin Murphy walked in the room.

  “Are this lot upsetting you? I can kick them all out if you like?” he winked at me as mum stood back to let him in. Jamie tried to pull away but despite the bandages over my hand, I kept a tight grip of his so he couldn’t. “How are you feeling?” Colin asked.

  “My throat and my head hurt a lot. My arms sting too and my hands.”

  “Your throat hurts from the tube we had to put in to help to breathe, you have a linear fracture just here.” He gently stroked over the bandage on my head. “You have a nasty bump I’m afraid but no permanent damage.” He handed me a glass of water which I gulped down quickly.

  “What, so no metal plates?” I gasped as I handed him back the empty glass.

  “You’re not cool enough for those.” He leaned over me to grab a cord attached to the drip. “This drip has Morphine in it, it’s a PCA pump so you can release a dose of it every twenty minutes if you need to, but you know it’s only if you really feel you need it ok? You will be locked out of it if you press it more than once in the twenty minutes.” I nodded; I knew how patient-controlled analgesia worked. “Good girl.” He passed me the call button for the nurse’s station and told me to call whenever I needed anything. “If you start feeling sick or dizzy then let us know. Try to have someone with you if you need to get up but for the minute I’d like you to stay here.”

  “Can I get up to go to the bathroom?”

  “No you have a catheter still-”

  I held my hand up for him to stop talking, I’d heard enough. “Urgh… Gross.” I felt disgusting and just wanted to get up for a shower.

  “Would everyone mind giving Olivia and I a minute alone please?” Colin asked.

  “Why?” I tightened my grip on Jamie’s hand.

  “I just want to talk about what happened. I thought you’d prefer to do that alone.”

  “It was a massive accident.” I could see that everyone visibly relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. “I was angry, I lost my temper and I bashed in my mirror; the whole thing came down on me. I tried to pull some of the glass out but I couldn’t see it very well, I went in the shower to wash it but still couldn’t see, I remember I screamed but no one came. There was so much blood; I don’t remember anything after that.”

  “You know you did yourself no favours trying to pull out all the glass, honey.” My dad said.

  “I know that, but I panicked. I’m sorry, I never meant for all of this to happen.” I began to cry. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid.

  Colin leaned over to kiss my head. “You need to sleep, sweetheart. We’ll look at getting you moved later on.”

  “Ok.” I sniffled as I lay back down and turned to face Jamie. “Thank you, Dr Murphy.” I called to him as he left the room. I held my hand back over to Jamie; he took it and sat beside me again. “Stay?” I whispered to him. I don’t know why I’d asked him that, but my head hurt too much to argue with myself over it.

  “Of course” We stared at each other for around half a minute before I closed my eyes to go back to sleep. I couldn’t though. I had so many questions running around my head. Where was Riley? Why wasn’t he here? Why the hell was Jamie here? Why did I want him to stay?

  I could hear mum whispering to Jamie. “John and I have some patients to check on, Austin has a meeting to get to and Lord knows where Riley has disappeared to. Is it ok with you if you stay with her? Give you some time with her if she wakes again?” Why are they so cool with him being here?

  “That’s ok, I want to stay.” Relief shot through me.

  “Thanks for being here… You’re so sweet with her.” God, really mum? Why is she not busting his balls? “She’ll listen eventually, she’s just stubborn.” I heard the door close, then silence.

  Jamie lifted my hand, pressing his lips gently against the bandage. “I’m not stubborn.” I whispered, feeling Jamie jump.

  “I thought you were sleeping.” I smiled weakly and opened my eyes to look at him.

  “I’m not tired and I need a shower or at least to brush my teeth. Do you know if anyone brought me a bag or anything?” I looked around the room but couldn’t see anything apart from cards and flowers.

  “You can’t get up, Angel, you know that. I don’t know if you have anything; I only came just before you woke, I’ll have a look.” Jamie started pulling things out of the cabinets, I saw my blue bag but didn’t recognise the one he looked in first; he gave it an odd look and put it back. “Got it.” He handed me my bag and I started pulling things from it. “I’ll fetch you some hot water.”

  “Thank you.” I whispered as he handed me a bowl of warm water and a cup filled with cold.

  “I’ll just go grab a coffee and give you a minute.” He passed me a towel and went to walk from the room but a phone started ringing on top of one of the cabinets.

  “That’s Riley’s phone.” Is he actually here? I looked around out of the window but still couldn’t see him.

  “It says Frank McIntosh is calling.” Jamie gave me an odd look to ask if I knew who it was.

  “That’s Frank from security. Answer it.” I told him.

  “Hello? Th-” Jamie listened as he was cut off from talking I presume. “You-” Jamie was cut off from talking again and Frank obviously hung up on him. “What the fuck?”

  “What’s wrong?” I was worried, from what I could hear Frank sounded pretty pissed off at Riley. Jamie looked worried which made me worry even more. What was going on?

  “Nothing. Where’s your phone?” he smiled at me but his clipped tone said he felt like doing anything but smile at me.

  “In my bag, why?” I pulled it out and switched it on.

  “Can I see it a minute? I just need Austin’s number.” He took out his own phone, which I noticed was different to the one he had a few days ago.

  “I’ve put my new number in for you.” He said as he handed my phone back to me.

  “Your new one?”

  “I err… had an accident with my other phone. I’ll just go grab my coffee and ring Austin and come right back.” I nodded.

  “Jamie?” I called him as he headed for the door. “I- I’m glad you’re here.” I felt awkward being so relieved that he was around.

  “Me too.” He smiled my smile at me. “I won’t be long.” Jamie closed the door gently behind him. I didn’t know how long he would be so I quickly set about washing all the areas I could with as little pain possible, I was adamant that I’d be out of this bed before the day ended so that I could take a shower. I inspected my bandages and re-arranged my hair from the mess it had been left in and put it in a neater bun. I was just re-packing my was
h things when the door was knocked lightly and opened.

  “You were qu-” I stopped talking when I noticed it wasn’t Jamie coming back in.

  “Shhh” Riley said as he peeked his head out of the door then locked it as he closed it, he pulled the blinds closed at the observation window and peeked out behind them checking for someone.

  “Riley, what are you doing? Where have you been?”

  “We need to get you out of here. Come on, get up.” He started pacing the floor at the foot of my bed with his hands clasped behind his head looking agitated or maybe anxious? I couldn’t tell. He kept glancing at his watch and back to the door.

  “What? Why? I can’t just get up, I’m all wired up!” I nodded at the IV sticking out of my hand and he groaned. He went to a cabinet at the other side of the room and grabbed handfuls of bandages, gloves, cotton balls and medical tape and shoved them all into a big black bag, the one that Jamie had pulled out just minutes before. He came over to my bed and grabbed my hand with the IV, took the tape off and gently pulled it out, holding a ball of cotton wool over the spot of blood.

  “What the hell are you doing? You can’t just do that! I need that in!”

  “Just be quiet.” His tone was clipped and angry and scared me. He put a fresh ball of cotton wool on my hand and a piece of tape over it to hold it down. “Come on, we need to move you before he comes back in!”

  “What? Who?” Before who comes in? I can’t just leave!

  “Jamie! He’s not who you think he is. Your Uncle Austin sent me back to get you now that you’re awake; we need to move you, Baby Doll, come on.”

  “But… I can’t! I can’t get off the bed! I have…” I pointed to the side of the bed indicating I still had a catheter in.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, lie down!”

  “You aren’t touching it!” I clamped my legs shut; there are just some things in life that guys you… like? Have sex with? Whatever… there are just some things in life that guys shouldn’t see or do!