Forgetting You

by Casey, L. A.

  “I can’t believe this.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “Two hundred quid for two lessons a week for four weeks.”

  “Oh my God.” Noah covered her mouth with her hand. “Four weeks? You’re mental.”

  I was beginning to think I was.

  “I thought this was what you wanted.”

  Noah lowered her hand to her side. “I know. That’s why you’re getting lucky tonight.”

  My mood instantly brightened.

  “Vomit.” Bailey lowered her phone. “I’m gonna projectile vomit if this conversation continues.”

  Noah blushed and nudged my sister. “Trickster.”

  “It was a good one though, wasn’t it?” Bailey beamed, certainly pleased with herself. “I didn’t think he’d believe me. I’ve kept a straight face about it for weeks, Nono. Weeks.”

  “Witch,” I growled at her.

  Unbothered, Bailey bounced towards the entrance of the studio. “Let’s go, ladies! Class starts soon.”

  Noah was clearly interested, because she hurried after Bailey while I dragged my feet wishing for the day to be over so I could get my hands on Noah and then go to sleep. I was tired of women and it was only three in the afternoon. The day rapidly went from bad to fucking worse. I couldn’t do the simplest of steps because they weren’t fucking simple at all; it was rocket science in the form of dance and I hated it.

  Noah was thoroughly enjoying it, and every time I messed up, Bailey cracked up as she watched from the side of the room. She had recorded so many of my fuck-ups that I warned her I’d break her phone if she didn’t put it away. She was on her feet and was copying what the woman was doing with her hips, rolling them from side to side.

  “Salsa, Elliot.” She shimmied her shoulders. “Let’s salsa.”

  I glowered at her, but couldn’t stop my lips from twitching when Noah laughed.

  “I swear,” I growled. “I’ll get ye back for this, baby.”

  Bailey clapped her hands together. “I can’t wait.”

  Looking from her to Noah, I grumbled, “She always has to get the last fuckin’ word.”

  My girlfriend wiggled her eyebrows. “Let’s salsa.”

  I groaned as Noah laughed and got us back into our starting position. I was a truly horrible dancer – even the instructor told me that to my face halfway through the class, and I was certain she was meant to keep comments like that to herself for the amount of money I was paying her.

  “Sorry,” I said for the tenth time as I stepped on Noah’s foot. “I’m so fuckin’ bad at this.”

  “Stop concentrating on your feet and focus on rolling your hips. Your feet will follow.”

  “The only thing I know how to do good and well with my hips is thrust back and forward. I never learned how to roll anything other than a blunt.”

  Noah tipped her head back and laughed, and that was it – that was the moment we lost our balance.

  One second we were dancing, or trying to dance, the next I was running through the doors of the ER with Bailey hot on my heels, as Noah was wheeled in ahead of us on a trolley with her foot twisted at an unnatural angle. It was broken, I knew it from the second I saw it. My sister was sobbing and had been since the moment I tripped Noah up and we both fell to the ground and she’d heard that godawful crunch.

  I jumped when Noah screamed.

  “Deep inhales,” the paramedic said as he held the tube for the gas back up to her mouth. “Nice, big inhales, Noah.”

  She listened to him as she was wheeled into a cubicle at the back of the ER. Bailey gripped my hand tightly as we hovered outside the now-closed curtain. I knew each patient was only allowed to have one visitor in the ER, but I wasn’t leaving my sister outside on her own so I avoided a few of the nurses’ gazes and hugged Bailey to me. She was so short that the top of her head stopped at my chest.

  I’d had to leave Noah to go in the ambulance on her own so I could drive my car to the hospital, and Bailey was too terrified to go with her.

  “Stop cryin’,” I’d told her as they put Noah in the ambulance. “She’ll be okay.”

  “Stop doing that!” Noah moaned. “Oh! I sound like a man . . . why do I sound like a man?”

  Bailey had looked up at me, her blue eyes wide with worry.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “It’s the gas,” I answered. “It’s numbin’ the pain, but it’s makin’ her all loopy. It’s normal.”

  Now, the paramedics completed their handover of Noah to the care of the hospital, and once they left the cubicle with their gear, Bailey and I hustled inside. Noah was waving her hand in front of her face and staring at it with non-blinking eyes.

  “This is insane,” she shouted. “I’ve got seventy-four fucking fingers!”

  One of the nurses snorted as she cleaned one of Noah’s arms and inserted an IV line. Noah didn’t flinch, she didn’t even notice what the nurse was doing. I was glad of it; she wasn’t the best when it came to needles.

  “Noah,” Bailey said tentatively, her arms still tight around me. “Are ye okay?”

  Noah was too wrapped up in her imaginary seventy-four fingers to pay my sister any attention.

  “I’m sorry.” Bailey rubbed her eyes. “Noah, I’m so sorry.”

  Noah looked at her and grinned. “What for? I’m having a great time. I love you, baby.”

  She was so stoned.

  “I love ye too,” my sister said, trying not to laugh as she sniffled.

  I rubbed my hand up and down Bailey’s back and looked at Noah’s leg. Once I looked at it, I couldn’t look away. Her foot was kind of twisted upwards, and it almost made me gag. Her shoe had been cut off back at the dance studio, and a brace of some sort was around her leg and foot to protect it. I didn’t know what further damage had been done, but it looked like her leg was fucked.

  I straightened when a doctor entered the cubicle followed by two nurses.

  “We’ll be resetting the foot and taking her for an X-ray to assess the damage. We’ll be giving her a local . . . the gas won’t be sufficient during this process.”

  Bailey began to sob as Noah began to sing after she sucked in some more gas.

  “I have the X factor,” she announced. “Where’s Simon Cowell when you need him?”

  She was a terrible singer.

  Bailey and I had to wait outside while Noah was given a local anaesthetic and her foot was reset. I walked Bailey down the hall just so neither of us would hear the noises her leg might make. I could still hear the crunch of the initial injury and it made me feel sick.

  We were sitting back in the cubicle an hour later. Noah’s foot was reset with a cast plastered on her lower leg. She had inhaled so much gas that she was in and out of consciousness, and when she was awake, she was high as hell from the morphine she was given. She said a lot of weird shit.

  A lot.

  I looked down at Bailey and glared for the hundredth time when Noah groaned a little in pain as she woke up from another little slumber. My sister turned her eyes to me and sighed. “I said I was sorry . . . How was I supposed to know that this day would end with Noah in the hospital with a broken foot?”

  “Ye should’ve guessed what would happen when ye made me dance.”

  Bailey bit her lower lip. “Da did always say ye were a weapon on the dance floor.”

  I raised my hand, pretending I was going to whack her, and she laughed and ducked against me. She put her arms around my waist and hugged me. She was tense until I rested my arm around her shoulders.

  “You’re both so cute,” Noah said from her bed. “My likkle wikkle babies.”

  “Oh God,” I grumbled. “Go back to sleep, love. Ye need your rest, okay?”

  “Why would I sleep when I feel this powerful?” She suddenly sat up. “Look at my muscles, paddy. Look at them!”

  Bailey laughed as Noah flexed her thin, not-a-single-muscle-in-sight arms. I got to my feet, approached her, and eased her back until she was lying down once again. Her hand
s gripped on to my biceps and she waggled her eyebrows.

  “Look at your muscles,” she purred. Literally. Like a damn cat. “You’re so sexy, take off your top so I can see you.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Bailey whispered. “She’s gone mad.”

  “She’s medicated, not mad.”

  Noah was in the middle of rubbing her hands over my arms, chest and stomach. I had to angle away from her to keep her from reaching lower. I was about to distract her with a chaste kiss when the doctor who’d reset her foot entered the cubicle.

  “Sorry for the delay,” he said. “We had a resus.”

  “No worries, we’re not goin’ anywhere.”

  “Elliot,” Noah suddenly shouted. “Let’s have wild, dirty sex!”

  “Oh my God.”

  I mentally echoed Bailey’s whisper.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologised to the doctor. “She’s high as a kite.”

  The doctor looked like he needed the laugh as he waved his hand.

  “Better this than her in pain.”

  I agreed with a smile. He took out an X-ray image from the folder in his hand and held it up in the air.

  “Ah, fuck,” I grumbled. “She’s gonna need surgery, isn’t she?”

  I could clearly see the fracture in her leg.

  “Unfortunately, yes. She’ll need internal fixation,” the doctor said. “Which is a fancy way of saying bone fracture repair.”

  Damn.

  I scratched my neck. “Surgery is the only option?”

  Noah’s hands were back on my stomach, now under my T-shirt, and I left her to poke at my abs and count them out loud to keep her from shouting and causing a scene. Bailey was mortified on her behalf – one look at my sister showed her covering her face with her hands.

  “In her case, yes.” The doctor nodded as he pointed at the X-ray. “The fracture is quite severe. Her foot is fine, it’s actually the bones in her leg she fractured. She has two: one here on the tibia and another here on her fibula. She’ll need the aid of some screws, pins and likely a plate to get everything back in working order. The surgery is pretty straightforward; it can take between three and six hours. She’ll have a boot cast on when she comes out of surgery, and she’ll be able to go home in two days if everything goes well. But she’ll be off her feet for six to eight weeks and she’ll have to attend physio.”

  I’d guessed as much.

  “Understood.” I nodded. “I’ll make sure she stays off of it.”

  While Bailey talked to Noah to distract her, I stepped outside with the doctor. He told me that her surgery wouldn’t be until the next morning, as her leg was a little too swollen for his liking. I shook his hand and thanked him just as I caught sight of a familiar face disappearing round the corner.

  “AJ?”

  He popped his head back and raised his eyebrows.

  “Irish, what’s wrong? Why’re you here?”

  He was on watch; he was wearing his uniform minus his jacket and heavy gear.

  “Noah fractured her leg in two places.” I jabbed my thumb towards her cubicle. “She’s gettin’ surgery in the mornin’.”

  “Jesus. Poor Nono.”

  “Tell me ’bout it.” I stretched. “Why’re you here?”

  “We brought in a resus a while ago,” AJ explained. “The paramedics needed me to keep up compressions in the ambo.”

  “Successful resus?”

  “So far.” AJ nodded. “Fingers crossed he stays on the mend. Cardiac arrest at his grandson’s birthday party.”

  “Shite.”

  “Yeah. How is Noah?”

  “So stoned.” I shook my head, my lips twitching. “She was tryin’ to have sex while the doctor was explainin’ to me that she needs surgery. She shouted it. Bailey’s mortified.”

  “The kid’s here too?” AJ was suddenly grinning. “Where’s she at?”

  I snorted. AJ loved to torment my sister, because he – and everyone else – knew how much she fancied him. He was apparently the Dulwich Adonis, according to my sister and her friends.

  “Elliot!”

  AJ and I darted forward at Bailey’s shout. I yanked the blue curtain aside and found my little sister struggling to hold a thrashing Noah down on the bed.

  “She said spiders are on her.”

  Bailey stepped back and AJ and I quickly restrained Noah, who was crying that spiders were in her mouth and crawling in her hair. So AJ and I made a big show of killing all of the imaginary spiders. Noah was a sniffling, snotty mess by the time she calmed down.

  AJ handed me a few tissues from the dispenser behind us. I cleaned up Noah’s face, and encouraged her to blow her nose like a parent would with their toddler. Then, like the click of my fingers, she was snoring.

  I looked at my sister and saw her favouring the right side of her face.

  “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “Noah whacked me by mistake.” Bailey rubbed her red cheek. “She didn’t mean it, she was scared of the spiders she saw.”

  “Lemme see.”

  Bailey dropped her hand and let me tilt her head so I could inspect her cheek. I winced; it was red and starting to swell, and there was already a blue bruise forming around her eye. I leaned down and gave it a gentle kiss.

  “She got ye good. I’ll get ye an icepack and AJ will bring ye home in me car before he goes back to work, okay?”

  Bailey’s eyes widened, and her face went scarlet to match her cheek.

  “I wanna stay with you.”

  Laughing, I hugged her to me. “He won’t tease ye.”

  “He will,” she grumbled. “He always does.”

  “Are you two talking about me?” AJ questioned. “My ears are burning.”

  I snorted. “Mind your business, nosey hole.”

  Bailey giggled. “I guess a whack to the face serves me right for makin’ ye take salsa lessons and fracturin’ Noah’s leg.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut as AJ appeared at my side.

  “Salsa lessons? You fractured Noah’s leg?”

  “For God’s sake! It was a bastard of an accident!”

  I launched into a retelling of how Bailey had tricked me and how I’d wound up paying for salsa lessons that Noah had never even asked for, then got to the part about how we tripped, fell and ended up in the hospital. AJ laughed so loud he woke Noah up.

  “Shut it,” I warned him as I went to her side. “Hey, sasanach.”

  Her face was contorted with pain. “My leg is burning, Elliot.”

  “I know, love.” I brushed her hair back from her eyes. “D’ye remember what happened?”

  “Vaguely.” She gulped. “Is it bad? My leg?”

  “Ye need surgery.”

  Noah’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’s not good.”

  “No,” I agreed with a chuckle. “But the worst part is done.”

  She wouldn’t look down at her leg.

  “It’s reset,” I assured her. “Just really swollen and red.”

  She nodded. “Did you ring my parents?”

  I paused. “Shite. No. I was so focused on you.”

  “I’ll ring them,” Bailey offered.

  Noah looked at her with a grateful smile, then gasped.

  “Your face, Bails, what happened?”

  Bailey looked at me, and I cringed.

  “Ye didn’t mean to . . . ye sort of knocked her in the face.”

  “Oh, Bailey.” Noah’s lower lip stuck out ever so slightly. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m fine,” Bailey assured her. “Doesn’t even hurt.”

  She was lying. I could tell it hurt her, but AJ had got her an icepack from somewhere and that would help. She dipped out of the cubicle to phone Noah’s parents for me.

  “Did she admit to anything worth listening to?” AJ quizzed, leaning against the wall. “I love when patients are out of it on gas and morphine.”

  He wasn’t taking this seriously at all, but to humour him, I spilled one of the se
crets Noah had let slip.

  “She said that she’s a member of a secret society of women who knit throw-overs and sell them on the black market.”

  “Oh God.” Noah looked at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. “Elliot, I’m a criminal!”

  I tried not to laugh at her because she looked absolutely horrified, but when AJ cracked up, I lost it and laughed into my hand. She wasn’t as loopy as earlier, but I could see in her pupils that she was still feeling the effects of the morphine.

  “Elliot?”

  “Sasanach?”

  “I wonder if we can get you a refund on those salsa lessons . . . they were fucking rubbish.”

  My laughter mingled with hers as her hold on me tightened. She was okay, and that was all that mattered. I may have been two hundred pounds down . . . but it would always be an anniversary to remember.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ELLIOT

  Present day . . .

  The walk down the pathway through the cemetery was a long and lonely one even if you were surrounded by people. As I passed by row after row of tombstones, I felt a small sense of comfort in knowing that hundreds of people at some point were feeling pain like I currently was, all because of someone they had to lower into the ground on this very patch of dirt.

  I wondered if their pain was still as fresh as mine or if it had faded with time.

  I didn’t look up as I neared row twenty-three. I absent-mindedly counted each row I passed by, and when I reached the one I was looking for, I passed by eight graves before I came to a stop. I turned to face forward but kept my eyes on my shoes for a long time before I found my voice.

  “Hey, baby,” I whispered, using the nickname my sister had claimed to hate but I knew she’d secretly loved. I crouched down, cleared my throat and clasped my hands together. “I bet my ugly mug isn’t one ye were expectin’ to see today, huh?”

  I gnawed on my lower lip, took a few steady breaths and forced myself to look up. I had to touch my hand to the ground to keep myself from falling on to my arse. Just being here felt like I’d taken a hundred punches to the gut.

  “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry I haven’t been by since your first day here, baby, but I . . . I guess I’ve been scared to come and see ye. Comin’ here made things feel permanent, and I didn’t want this to be permanent.”