by West, Jade
I’d figured we would be a great couple again one day. That we’d pick things back up to just how good they used to be, that time when we couldn’t get enough of each other.
“It was cool,” I told him. “Amazing.”
His smile was nothing more than a token gesture. “Tell me about it, then, babe,” he said, but he didn’t mean it. He was already setting up another war battle tournament in the online league.
I talked.
He nodded.
I told him about my new nurse friends, and the kind of patients I’d be helping in Kingsley Ward.
He nodded some more.
He told me it was great and cool and that he knew I’d be loving it. The whole while I knew my hopes were draining.
And then, I thought of my bookmark. The treasure I really thought would be with me forever.
I pictured the golden swirl of my name, still slightly metallic against the tattered pink leather. I imagined it between the pages of so many hundreds of novels over the years, keeping my place just right.
“I lost the bookmark Granny Weobley gave me,” I told Liam, and this time he did flash me a glance.
“No shit, really? The pink thing? Fuck. That’s crap.”
Still, he went back to playing his game.
I wondered how long it would take before I’d give up playing his game of life along with him.
I wondered whether he’d even notice. Whether he truly knew the girl he’d promised to be in love with, even at fourteen years old.
The question came out of my mouth before I realised I’d said it. It was a random question, with no basis whatsoever, just the weirdest urge to ask the guy who claimed to love me with all his heart.
“Hey, Liam. What’s my favourite novel of all time? You remember that, right?”
“Huh?” he asked, twisting his controller in the air for another shot on screen.
“You know it, right? You remember my very favourite novel of all time?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. You read so damn many of them.” He cursed as someone landed a shot at him. “Romeo and Juliet. That Expectations one. That Wind in the Willows one you used to bleat on about. Dunno, babe. What is it? Surprise me.”
Maybe his book ignorance wouldn’t have hurt quite so bad if I hadn’t been pining for my bookmark.
Maybe I wouldn’t have been so unable to look at the man in front of me and convince myself I still wanted to say I do one day.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said.
Maybe it didn’t.
Not tonight.
My feet were tired, and my mind was a crazy mix of both happy and sad at once, so I had a bath with enough bubbles to sink right down into them.
I thought about Wendy Briars, and Vickie from reception, and Hayley, and Caroline from the rehabilitation team, and all the things they’d be able to teach me day by day.
I thought about Dr Edwards, and how confident she’d looked when she’d walked around the ward and evaluated dosage of meds for different patients, right in front of me.
Liam was still playing with online friends when I crossed the hallway to the bedroom, but tonight I didn’t care. I settled into bed and gave the biggest thanks ever to the universe for giving me something so amazing to wake up for.
3
Logan
My days at the hospital were always longer than they should be, but this one had been longer still.
I’d battled a flatline on the ECG well before the patient was prepared to give their final breaths.
I’d tried, and I’d failed.
That’s the unfortunate thing about my profession – you often do.
Tonight I’d lost the battle and death had claimed its latest victim. Snatched from the arms of his family before he could even scrape a breath to whisper I love you.
Pain. So much pain.
Not so long ago, I’d have felt every scrap of it with them. The shock, and the fear, and the tears. It was always there as I conveyed the unforgivable news. I’m sorry. A crippling sear in my ribs, hidden under a professional veneer, right where it should be. But these past few months I was numb.
Numb to them, numb to me, numb to everything.
Luckily, my own state of mind didn’t stop me doing my job to the best of my ability. I gave my patients everything I had, just to provide them with a tiny bit more. That’s what being a palliative care doctor means – ultimately, you give your all to helping your patients make the most of their fading life in the face of death.
Sometimes I can make it work so well.
Sometimes I can barely do a thing.
This evening had been one of the latter.
The train was quiet on my way back home, nothing but a few scattered people staring at their phone screens as I walked through the carriage. Definitely no paperbacks on display.
Definitely no Chloe and Gone with the Wind.
I settled down into my seat, exhausted on my feet, having scraped barely ten minutes for a lunch break. My head was thumping and my chest was tight, but my hands still moved on instinct, pulling my book from my briefcase.
The Master and Margarita.
I’d say that was the first time I truly began to realise Chloe’s inexplicable impact on me.
As I flicked open the pages, I found myself wondering if she’d read the Mikhail Bulgakov masterpiece. I found myself wondering if she’d sunk into the same scenes that I’d sunk into a hundred times over, just as deeply as I’d sunk into them, and if she’d pondered the same thoughts over the same words.
I wondered if she’d have different thoughts to me, about different characters. If she’d surprise me with her observations about plot points, and if she’d enlighten me with her freckle-faced opinions on the huge talking cat.
Then, I wondered if I’d surprise and enlighten her right back with mine.
I stopped myself just as soon as I registered what I was thinking about. I put those thoughts away and settled down for the remainder of the journey, determined not to waste a second more. Reading time was the only time I ever truly allowed myself. The only time I slipped out of my own world into someone else’s and left the heaviness of mine behind.
My only escape.
I enjoyed Pontius Pilate, and the devil, and the huge talking cat without another thought to the freckled girl. Yet still, I looked up through the window at Eddington station, casting an eye along the platform. But she wasn’t there.
Redwood approached soon after.
I was on the verge of folding down my page corner when I indulged myself a stupid little token of pleasure. I reached into my inside pocket and pulled out the tatty pink bookmark, slipping it between the pages to mark my spot. The page corners would thank me for it.
I stepped from the train and made the same journey along the same streets. My head was still tense, and my chest was still tight, and my feet were heavier with every step as I turned the corner into King Street and put my key in the lock.
The upstairs lamp was on, just like usual.
My mother was propped up in bed in her room, just like usual.
Her oxygen mask was over her face and her eyes were closed tight, and Olivia was sitting in the corner, her attention fixed on her phone. Just like usual.
“Sorry,” I said, as I stepped through the doorway. “Patients overran.”
Olivia was used to it. Her smile was her regular smile as she picked up her bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder.
“She ate omelette, but there’s still half of it in the fridge if she gets hungry.”
“Thanks.” I nodded. “How has she been?”
She wobbled a hand in the air. “So-so. Tired.”
Just like usual.
I checked she’d administered the right doses of meds at the right time, and checked the performance of Mum’s morphine driver, just like usual.
Olivia had done everything asked of her. Shower, and dinner, and getting Mum changed for bed.
I didn’t bother to watch her leave. I kn
ew exactly how she would look, bobbing down the staircase and out the front door to the street outside.
Instead, I pulled my seat up to the side of the bed, and leant in to take Mum’s fingers, squeezing tight enough for her to open her eyes.
Her smile was bright, same as usual. She squeezed my fingers right back before she tugged her mask from her face.
“Good day?” she looked at the alarm clock, then flashed me her usual cheeky smile. “A bloody late one as per.”
I shrugged. “Not so bad.”
I loved the way her eyes twinkled, so alive against her pallor. I loved the way her face was so expressive, even when she could barely move a thing.
“Got a couple of crossword clues left for you to help me with,” Mum said, as per.
I grabbed the newspaper from the bedside table and we went through the rest of the crossword, giving each other a congratulatory high five on completion, and she was pleased with us, squeezing my fingers some more.
I made her a cup of tea and talked her through my day as she sipped it down. I played down my lack of work breaks when she quizzed me, promising I was taking care of myself, in the face of the world screaming at me for help.
I knew that she didn’t quite believe me, but she kept her smile bright.
“I heard from little Amy,” she said with a wink. “She wants to come over and visit me next weekend. I told her you’d be around too.”
“Stop it,” I told her. “Stop with the winking, please.”
She laughed. “I’m not going bloody anywhere until you settle yourself down with someone nice, Logan Hall. Mother’s duty.” She winked again. “Amy is a great fit.”
We’d had this conversation a thousand times. I repeated what I’d said a thousand times.
“If you don’t go anywhere until I settle myself down with someone, you’ll be around a long time yet.” I leaned in to kiss her forehead. “And Amy isn’t a great fit, she’s just a pretty girl.”
“It’s a good place to start,” she laughed, and I managed a chuckle along with her.
I helped her back on with her oxygen mask, making sure it was sound and snug to get her through the night.
“Sweet dreams,” I said, and I truly meant it.
“See you in the morning, sweetheart,” she said with a thumbs-up, and I hoped she meant it too.
Her eyes were already closed when I stood up to leave. She looked a tiny thing in bed, fading just a little every night. The final petals were dropping away from the whitest rose, pale and moonlit as the oxygen kept on chugging into her lungs. Mechanical and persistent.
She was lying about how fine she was feeling, and I knew it. I felt it. Her chest was rasping, and her ankles were swollen, and jabs of morphine kept her comfortable enough to speak but little else.
She still had her bucket list pinned up on the wall, scrawled in her finest handwriting.
I read it through over again and got a fresh pang. Time was running out.
Meet an elephant.
Climb a mountain.
Ride the back of a motorcycle around a sharp corner.
Put my toes in the sea.
Get a daughter-in-law.
One thing’s for sure, it wouldn’t ever be Amy. I shook my head to myself with a smirk as I turned off the light and closed Mum’s bedroom door behind me. The girl should count her blessings on that one. Lucky escape.
My room was quiet when I stepped inside, bed made up neat, just like usual.
I had a shower and went about my bedtime routine, then struggled to sleep. Just like usual.
Mum always enjoyed going to sleep at night. Her dreams were escapes when they came for her. Happy times gone by, or fairy tales of being a kid all over again, playing sandcastles with her mum and dad on a beach on the south coast.
I wished that sleep state were hereditary – but no. Dreams were never sweet for me, and never had been.
My dreams were about death and having no power over it. They were about spending most of my waking life trying to fend it off for people and watching my closest person alive decay in front of me, one tiny little piece at a time.
Only this time, for once in my life, the dreams that came for me weren’t savage.
They were of a freckled face, a mousy-haired shimmer, and a tatty pink bookmark.
4
Chloe
Crap, crap, crap.
Another frantic morning getting to the train station before the train pulled away from the platform. I was tugging shoes onto feet still sore from the day before and scooping my hair up into a pony before dashing off down the street like a sprinter. I was still pulling my sweater on as I ran.
Idiot. Snoozing through the alarm like an idiot.
Stupid on my part, but the universe was feeling kind today.
I bundled myself on the train and flung myself into the nearest seat, catching my breath as the whistle sounded out. Phew. On time. Just.
My novel was still tight under my arm when the train pulled away from Eddington. I was about to flick it open and start reading when the tall figure of a man moved towards me up the aisle.
I dug straight through my bag for my train ticket, assuming him to be a conductor, but no. The figure dropped himself down in the seat opposite me, his knees stretching out towards mine.
It was when I looked across at him and my eyes landed on his that my breath caught in my throat. It couldn’t not.
That man was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
For real. There and then, on that train carriage, before eight o’clock on a random work morning, that man was the beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
His shoulders were broad and suited. His tie was neat and burgundy, classic against a bright white shirt. But it was his face – eyes dark and serious, brooding with more depth than I’d ever known. His jaw was steady, and serious to match. His beard was neat and severe. His eyebrows were wise. Perfect.
His cheekbones were defined. His hair had a dusting of salt and pepper, just enough to make him look refined.
I couldn’t stop staring at him, holding my train ticket outstretched in my hand like some kind of idiot as he pulled out a book from his briefcase – a paperback with a bazillion down folded corners, the biggest pet hate of my life. But with him it didn’t seem to matter. Every single page could have been folded down, I wouldn’t have cared.
My breath stayed hitched up tight as the universe pulled a blinder on me. An absolute slammer of a blinder.
Just like that, the man pulled out my pink bookmark from his novel.
“For you,” he said, and I swear I almost fainted.
Two simple words that had his voice sounding like velvet. As serious as the rest of him.
I looked from his outstretched hand to his face, over and over on loop as I truly grasped what was happening.
He had Granny Weobley’s bookmark, right there in his fingers.
My own fingers were jittery as they took it from him. They were bumbling fools, sending my train ticket fluttering to the floor as they reached for the prize.
That got a smirk from him. Just a slight dab of humour in the very corner of his mouth.
“You’ll be losing that thing in the same way, if you aren’t careful.”
I found my breath and my voice along with it. “I dropped the bookmark? On the floor?”
He nodded. “On the train yesterday. I tried to give it back to you, but you were off like a shot.”
I could feel my cheeks burning up, because I could imagine just how off like a shot I was. I must’ve been bouncing away from the platform in a flurry.
“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry, and thanks. Thanks so much.”
He flicked open his own book. “You’re very welcome, Chloe.”
I could feel my cheeks burning up brighter as I turned that tattered pink leather over in my hand.
His attention dropped down to his pages, and I should’ve put mine back to mine. Gone with the Wind was calling, and my heart was racing and needing some wo
rds to calm it down, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. I picked my ticket up from the floor and found my words.
“It was from my grandma,” I told the stranger. “The bookmark, I mean. She gave it to me when I was seven.”
He could have given me a token nod and an I don’t give a shit smile, but he didn’t. His eyes were every bit as dark and serious when they looked back into mine.
“Seven?”
I nodded with a grin. “Yeah. With a copy of Watership Down. Her favourite.”
“Good choice,” he said, and I nodded with my grin still bright.
“I still love the story. Still read it way too often.”
His paperback lay open on his lap, paused. “That’s the curse of the most powerful stories, isn’t it?” he said. “They never let you go.”
“Yes. It is.” My laugh sounded so young. Just like that seven-year-old girl with the book in her greedy fingers every night before bed.
His attention went back to his paperback and I tried to do the same, slotting my bookmark nice and tightly in my front cover before flicking back through to the right page.
But I couldn’t concentrate.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
I focused instead on the book in his hands, wondering just what he was reading. It was tattered. Not as tattered as mine, but definitely well read. And I couldn’t help myself, I just had to ask the question.
“What book are you reading?”
He seemed surprised by my question, but he answered it, holding up the book for me to see for myself.
“The Master and Margarita by –”
“Mikhail Bulgakov,” we said in unison, and I was nodding. My grin beaming even brighter.
“You’ve read it?” he asked.
“It’s one of my favourites. I love Behemoth, the big talking cat.”
“So do I,” he said, and his eyes stayed fixed on mine.
I summoned my finest voice and cleared my throat like a theatre star. “I beg pardon, my queen, he rasped. Would I ever allow myself to offer vodka to a lady?”
“This is pure alcohol,” the stranger finished for me.
His smile flashed for just a second, and it was such a contrast to his usual heaviness that I felt something deep from him, something that made no sense to me, not with the usual zing of a high that I feel every waking minute of the day.
