Heart-Shaped Bruise (23 page)

I had to close the door on her then, otherwise I would have punched her.

Mercifully, she wasn’t at the hospital when I got there.

‘Ro!’ Sid gasped when he saw me. I suppose it should have been awkward after I’d disappeared during the gig, but standing
in the waiting room of the ITU, surrounded by sobbing, shaking families, it all seemed so juvenile.

He scooped me up into a hug and when he put me back on my feet, I smiled softly and asked him if he was okay.

‘Are
you
okay?’ he asked.

I looked around, half expecting Juliet to come flying at me. ‘Where’s Nance?’

‘She had to go home for a sec; Eve needed to talk to her about something.’

I wanted to ask why, but the word got caught in my throat as my cheeks started to burn. So I tried to change the subject. ‘I brought you something.’

I held up a plastic bag and he peered into it. ‘There’d better be some Smarties in here.’

‘’Course. I drank all the Stella on the bus, though.’

He tipped his head back and laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved to hear someone laugh. The sound was so warm, so
bright
that, for a moment, it made me giggle too.

‘Only you would joke about that here, Ro.’

I realised what I’d said and gasped. ‘Sorry. I didn’t think.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ he said, draping an arm across my shoulders and kissing the top of my head. ‘I don’t want to think for a while, either.’

‘Fag?’ I suggested and his face lit up.

‘Quick. Before Nance gets back.’

‘Is she alright? Your mum?’ I asked, while we were waiting for the lift. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, its coloured
lights blinking merrily. I remember how strange it looked – vulgar, almost – next to a poster reminding visitors to use the hand gel in the dispenser provided before they went into the ITU.

Sid slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and shrugged. ‘She’s better. They’re moving her out of intensive care, but she tried to kill herself so I don’t think so.’

It knocked the air right out of me and I just looked at him for a moment.

‘I’m so sorry, Sid. I don’t know what to say,’ I admitted, looking at my feet.

‘That’s okay, ’cos I don’t want to talk about it.’

Thankfully, the lift arrived then and he held the door open so that I could get in. It was full, so we had to squeeze in, but as soon as the doors closed, I reached for his hand like I had at the cemetery. I didn’t look at him and he didn’t look at me, I just squeezed it and he squeezed mine back, so hard I felt my ring dig into my knuckle.

When we got outside, I didn’t push him. I didn’t ask how he was feeling or tell him that everything was going to be okay, I just lit a cigarette and handed it to him. We passed it back and forth and when it was finished, he sat on the railing and peered at me from under his eyelashes.

‘Come here,’ he said, and he looked exhausted, like his mother had at that wedding, like he hadn’t slept for years and years.

I stood between his legs, and when he put his arms around my waist and pulled me to him, I shivered. I shivered again when he dipped his head, resting his forehead on my shoulder. I didn’t
know what to do. I suppose I should have said something comforting, held him and spun him a line about how everything was going to be okay, but I just stood there, my hands fisted in the front of his jacket, so I wouldn’t touch him.

I never did, you know. Touch him, I mean. I read what they said in the papers, that I threw myself at him, that I led him on. SHAMELESS, the
Mirror
wrote in capital letters under a picture of me once, but I never laid a finger on him.

I won’t lie, I wanted to. There were days when we were in the park, eating chips and bickering about our dream Glastonbury line-up, when the urge to touch him was unbearable. The number of times I almost reached a hand up to twirl a wave of his hair around my finger or I wanted to run my thumb along his bottom lip. But I didn’t. And I didn’t that afternoon outside the hospital, either. I just waited for him to lift his head again and look at me.

‘Thanks, Ro,’ he said with a long sigh.

I told myself to let go of his jacket. ‘For what?’

‘For this.’

‘For what? I didn’t do anything.’

‘Exactly,’ he said with a tired smile. ‘Nance is amazing, she hasn’t left my side, but she’s so
practical
. So far today she’s brought me two sandwiches, five cups of tea and made me read a load of leaflets about depression.’ He stopped to rub his face in his hands. ‘She’s even been looking up local AA meetings.’

‘Yeah, but you need that stuff. I brought you a tube of Smarties and twenty B&H, how’s that gonna help?’

‘It does.’ He reached for my hand and when he pressed a kiss to my palm, the shock of it made me take a step back.

‘We should get back inside. I’m freezing,’ I told him, my nerves rattling.

But he didn’t move. ‘This is my fault, isn’t it, Ro? What happened to Mum.’

‘What?’ I took a step towards him again. ‘No.’

He shook his head. ‘I should have done something when I found the bottles.’

‘What were you supposed to do?’ I waited until he looked at me again. ‘It was her choice. It was a
bad
one, but we’re the kids and they’re the grown-ups, they’re supposed to know what they’re doing. Why do we always blame ourselves for
their
mistakes?’

He nodded and he looked so sad I couldn’t bear it. So I raised my hand and smoothed the crease between his eyebrows with my finger. He smiled, but before I could smile back, I was aware of someone standing behind me.

‘She knew?’ I heard someone say and turned to find Juliet watching us.

‘You told
her
about your mum,’ she looked at Sid, but pointed at me, ‘not me?’

‘Nance,’ he said, jumping down from the railing with a sigh, but she wasn’t listening.

‘You bitch,’ I heard her say before she flew at me.

It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to raise my hands before she slapped me across the face. I’d never been
slapped before. It knocked my eyes out of focus and I fell against the railing. It’s a strange thing to remember, but I remember how cold the metal was as I reached out for it to steady myself. It was so cold I almost let go of it again.

‘Nance! What are you doing?’ Sid grabbed her wrist as she tried to slap me a second time, so she tried to slap me with her left hand, but he grabbed that wrist too. ‘Stop it!’

‘She’s a whore, Sid!’

‘What?’

‘She shagged Mike!’

Sid let go of her then. ‘What?’

‘She shagged Mike.’ She stopped to blow a curl out of her eyes, her fists clenched at her sides. ‘That’s why I had to go home; Eve wanted to tell me they’re getting a divorce!’

Sid stared at me. ‘I didn’t,’ I breathed, shaking my head. ‘We just kissed.’

‘Like it matters! I thought you were my friend!’ Juliet came at me again, grabbing my hair and pulling so hard I yelped. ‘You ruined everything. I have to live with another family.’

Sid grabbed her wrists again and looked at her. ‘What? Why?’

She stopped then. I suppose I could have told him; because they’re not her aunt and uncle, they’re her foster parents and if Mike leaves, who’ll protect poor, precious Juliet? Perhaps I should have. Perhaps I should have reached up and pushed her off that high horse. Then she would have seen what it was like down in the gutter with me.

But then a woman in a dressing-gown looked at us as a nurse in a Santa hat pushed her wheelchair up the ramp towards the hospital and I remembered where we were.

‘Can we not do this now?’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘I think Sid—’

‘Don’t tell me what’s best for Sid,’ Juliet interrupted with a filthy glare.

I tried again. ‘I don’t think now is the best time to—’

‘No. I want to do this now. I want Sid to know who he’s confiding in.’

‘Well, can we do it somewhere we’re not disturbing a load of sick people?’

‘You’re the sick one, Rose. I know your type.’

I shouldn’t have, but I bit back. ‘My type?’

‘Your family’s broken up, so break up mine. Can’t find a boyfriend? Take mine!’

I saw the tears in her eyes, the way her hand shook as she pointed at me, and my heart. She knew what I’d done. I didn’t even have to tell her and she knew.

Juliet Shaw is a lot of things, but she’s not stupid.

‘I thought we were friends, Rose. I told you everything.’

I stepped forward then, an eyebrow raised. ‘Everything?’

‘That’s
enough
!’ Sid barked, standing between us before I could say it,
scream
her name until my lungs burned. ‘Enough!’

‘Sid—’ she started to say, but he shook his head.

‘No, Nancy. I don’t want to hear any more.’

‘But, Sid!’

‘
But, Sid
nothing. Do you know that my mother is in intensive care right now?’

She stepped back, but she still looked livid. ‘Of course I do!’

‘So why are you bringing this drama to me right now?’

She laughed and pointed at me. ‘She behaves like a whore and it’s
my
fault?’

‘Stop calling her a whore,’ he said and my heart doubled in size.

‘I knew you’d defend her.’ Juliet shook her head, but he was unmoved.

‘I don’t know what happened, but you only have to look at Rose to know she’s messed up. I mean, look at the state of her. She’s a wreck.’

Juliet looked me up and down. ‘We all have problems, Sid, but most of us can deal with them without drinking ourselves stupid.’

He crossed his arms and titled his head. ‘What? Like my mum?’

There was a painful silence after he’d said it. Juliet’s jaw clenched.

‘All I’m saying,’ Sid continued, ‘is that Rose needs help and I don’t care if she threw herself at Mike, he didn’t have to catch her. She’s
sixteen
. She needs someone to be there for her, she doesn’t need some dirty old man trying to get his leg over.’

Juliet slapped him then, so hard he staggered back.

Then I was between them. ‘Go back to your mum, Sid. I’ll deal with this.’

He didn’t move, so I nudged him back with my elbow. ‘Go. It’s okay.’

He did and as soon as Juliet and I were alone, I stepped forward. She stepped back into the railing. ‘Touch him again and I’ll cut your heart out,’ I told her, and I’d never sounded more like a Koll.

Dad would’ve been proud.

She lifted her chin to look at me, her eyes wild and bright and there she was at last, Juliet Shaw, not Nancy Wells. The Juliet Shaw who stabbed my father in the back and brought my whole world crashing down around me. And I knew then that was it.

I was ready.

‘Shut up,’ I told her. As soon as I did, she opened her mouth to say something. I lifted my finger. ‘I said shut up. That’s enough.
Enough
. We’ll talk about this later.’

She nodded, and I looked at her, really looked at her for the first time, right in the eye. And I didn’t care what she saw, if she saw Rose or Emily.

I wanted her to see.

Val killed herself this morning. When they found her, they made us go to our rooms and wouldn’t let us out until we’d spoken to Doctor Gilyard.

I didn’t have anything to say. I mean, it’s shit, but Val was obviously miserable. Maybe she’s better off. So what Doctor Gilyard wanted to talk about, I don’t know, but she sat in my room for an hour. I know it was an hour because the door was open so I listened to the whole of the one o’clock news before I kicked off my blanket and sat up.

‘Val killed herself. So what?’ I shrugged. ‘Can I have a fag now?’

She looked at me for a long time, then she wrote something in her notebook.

I rolled my eyes and went to stand by the window, looking
through the bars at the sad roll of the clouds. The weather had turned again; the sky was pale blue and there was no chill from the glass, no frost gathering at the corners of the window like cobwebs.

‘Maybe it’s you who needs to talk to someone,’ I told her with another shrug.

She looked up then. ‘Why’s that, Emily?’

‘You couldn’t help her. You’re not helping me.’

She looked down again, but she didn’t write anything. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘This isn’t working.’

‘What isn’t working, Emily?’

‘This,
this
whatever you’re supposed to be doing, isn’t working.’

‘In what way isn’t it working, Emily?’

‘I’m not—’ I stopped, my eyes following a bird as it dipped then soared again.

‘You’re not what, Emily?’

‘Better.’

It was very quiet after I’d said it. I could feel the silence between us, thick as smoke, touching the walls, filling the corners.

‘Do you want to get better, Emily?’

I do. I used to be able to do this. I used to be able to put food in my mouth and taste it. I used to be able to close my eyes and sleep. Do normal things like paint my nails. When I think of those September afternoons in the park with Sid and Juliet, eating crisps and squabbling over what film to see as the sun melted behind the trees, it feels like for ever ago. Will I ever do
anything that normal again? Will I forget? Forget the chill of sitting on damp grass? Will I ever look up at an endless blue sky, or will I only see it in strips from now?

I heard Doctor Gilyard writing and turned towards her again.

‘You look worn out, Emily. I’m going to give you something to help you sleep—’ she started to say, but I wouldn’t let her finish.

‘No!’ I hissed, my fists clenched. ‘No more pills!’

‘Emily—’

I lunged towards her. ‘No more pills! Is that your answer to everything? Talk. Take a pill. Talk. Take a pill. Talk. Take a pill. Talk. Take a pill.’

When she didn’t flinch, I snapped. ‘Do something! Will you just
do something
!’

‘Do what, Emily?’ she asked, and when she took her glasses off to look at me, I wanted to reach for her shoulders and shake her. But I was so rigid with anger, I couldn’t move; I was sure my spine would snap if I did.

‘Help me!’ I said. Begged. ‘Help me!’

She stood up then, turning to put her notebook on the chair, and the shock of it made me take a step back.