by Kyra Lennon
I recall being lifted onto a stretcher, and then waking up in the hospital. A nurse asked me my name and I mumbled it to her, surprised she could understand me. She asked me if there was anyone she could call for me, and I told her there was nobody.
But then I thought of Evie.
She’d told me to message her if I needed to.
But it was Christmas Eve and I was just some guy she’d met and gotten stuck with. I didn’t matter to her, or to anyone.
And yet, I still said her name as the nurse was leaving the room. The only thing I fully remember is mumbling, “Evie West. Don’t have her number. Find online. Graphic design. Stockport.”
Then I must have fallen asleep again because when I woke up, she was there.
The look in her eyes. The look of sadness and concern made me feel… it confused me. She’d always offered to be there if I needed someone, but that’s just what people say, isn’t it? Why would she have meant it?
Overwhelming guilt filled me again because I’d taken her away from her family on Christmas Day.
God, I really was selfish.
You’re selfish, and stupid, and pathetic. You’re lucky to have me. Nobody else would want you.
I closed my eyes against Natalie’s words in my head, but I couldn’t block them out. A tear dripped from my eye, but I didn’t bother to wipe it away.
Maybe if I stayed still, crying like the loser I was, I might eventually drown.
I woke up with a jolt, wondering where the hell I was for a moment.
From the sliver of light coming through the curtains, I saw brightly coloured walls with farm animals painted on them.
Ah, right. I’m in Oscar’s room.
After one of the most emotionally draining days I’d ever had, Keely had asked my mum and me to spend the night since it was late by the time we’d all eaten and relaxed. Mum had gone into the spare room, and Oscar had slept in Keely and Nick’s room while I took his bed. I was grateful for the offer, because, once I’d had a plateful of Christmas dinner and a glass of wine, I was completely and utterly wrecked. Exhausted from everything, and there was no way I would have been able to drive home. Nick would have taken Mum home, but I guessed she didn’t want to leave me. I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of emotion I’d been showing, but she was my mum. She could always read me, no matter what I told her.
It was still pretty early, and I knew hospital visiting hours weren’t until the afternoon, but given everything Ash had been through, I hoped I’d be able to go in earlier. I reached for my phone on my bedside table, pleased – sort of – to see I didn’t have any messages from Ash overnight. I sent him a quick text, asking how he was feeling, then called the hospital to see when I would be allowed in.
When I called, the receptionist put me through to a nurse on Ash’s ward, and she told me that he was much the same as he’d been the day before. Very quiet, not speaking much, and gave me permission to come in as early as I wanted. When we hung up, I found a text from Ash saying he was okay. Utter crap. I replied, letting him know I would be there sometime in the next couple of hours before getting up, picking up my bag, and heading to the bathroom for a quick shower.
Once I was dry and dressed, I went downstairs, the sounds of the kids giggling and toys growing louder with each step. I walked into the living room to find Keely on the floor playing with Oscar and Daisy, and Nick sitting on the sofa, holding a cup of coffee.
“Morning,” I said, smiling at them all. Gratitude filled me at the sight of my friends as I thought about what they’d done for me and my mum the day before. It might not have seemed like much to some, but to me, it meant a lot that they’d taken care of us.
“Morning, Evie,” Keely said, smiling back, and the kids looked up at me, grinning before going back to their toys.
“How are you doing?” Nick asked, and I sighed.
“I’m okay,” I said. Mainly because I haven’t had time to think properly yet. “Where’s Mum?”
Nick nodded towards the kitchen. “She’s having breakfast and coffee in peace.”
I chuckled. “I might go join her.”
I pushed through the door to the kitchen and smiled at the sight before me. My mum was sitting at the table, and spread out in front of her was Keely and Nick’s usual Boxing Day breakfast. I’d never actually witnessed it for myself before because I was always with my mum, and before that, with Jay, but I’d seen the photos. Plates filled with waffles, bacon, eggs, toast, a few boxes of cereal, plus syrups and jams were laid out, and my eyes widened.
“Help yourself,” Mum said with a grin. “I’ll make you some coffee.”
Her plate was empty but for a few crumbs when she stood up to make a drink, and I sat down and began filling my own plate.
“Wow,” I said. My stomach growled at the sight and smell of it all. “I’ve always wanted to try Keely and Nick’s breakfast on Boxing Day. This looks amazing.”
“It tastes it too,” Mum replied. “That bacon is the best I’ve ever had.”
At her words, I picked up another couple of rashers, and bit into a piece, a groan of delight leaving my mouth. “Wow,” I said again.
I figured not having eaten that much the day before was the reason I was shovelling so much on my plate. My stomach growled with each item I added, and as Mum came back over with my coffee, she placed it in front of me and then sat down again.
“So,” she said, and I could feel her eyes on me as I buttered some toast. “Will you be going back to see your friend again today?”
And here we go…
Having been emotionally wrung out yesterday, she’d held off on asking too much, but I knew I wouldn’t escape it forever.
I nodded. “Yeah. Once I’ve had breakfast and given you a lift home.” I glanced up at her and found concern in her eyes.
“Are you ready to tell me more about him yet?”
“Sure.” I blew out a breath. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, how long have you known him? Where did you meet him?”
I picked up the toast and took a bite, swallowing it down with some coffee while I considered my answer. I mean, it wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with the truth, but I still couldn’t quite get my head around the way it sounded.
But I also knew I couldn’t avoid this conversation forever.
“Remember when I went to Exeter a few weeks back?” I asked, and she nodded. “I met him there. I was having a panic attack and he was kind enough to talk to me until I calmed down. I left the venue and he stayed, then later, it turned out that we were staying in the same hotel. We talked for a bit, and he lives in Manchester, so we swapped social media details and said we might go see other bands together sometime.”
She kept looking at me, waiting for me to continue. And she was probably right to. There was a big leap from meeting someone at a gig to rushing to be at their bedside on Christmas Day.
It really didn’t seem like much to build a friendship on, not when you looked at it from a basic level. But it was more than that. Yeah, we had a lot of similar interests, especially when it came to music. But the biggest thing we had in common was knowing how it felt to live in darkness. To feel alone. To feel like there was nobody else who understood. And even though our experiences had been different, that feeling of being untethered, of just existing when the rest of the world was living, was the same.
Silence fell when I’d finished explaining as best I could, and I took the time to continue eating my breakfast while I waited for the questioning to begin.
“So… you’re just friends?”
My brow furrowed as I looked at her over the top of my coffee cup. I didn’t think I could have made that point any clearer.
“Yes. We’re just friends.”
“Nothing has ever happened between you?”
My mum’s own brow was wrinkled, as if the idea of a man and a woman being friends was impossible.
“Nothing has ever happened,” I confirmed, placing my cup down an
d eating some more food. “We don’t touch each other… well, we hugged one time, but that’s it. Nothing beyond that.”
“And you’re both okay with that?”
“I don’t understand why this is so difficult for you to comprehend. I’ve known him for a matter of weeks, and in that entire time, he has had a girlfriend, so I was never looking at him any other way than as a friend, and the same for him. We’re just two people who get along.”
I swallowed hard as a piece of bacon lodged in my throat after my next mouthful. I was sure I sounded like I was protesting too much, but I wasn’t sure how else to explain it. I also didn’t get why my mum had even let the thought that I’d help someone cheat on their girlfriend cross her mind. Not after what happened with Jay.
“Okay,” Mum said eventually, then reached over and rested her hand on mine. “Evie, I only asked so many questions because you seemed really shaken when you got in. I just don’t like to see you upset.”
“You would have been upset too if you’d seen him. You don’t have to know someone very well to feel sad when something bad happens to them.”
Mum nodded, and I could tell she was remembering what I’d told her and Keely the night before about what Natalie had done to him. They had both welled up when I described all I’d heard and seen. Well, as much as I could bear to tell them. Some of it was so horrible, I didn’t even want to repeat it again, even though I couldn’t get the images my mind had conjured up out of my head.
“Do you know what’s going to happen to him now?” Mum asked. “It’s just…” she paused, her eyes softening. “I know you, Evangeline. I know you’ll want to help him as much as you can, but you’re only just getting back on your feet after everything. I don’t want to see you taking on too much.”
I let out a long sigh. One thing I’d tried hard not to do when I was recovering from my depression was think too far ahead. That had been one of my biggest sources of stress; panicking about what my future held. Sometimes, I still panicked about that, but for the most part, I’d learned to take one day at a time. That was how I intended to deal with the situation with Ash too.
“I don’t know what will happen to him,” I said. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to or even want to go back to his flat after this. But he’s in hospital for a few more days yet. If he needs some help when he gets out of hospital, I’m happy to do that. He doesn’t have anyone, Mum.”
“You said his mum was coming over to see him.”
And hopefully she’ll be here by now.
“Yeah,” I said. “She is as far as I know. But that doesn’t mean he won’t want to see anyone else.”
Or maybe it did. It would actually be interesting to meet Ash’s mum; the woman who didn’t seem to pay a whole lot of attention to her son. I wondered if she’d stay a while and help him get back on his feet.
I really hoped she would, as he was going to need all the support he could get.
As much as I loved my mum, I was sort of relieved to drop her off at her house after breakfast. I could tell she was doing her best to understand my friendship with Ash and be supportive, and I also knew she was worried that I might take on more responsibility for him than I needed to. Everything she said was out of concern, and it wasn’t like they weren’t valid. Keely often said I was an empath, because of how I was so good at sensing people’s emotions. The problem was, I often took on other people’s burdens so they wouldn’t feel alone. While some might call that a weakness, I tried to convince myself it was a strength to be so in tune with people. But the reality of a strong empath was that when people had taken all they could from me, they usually left, and it took me some time afterwards to mentally recover from all the emotions they had sucked out of me.
I didn’t want that to happen with Ash. Or with anyone, ever again. That was one of the reasons I hadn’t attempted to date, or even make new friends since my divorce. I wasn’t ready to get too close to anyone and risk my dented heart again. Ash, though. His heart was more dented than mine, and I wouldn’t allow it to take one more scratch. Not until it had healed and he was strong enough to brave getting his life back. The one Natalie had snatched away from him piece by piece.
As I walked down the hospital corridor, I was almost knocked down by a middle-aged woman with too much make-up and bleached blonde hair rushing by, her bag falling off her shoulder as she ran, leaving a trail of cheap-smelling perfume in her wake. I giggled. She reminded me of Mrs Wormwood from the movie Matilda.
Approaching Ash’s room, I peered through the little window in the door to see him sitting up a bit. I was relieved to see him not lying flat on his back as he had been the day before. From what I could see, he still looked pale and spaced out, but I wouldn’t be able to tell more until I got inside, so I knocked on the door gently and went inside.
He turned his head as I stepped in, and he smiled for a second when he saw it was me. “Hey.”
“Hey. How are you feeling?”
He shuffled over very slowly, still in a lot of pain, as I sat down on the bed beside him. He didn’t answer right away, seemingly lost in thought.
“Ash?”
After a moment, he shrugged. “Still tired. Though, that might be because my mum was just here.”
“She was?” I asked, looking around as if she might be in the tiny room somewhere and I’d somehow missed her presence.
“She’s gone.”
I nodded. “I guess she needs to find a place to stay for a few days.”
“No. She’s gone. She arrived in the U.K. at seven this morning, had breakfast at the airport, got here at ten, and now she’s going home.”
I glanced down at my watch. It was quarter past eleven. “She’s going home?”
“Yeah. She spared me about an hour of her time, which she pointed out was more than an hour when you added in the time she spent finding a flight over Christmas, getting to the airport in time for the flight, and the flight time. So, yeah. She’s got a flight home this afternoon.”
I couldn’t speak.
Ash was in a hospital bed after his girlfriend had violently attacked him on Christmas Eve, and all she did was fly over just to spend an hour with him? She might as well have stayed at home.
“Yeah,” he said, as if picking up on my thoughts. “She’s quite something. She literally just left. You probably saw her.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Blonde hair, lots of make-up?”
“That’s her.”
“Yeah, she almost flattened me as she shot past. How come she didn’t stay longer?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t want her to stay longer anyway. All she had to say, after she’d gone on about how bad I look, was that she always liked Natalie and maybe we can work this out once I get out of hospital.”
Sounded to me like Mrs McKay was missing a few marbles.
“Work it out?” I asked incredulously. “Did she not look at you?”
Ash let out a sharp laugh. “Not much. If it wasn’t Boxing Day, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d called Natalie and asked to meet her for lunch.”
I could feel bubbles of annoyance rising within me. The only reason Ash’s mum should have wanted to see Natalie was to tear her twisted little head off.
“I don’t even know what to say,” I said, shaking my head, and Ash shrugged again.
“It was what I expected. Any time Mum comes over here, she doesn’t spend much time with me. She makes a big fuss about how much she loves her son, tells everyone on Facebook, but it’s all for show. The fact that she came over here at all is just for everyone else’s benefit. She can say she visited her poor, battered son, and everyone will think she’s great.” He paused. “She’s not a terrible mother, she’s just… she’s a bit self-involved.”
A bit? I wasn’t sure it was possible to be much more selfish. But I wasn’t about to say anything bad about her. I’d never met her, and Ash couldn’t bring himself to let me think too badly of her, so I kept my mouth shut.
“So,
what’s going to happen now?” I asked carefully. “I mean, do you know when you’ll be able to get out of here?”
Ash shook his head. “I heard them say something about me needing an ‘evaluation’ to check if there’s a possibility of me hurting myself.” His eyes glazed over for a second, but then he blinked and looked at me again. “I’m not going to,” he said quietly. “But, maybe the fact that I’ve thought about it might be enough for them to keep me here.”
I nodded, my heart aching for him once again. “Maybe. Whatever they ask you though, Ash, tell the truth. Let them help you.”
“I will,” he said, looking down at his bed covers again. “But when it comes to my injuries, it could just be a few days. If I pass the evaluation, I don’t know where I’ll go. The police also came while my mum was here. Natalie is back at the flat now. Or at least, that’s where she told the police she’ll be. We have to wait for a court date now, and she’ll get some kind of punishment. But I was told that since she’s chosen to plead guilty, I don’t have to go to court.”
I raised an eyebrow. “She admitted to everything?”
“Couldn’t really deny it. The police burst in when she was stomping on my chest. She didn’t try to say that she was doing it in self-defence or anything like that. She confessed to everything.”
That was big of her. I couldn’t claim to know much about the justice system, but I suspected that admitting guilt might mean her punishment could be less than she deserved. As far as I was concerned, she should have rotted in jail, but that wasn’t my call, unfortunately.
“My mum says she’ll put some money in my bank account so I can stay in a cheap B&B for a week or so while I find somewhere to go permanently, but I’ve already been told I can’t work for at least four weeks. Maybe more depending on how I heal.”
My tongue tingled with the offer of letting him stay with me, but I couldn’t help but think about my mum’s words about not taking on too much. I wanted to support Ash, but when I looked at him, what I saw was a guy who was in pain. More emotionally than physically. It hurt me to look at him when I could almost see his inner hurt written all over his face. But could I really see him holed up in some crappy bed and breakfast, where he’d be alone with just his thoughts?
