by Casey, L. A.
“Well, ye better,” Elliot said gruffly, causing me to look up at his face. “Me, your parents, our friends . . . we forgave ye years ago.”
I covered my face with my hands and willed myself not to cry. When Elliot’s arms came around me, I knew I was fighting a losing battle.
“I can’t keep crying,” I whispered as I slid my arms around his body. He sat on the edge of my bed and held me. “Nothing changes, no matter how many tears I shed.”
“Cryin’ can sometimes help people feel better. It’s not like ye can help it anyway.”
Once again, Elliot was right.
“Was he here long?”
It didn’t go unnoticed to me that Elliot rarely called Anderson by his name, and now that I thought about it, Anderson did the same thing when referring to Elliot. They both really hated one another, which didn’t help the situation I was in at all, because I was connected to them both whether I liked it or not.
“I don’t know how long he was here. When I woke up, he was sitting next to me and he was still here when I fell back asleep. We just sat and talked a while.” I shrugged as I pulled back from the hug before looking down at my hands. “I feel so cruel.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying any more than I already had. I wiped my tears away, feeling frustrated.
“Why?” Elliot quizzed. “You’ve done nothin’ wrong.”
“I talked with him for a good while, and in my head I compared him to you without being able to stop myself,” I explained, not looking up at him. “He was saying all these things to me and I couldn’t make sense of any of them in my mind. He’s my husband but I feel nothing for him, I don’t even want to get to know him because I want you and only you. That’s why I feel so cruel, Elliot. Anderson did nothing wrong, and he’ll be the one who gets hurt in the end because of me.”
Elliot’s touch on my knuckles finally helped me start to relax, and I found myself thinking of Anderson’s touch on my wrist. This was how his touch should have made me feel, but it hadn’t.
“Ye don’t want to hurt him,” Elliot stated. “Sometimes hurtin’ people can’t be helped when puttin’ ourselves first.”
“Putting myself first distanced me from you all in the first place, Elliot.”
“How can ye be mad at yourself for things ye have no memory of?” he asked me. “How?”
“I don’t know. This whole situation . . . it’s so messed up.”
More poxy tears fell.
“I feel like I’ve cried all the tears a person gets for a lifetime. I wish I was like you.” I wiped my cheeks again. “I can’t ever remember you crying.”
“Just because someone doesn’t cry doesn’t mean they aren’t broken, just like when someone smiles it doesn’t mean they’re happy.” He kept stroking his thumb over my knuckles. “When you left me, I was devastated. I couldn’t function for a long time, and even when I developed a new routine without you, nothing felt real.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “I’m past it, I’m here right now with you. If cryin’ helps ye move forward, then cry.”
I sniffled. “I guess I’m just more prone to emotional outbursts compared to normal people.”
Elliot’s lips twitched. “Maybe.”
“Still . . .” I shrugged. “Somehow I’m coping.”
“You’re not copin’, Noah. You’re drownin’.”
My breath caught. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” Elliot said. “We’ll take things slowly; we’ll communicate and decide together when we should discuss the past few years in more depth. Sound like a plan?”
I looked from Elliot to my parents – they agreed with him whole-heartedly, I could tell from one glance. They had always trusted him, they had always loved him, and it seemed that was something that had remained the same.
“Okay.” I nodded, looking at back him. “Anderson told me I wouldn’t see him for a while. He’s doing what the doctor wants.”
I left out the part about him wanting me to go to him when my family – and Elliot – filled me in about the blank spaces in my memory. I was surprised to find that I could still remember his phone number and home address. I hoped I would never need to use either.
“Good,” Elliot said. “We’re going to focus on getting you better. No more talkin’ of the past for the time bein’, or the future for that matter. We’re only goin’ to be takin’ things as they come. Day by day.”
“Day by day,” I echoed. “Together.”
Elliot leaned in and kissed me in front of my parents, claiming his right to do so with pride.
“Together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
NOAH
“Noah, can you stop fidgeting for two minutes?”
“No, Mum,” I answered, as I used my crutches to hop over to the window so I could peer outside at the world I’d been caged away from. “I can’t. I’ve been in this hospital for six weeks. Six weeks of being stuck in a bed, six weeks of nurses coming in and out to check on me, six weeks of you, Dad, Elliot and sometimes AJ, sitting and staring at me. In twenty minutes, I’ll be discharged and free. I cannot sit still; I don’t even want to!”
I felt good. So fucking good.
A month ago, I had decided that I would do what my family, Elliot and Doctor Abara wanted. I would take things day by day and focus on getting better. Of course, there were times when I slipped and wanted to speak about the things I’d been told about – like mine and Elliot’s break-up, and how quickly I moved on with Anderson – but each time I was shut down by Elliot or my parents. And I didn’t fight with them – I may have got snippy once or twice, but I let it go and remembered my goal.
I wanted to go home.
I hadn’t established where that home would be yet, but my parents had taken it upon themselves to ready my old bedroom for my impending arrival. A massive part of me wanted to return to the flat I’d once shared with Elliot, the flat where he still lived, but I was nervous about it, so going home with my parents was the right call. I didn’t say it out loud, but I felt some worry about going back to the way things were with Elliot, because things would never really be as they once were – and that was something I had to get used to. Elliot was a gentleman about the whole living situation, and he wanted me to file for divorce from Anderson and tell him that I had no interest in continuing my marriage with him. Those were his conditions before we could be properly intimate again.
His conditions didn’t extend to kisses and light, innocent touches though – he said was he was only a man, not a saint, which thoroughly amused me.
My time in the hospital had been an experience, one I wanted to put behind me. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about leaving the safety that these walls had provided me over the last few weeks. It was in here that I’d regained control of a life that had got away from me; it was here where Elliot and I had reconnected and I’d found out I had managed to fall even more in love with him. It was here that I re-established my bond and trust with my parents. I had learned to walk again, through hard hours of physical therapy; and in many ways, I had become a new person.
So leaving the hospital had me a little on edge.
My headaches had been more annoying than really painful since I’d collapsed in front of Elliot after he helped me shower, but I was always paranoid that one would suddenly strike me down and that I’d be rendered useless again. Knowing I was going home and away from the nurses and doctors was daunting, but I reminded myself not to think negatively. I had to think of things as they came and stop getting ahead of myself.
It had helped me get this far, and I hoped it would help me get a lot further too.
“Elliot is sad he isn’t here, isn’t he?”
I looked at my mother.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’m glad he’s gone back to work; he was here so much they may as well have given him a bed.”
Mum chuckled. “How have his first few days been back on wa
tch?”
“As good as can be,” I answered. “A couple of small fires, a minor car accident, and I think he said they had to help get a cat out of a tree yesterday.”
“No!” Mum laughed.
I smiled. “He says he misses me.”
“Of course he does.” Mum rolled her eyes. “And you miss him.”
“Of course I do,” I mimicked her, chuckling. “But he finishes his second night shift at nine a.m. and then he’s off for four days. He says he’s spending them with me.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mum said, winking. “You’re both acting like you did when you first began to date, always wanting to be around one another.”
I felt myself blush. “I love him.”
“I know you do,” she said warmly. “Which is why I made an appointment on Monday morning with a solicitor . . . so you can start the divorce process.”
I felt terrible whenever I thought about Anderson, I truly did, but I had to do what was best for me – and that meant cutting off all ties with him.
“Good.” I exhaled. “I’m ready for that.”
“When will you speak to him?”
“I’ll phone him on Sunday and meet him somewhere in town.” I gnawed on my lip. “I don’t want to do it publicly, but I’m also not going to his home. I lived in that place, and I just feel weird about going there.”
“I don’t blame you.”
We both looked up when Doctor Abara entered the room. I returned his happy smile.
“Ready to go home?”
“Born ready,” I answered.
He laughed. “I’ve a prescription here for you. These tablets are only to be taken as you need them. When you get a headache, take them, Noah. No trying to hold out and hoping it goes away. You take the medication. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.” I saluted him. “I’m not a fan of taking tablets, but I’ll do it. You have my word.”
“Good. You’ll come back in six weeks’ time to outpatients for a check-up, and we’ll decide then when your next check-up should be. But if everything is well with you, I’m thinking six months from that day.”
I bobbed my head. “Sounds good to me.”
“As I said yesterday” – he looked at me and my mother – “any double vision, dizziness or signs that you might be having one of your bad headaches, you come straight into Casualty. No exceptions.”
“She will,” Mum answered. “The three of us will make sure of it.”
And that was the God’s honest truth.
I thanked the doctor, and it turned out my mum had brought him chocolates, a bottle of wine and a thank-you card, which caught him off guard. He assured her he was just doing his job in taking care of me, and Mum reminded him that by “just doing his job” he had saved her child’s life. He accepted the gifts with thanks, told me to take care of myself, and said his goodbyes and that I was free to leave.
Dad caught the doctor in the hallway, thanked him and shook his hand before venturing inside my room. “Ready to go?” He rubbed his hands together. “All of your things are packed into the boot of the car.”
I grabbed my crutches as Mum straightened down the back of my dress.
“Let’s blow this joint!”
My parents laughed as we left the room and said goodbye to the many nurses we’d come to know by name. Mum had gotten them gifts too. We wished them all the best as we left the hospital with smiles on our faces. Dad didn’t want me walking far, so Mum and I sat and waited at the entrance while he hurried to retrieve the car. When he pulled up, he helped me into the passenger side while Mum hopped in the back.
I drummed my fingers on the dashboard, making Dad laugh as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Let’s go home!”
Mum reached over and squeezed Dad’s shoulder, a moment passing between them that brought a smile to my face. As we drove we talked, and I tried to figure out how to work the new phone my parents had bought me. It was an iPhone, like Elliot’s. I had been an Apple user back in 2015 but things had really changed, and I found myself playing around with it to get accustomed to it.
I jumped when the phone rang and Elliot’s name appeared on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” he yawned. “Are ye still at the hospital?”
“Nope, I’m free! Freeedddoooommmm!”
Elliot’s laughter was masked by my parents’ as they shook their heads, amused.
“I’m on my way to my parents’,” I said. “You go home and sleep. D’you hear me?”
I could almost hear the pout in his voice as he said, “But I wanna see ye.”
“You can see me later, after you sleep. Come by – Mum’s making a pasta bake for dinner tonight.”
“I’d argue with ye, but I’m feckin’ knackered.”
I chuckled. “Sleep. I’ll see you later.”
“I love ye, sasanach.”
“I love you too, paddy.”
When the call ended, I relaxed for the rest of the drive home. When we finally got inside the house, everything was still the same, much to my relief.
“Thank God,” I breathed as I hobbled over to the flower-filled vase on the coffee table and admired it. “I was so worried that everything would have changed.”
“Like your mother would allow that,” Dad joked.
We spent the entire morning sorting through the clothes I had there that definitely did not fit me any more, and would go to a charity shop. I helped my mum rearrange my room until I was happy with the placement of everything. I whiled away the rest of the day watching films, reading some of a book, and constantly checking my phone to see if Elliot had texted me. He was asleep – he had just come off a night watch – so there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was calling him and waking him up.
He needed his rest, and when five o’clock rolled by, so did I.
I went upstairs intending to nap for an hour – two at most – but when I felt soft touches on my cheek, I groaned and flicked my eyes open for a moment to find that my room was coated in darkness. I was tired and couldn’t fully rouse myself from my sleep. I didn’t want to.
“No,” his voice murmured, sounding far away like in a dream. “Rest. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow, okay?”
I hummed in response.
“I love you, green eyes.”
“Love you too.”
I felt lips brush against mine, then the sound of a door clicking shut. I fell back asleep in seconds but awoke when I heard a car horn honking. I reached up, rubbed my eyes and stretched. I relaxed for a second, then quickly darted upright when I thought of Elliot.
I frowned.
I lifted a hand to my lips and wondered if I’d been dreaming of him or if I’d really missed him when he stopped by. I grabbed my phone and clicked on a text I saw he sent me.
I stopped by, but you were snoring and looked so cute and peaceful. I didn’t want to wake you up. I had dinner with your parents then came home so you could rest. See you first thing tomorrow. I can’t wait. Love you.
I covered my face in annoyance, I’d have to wait until tomorrow morning to see him now. I checked the time and saw that it was only half nine. I lay back on my bed and shook my head.
“This is stupid,” I said to myself. “Why am I not with him right now?”
I loved Elliot and he loved me. I wasn’t staying apart from him when I didn’t have to; it didn’t feel right to be separated from him. I was nervous about how our relationship would pan out now, but I was doing what Elliot had said and taking it day by day.
With my mind made up, I got up and looked at the new clothes and underwear my mum had bought for me. I settled on wearing black leggings, a black T-shirt and a light grey jumper.
I grabbed my old duffle bag from my wardrobe and packed a change of clothes along with clean underwear and socks. I pulled one of my white Vans on to my right foot, then put my boot cast back on my left. I packed some toiletries for myself, since I knew I had none at Elliot’s, hooked the bag
over my shoulder, grabbed my crutches and slowly made my way down the stairs.
I paused by the sitting room when I saw Mum knitting.
“Mum.”
She looked up at me and an amused smile stretched across her face. “Is your father going to owe me twenty pounds?”
“Depends.” I raised an eyebrow. “Did you bet on something?”
“Yup.” She grinned. “I bet you wouldn’t make it past ten p.m. without coming down and telling us you wanted to go and be with Elliot; he bet eleven.”
I glanced at the clock and saw it was twenty to ten. I looked back at my mother and laughed.
“You win, I want to go and be with Elliot.”
“Figured as much,” she chuckled. “Come on, Dad will drive us.”
My dad grumbled as he put my bag in the boot of the car. He wasn’t upset that I was leaving, only that he’d lost the bet he made with my mum, which cracked me up. The drive was quick and uneventful. When we got there, Dad waited in the car while Mum carried my bag on her shoulder as I hobbled inside.
We shared the elevator with a pizza delivery boy. I glanced at the receipt on the box and grinned when I saw it was for Elliot. He had had dinner with my parents a few hours ago, but was obviously still hungry. I borrowed money from my mum, told the boy I’d bring it to the flat because it was my boyfriend’s, and paid him. Mum took the box from me and we quietly made our way down the hallway until we stopped in front of my old flat.
“I’ll phone him and pretend I’m at home, then I’ll ring the bell and he’ll think it’s his pizza.”
Mum kissed me goodbye, gave me a thumbs up, then ran back to the elevator giggling the entire way. I balanced the pizza box in one hand, and dialled Elliot’s number and put my phone to my ear with the other.
“Hey,” he answered on the second ring. “Are ye okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answered. “I just missed you.”
Elliot’s low laughter made me smile. “Ye saw me three hours ago.”
“Three long hours ago . . . I thought I dreamt about you. I forget what you look like. I forget if you have a six-pack or an eight.”
Elliot’s laughter became louder. “Witch, don’t be teasin’ your man right now. It’s not nice.”