Breathless (27 page)

Lewis and Helen helped Charlotte out to the stage door and settled her into Jack's car. "Take her to Dr. Ellison," Helen instructed Jack. "I've already called him and told him you're coming. Be careful, darling," she told Charlotte with a kiss on her forehead. "I'll see you in a little while. Don't worry, everything will be fine." She smiled at her encouragingly and closed the car door, blowing a kiss as the pair drove away, Lewis holding her hand.

"It's just a sprain," Dr. Ellison determined some time later. He was a pleasant man with a kind face and big, round eyes like a puppy's. "Nothing to worry about. Rest it and ice it and you will be fine."

"Will I be well enough to perform?" Charlotte asked worriedly. "I'm an actress and I still have so many more shows..."

"As long as there is no running and jumping, I think you'll be alright," he told her. "The most you'll have to worry about is keeping the pain off your face during the performances." He handed Jack a note. "Here is a prescription for some painkillers. Just take them for the next few days."

"Thank you, Dr. Ellison," Charlotte said, standing from the bed and casting him a grateful smile. Jack allowed her to lean on his arm as they walked out to the car.

After shifting the car into drive, Jack commented, "I can't believe that after everything, you sprain your ankle on a rope backstage." Charlotte looked at him in surprise. "After so many months of running and scampering around with Celia down the streets of London, and skipping up and down stairs and running around backstage, that you twist your ankle on a rope. That," he managed a small smile, "takes talent."

Charlotte grinned. They might be talking about her clumsiness, but at least they were talking.

"Congratulations on your graduation," she said quietly, testing her luck. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there." He shrugged, showing her that he didn't mind. Charlotte couldn't skip a performance for a school graduation. "So I suppose this means you'll be off to the university soon."

Jack turned the corner. "That's the plan. Will you miss me?"

Charlotte pursed her lips, but finally replied, "What's there to miss?" very quietly, as if they were still kidding. But secretly, she didn't know how to reply.

"Yeah, I guess I haven't been around very often lately," Jack commented. "I feel a bit badly about that, for my mum. I know she wants to see me more before I leave. But when we take our holiday this summer, we'll all see plenty of each other then."

"There's a holiday?" Charlotte asked.

"Of course," Jack replied. "Every year we go to the coast for a couple of weeks. It's my favorite time of the year. I'm sure you'll be coming along."

Charlotte nodded. A week with Lewis and Helen...and Jack. "I'd love to," she finally replied.

"Good," Jack agreed and they continued their drive in silence.

But the silence didn't last long.

In an instant, the clear, silent streets of London turned into chaos as the sound of sirens began wailing. Charlotte's heart dropped, remembering that night so long ago when she and Jack ran to hide in the basement of the theatre. She hadn't imagined how scary it would be to hear the planes, feel the explosions. But now it all came flooding back to her, and she was sure that the second time was truly scarier than the first.

With startling speed, Jack had bolted out of the car and ran over to Charlotte's side. He wrenched open the door and reached for her. "Charlotte, come on," he insisted, panic in his voice. "We have to get off the streets. We have to get out of here."

After only a moment's hesitation, Charlotte took his hand and pulled herself out of the car, although her ankle was still throbbing. Jack took off running, pulling Charlotte after him as the sirens intensified.

"We have to get to the tube," Jack yelled to her over the noise. "It will be the best way to keep underground. It's only a block over."

Charlotte nodded, since her mouth felt like cotton, but Jack didn't see. He was too focused on running to the underground station and getting them out of danger.

Finally Charlotte saw the sign for the tube and sighed in relief. "Almost there!" Jack called to her as they began to run down the stairs. But Charlotte's ankle gave out.

"Oh!" she gave out a small cry as she lost her footing. She tried to steady herself on the next step but again fumbled and in a horrifying moment felt herself crashing to the stairs and tumbling down them, only coming to a stop at the landing.

"Charlotte!" she heard Jack yell as he ran down the stairs and knelt next to her. "Charlotte, are you alright? Can you hear me?"

She was dazed and shaken from the fall and the sirens, but she managed to nod. "Oh!" she cried, her hand flying up to her forehead where she felt a spark of pain. When she pulled her hand away she noticed the bright red hue of blood on her fingertips.

"Put your arms around my neck," Jack instructed her, his eyes wide. Charlotte tried to do as he said, although her arms were still so shaky. She clasped her hands behind his neck as he lifted her under her knees and around her back and cradled her to his chest as he carried her down the remaining stairs and down to the tracks where so many others were already hiding.

Jack gently set her down against a wall and sat beside her, his breathing coming quickly as he looked up at the ceiling, the wails of the sirens and the crashes of explosions deafening their ears. He looked over at Charlotte with concern. "Are you alright?"

Charlotte tried to nod, but just managed a grimace. Everything was so blurry and she felt so dizzy, yet light-headed. "I think my head is bleeding..." she managed to murmur.

"Just a little," Jack assured her, brushing his hand over her forehead. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to her head. "It should stop in a few minutes if you keep the pressure on it."

"I don't want to," Charlotte said stubbornly, not quite realizing what she was saying. She dropped the handkerchief and began to lay down. "I just want to sleep for a few minutes..."

"No, Charlotte. That's not a good idea," Jack said gently, helping her back up to a sitting position and picking the handkerchief up, placing it gently against her forehead. "If you've hit your head, the last thing you want to do is sleep. And we need to keep you upright so that your head will stop bleeding."

Charlotte frowned sleepily. "I just feel so tired..."

Jack sighed and sat with his back against the brick wall. He pulled Charlotte close to him and settled her between his arms so that her head rested back on his chest. Then he took the handkerchief and held it to her head. With his other hand, he gently took hers and kept intertwining their fingers together in constant motion.

"Just stay awake, Charlotte," he asked her quietly. "Please. For me. Everything will be alright. It'll be over soon. And then we can go back to the theatre. I'm sure Helen and Lewis are worried sick about us. They'll probably take us to dinner or prepare some elaborate dessert as a celebration for us. We'll drive back home in my comfortable car and you can go up to your room and read whatever you'd like. I'll even let you borrow my new copy of
Macbeth
if you'd like."

"I already have
Macbeth
," Charlotte murmured back.

"Then you can borrow something else, if you'd like. I'll even read to you. Just please, Charlotte. Stay awake. I'm sure the worst is almost over."

It felt as if it were years before the all-clear finally sounded. Charlotte had stayed quiet, which had worried Jack. He kept moving her hand the entire time, trying to keep her awake, and if she so much as closed her eyes for a moment, he was gently asking her not to fall asleep. As the others began to file out of the tube, Jack looked at Charlotte seriously. "Are you alright?"

Charlotte nodded. "Still a bit woozy, but I'm fine. Can we just please walk slowly?"

"Of course," Jack agreed.

They made their way back up to the streets of London, twilight gleaming in the streets. The lamps and lights shone so brightly that Charlotte winced.

"The man over there said that the street is blocked off," Jack said walking back to her after looking for his car. "I guess there was a fire over there. He said I could come pick it up tomorrow. But for now we have to walk back to the theatre. Do you think you can make it?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling a lot clearer. Now my head and my ankle just really hurt."

"It's better for you to feel the pain than for you not to feel anything," Jack smiled at her, relieved. "You had me so scared for a while, there. Imagine what my parents would do to me if you got hurt while on my watch."

Charlotte smiled. "Well I'm fine, so you won't have to worry about it. And the cut on my forehead is barely noticeable. Nothing a little stage makeup can't fix."

Jack grinned. "Well, at least you're looking on the bright side of things."

Charlotte looked down at her shoes as they made their way down the cobblestone streets. Everything seemed so still, so quiet. Everything seemed rather perfect in the twinkling darkness of the streets. But a nagging feeling kept tearing at her heart.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she finally told him, "for being so terrible. You're definitely not the easiest person to get along with most of the time. You're actually very difficult. But I treated you badly. I said things I shouldn't have and...I just shouldn't have." Charlotte smiled uncomfortably, unsure where she was going with her apology. "I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have said anything at all." She looked back down at her shoes.

"No. I'm sorry, too," Jack told her quietly. "I've been much too hard on you. It wasn't fair." He sighed. "The problem is...that we've always been at one extreme or another. Either we're very close and affectionate, or we're screaming at each other at the top of our lungs. We've really never been in the middle of it."

"I guess that's not really the best way to be," Charlotte pondered.

"Yeah. Can I ask you a question?"

Charlotte's heart raced in anticipation. "Of course."

"Why do you care so much?" Jack asked, looking sideways at her curiously. "Why is it that whenever I screw up my life, do something stupid or reckless, that you always care so much? You take care of me or you get really mad at me...but there's no way you can deny that there's a reason why you care so much."

Charlotte looked back at him in surprise. She didn't know how to respond. She had no idea what to say to him, to make him think that she really didn't care so much what happened to him. And then she realized...why was she even being defensive about caring about him in the first place? He had been like her brother. And then he had been her enemy. But at the end of the day, she did care about him. Whether she wanted him to know or not.

"What?" Jack asked again, still looking at her.

Charlotte could just shake her head. "I don't know what you're talking about," she finally said, her mouth feeling dry as cotton as they rounded the corner to the theatre.

And then she wished she never had. Her heart felt wrenched like it never had before. Because laying before her, amidst a cloud of smoke and dust, was only the remains of the great theatre, which now lay in a crumbled heap of stone and debris.

In an instant, Charlotte had forgotten about her throbbing ankle. All she cared about was Lewis and Helen. She needed to find them. She needed to know that they were alright. Without even thinking, she began sprinting the distance standing between her and the fallen theater, stumbling over the debris and pushing past the clouds of smoke and dust. It didn't matter that the sirens were wailing. It didn't matter that the police officers and firemen were calling after her. All that mattered was finding them. And she knew Jack felt the same way, because he was running even faster than she was.

"Lewis!" Jack screamed, louder than Charlotte had ever heard him yell before. "Helen!" His voice was hoarse, and the look of panic on his face was something that would always be imprinted in her memory. He was no longer the strong, rebellious person she had come to know over the past long months. He was now a child: lost, scared, and confused, and in desperate need of his parents. " Mum!" he yelled again, but his voice weakening. "Dad!"

Charlotte squinted as the ambulances began to arrive and smoke began to clear a bit, trying to catch any sight of Helen's bright dress or Lewis' suit. She strained trying to remember which he had been wearing that day. The tweed gray? No, it had been the deep blue with the pinstripes. She remembered teasing him only earlier that day, saying he looked like a gangster from one of the movies. She had made him smile, and he had laughed, something unusual for his quiet demeanor. Oh god, he had to be alright.

"Charlotte!" Jack yelled over the screams of the sirens, wrenching her hand in his own. She followed his gaze, his bright eyes now panicked and terrified, and caught sight of medics lifting someone onto a stretcher, carrying him over to an ambulance.

"Oh, god," Charlotte breathed, her heart seizing with pain. "Wes." She stumbled toward him, but he was much too far away. They were already shutting him into the back of the ambulance, but she could make out his bloodied clothing, his agonized expression, his dirtied face. And his eyes were closed. God, Charlotte began to pray, please don't let him be dead. Please, please, please don't let him be dead.

She heard Jack's sharp intake of breath beside her, and he took off running toward the theatre, faster than she had ever seen him run before. Faster than during the air raid at the theater, faster than when the bombs were falling only hours earlier. Charlotte ran after him, but only half-heartedly as sobs began to rack her body. She didn't want to see what he saw. She didn't want this to be happening. This couldn't be happening.