Don’t ever let anyone tell you that time passes quickly as long as you stay busy. Eight weeks of intense therapy, both physical and mental, was a sure fire way to make a body pay for any sin it had ever committed. Not that I had a huge history of mistakes under my belt, but still, we all had those moments in life that plagued us. It was usually those moments that rose to the surface, rising from the ashes of our memories whenever anything bad happened to us as if to say, “I’m the reason your life has gone to shit just now. Karma.”

Eight weeks of torture kept me busy, but time sure did tick by slowly.

Sammy and my parents became my rocks, guiding me through the wheelchair way of life in my first few weeks of hospital release. There wasn’t anything that didn’t require their help. Sammy became my cook. Mum, my cleaner. I was a newborn baby again who needed her constant attention. I knew she loved it, even though I was in pain. It was what she had been built for her whole life—to be a carer, a mother, a giver.

Dad was his usual stoic self. His eyes would narrow when he watched me during therapy once my casts were eventually taken off, replaced by heavy bandages and support. Even when I couldn’t walk, I’d taken up the nurses’ offer to use the weights from the hospital, building up my arm muscles and making sure my lower back was healing nicely. They gave me a list of suitable exercises, and I followed my orders as best I could. Dad never took his eyes from me for a second when I was in that room. He was like a lion watching his cub, letting him have some freedom, but ready to pounce and make himself known if that cub went too far, too soon.

We grew closer in those few weeks, even in the silence of unspoken words—a nod of approval from him after I’d been up between the beams, pushing myself along and balancing on tiptoes, and I was happy.

Cameron was never far from my side, either. He was a lot like Dad in so many ways. There was a time for speaking and a time for silence in his world. Watching me heal was a time for quiet, so he could study me, read between the lines, and make sure I was okay. That was when you knew someone cared. When their worry ate them up whole, forcing them to stand back, swallow down the lectures, and pray for the best. I was glad to have him around. Really fucking glad.

Weaning me off the pain medication was harder than I thought it would be. Mum was terrified of me becoming some kind of Paracetamol addict. It took weeks of repetition to assure her I hated the chalky little pills as much as she did. It was a temporary fix. I didn’t need anything to enhance my life, not even when I was in pain. My friends and family were enough.

Especially Danni.

Her phone and video calls had become my addiction.

Every morning I would lie in bed and reach for my phone or laptop, just to see her face. Every afternoon, I would listen to her voice as she told me everything that was happening in her world, often helping her make difficult decisions about which jobs she should accept and which she didn’t need. My favourite parts were the nights. I would climb back into bed, rest my head on the pillow, pull my laptop up beside me and stare at her through the screen as she did the same in whichever European city she was inhabiting. We would lie there like we were in bed together, facing one another and whispering sweet nothings about what the future could hold for us if we both continued to dream aloud.

In just eight weeks, she’d taken flight and soared through the skies, lighting up the world with her rays of sunshine as everyone and their sons fell in love with her. Vincenzo, though slightly weird, had thrust her into the spotlight much earlier than she’d expected. Whenever he was interviewed, he spoke of his inspiration, making sure he pronounced Danni’s name with as much clarity as his thick accent would allow. He’d made her the face of his brand all over the world, and her eyes lit up the streets on billboards for every man and his dog to drool over. The power of the Internet was real, and Danni was going viral before she could so much as inhale a breath and dare to take any of it in.

Sammy started to show me pictures of Danni on red carpets, her bright smile dazzling everyone in front of her. I saw her stance, though—much weaker and unsure than it had ever been as she stood in front of the cameras with her hands clasped together behind her back, her eyes slightly downturned, her supposed happiness not quite lighting up her face the way I knew it could and should do. There were times when Sammy would be squealing about her friend’s success, and I’d sit there staring down at the pictures of her, wondering why she looked like something wasn’t quite right—like something was missing.

Her rise to fame wasn’t getting in the way of her phone calls. She wasn’t letting it. Every morning I looked forward to seeing her face staring back at me. Every afternoon, we’d do the same, regardless of the time difference or what she had going on. Even if we just spoke briefly, the eye contact was there. I got to see her. Sometimes we’d talk about basic things like the weather, food, or how I was healing, but mainly I’d let her go off on a tangent, falling deeper and deeper under her spell with every new insight into her mind she blessed me with. I loved those moments the best—when she would stare down the camera and point out the flecks of colour in my eyes, or the way my skin was changing shades as the summer sun made it glow. She saw everything—much more than anyone I’d ever known. She was a human mirror, reflecting the whole world back at all those who stared at her, showing so much beauty it was blinding.

She was the only pain relief I needed.

Eventually, I made it up onto crutches with the help and encouragement of those around me, plus a lot of stubborn, no-quit attitude from myself. Danni had asked me to be ready for her return, and even though we hadn’t discussed the actual date of that happening, I knew that the time was drawing closer.

There was just one thing left to do before any of us could move on from the accident.

One very important thing that would mark the end of one chapter, and truly let us begin the next one afresh.

My dad drove Sammy and me over to Huddersfield, his car climbing the curvy pathways that led us to the top of Castlehill. I’d never been before, even though I’d seen it from afar. Up close and personal, Castlehill felt a world away from reality. A thin, tall castle sat proudly on the peak of the hilltop, with nothing but green and yellow summery surroundings making it feel a world away from the grey town beneath it.

“You sure you’re going to be alright up here?” Dad asked us as he sat behind the wheel, taking a look around when he pulled the car to a stop. “Ground could be unsteady.”

“I’ll be fine, Dad,” I groaned, leaning forward to collect my crutches before I opened the door.

He and Sammy were on me like a shot, each one taking their duty of care seriously by helping me stand up. My crutches hit the pebbledash pathway, and I turned the handles over in my grip until I had them right where I felt it most natural to walk with them.

“Don’t go near any mud,” he ordered quietly.

“It’s summer. The mud will be dry.”

“Better to be safe than sorry.”

“Roger that, pops.” I gave him a wink and a smile.

“I’ll be waiting in the car for you both.”

He disappeared, leaving Sammy and me to look around for the others.

“Such a nice place,” Sammy muttered beside me, the wind catching her red hair and blowing it to the side gently as her eyes narrowed against the burning sun.

“Almost too nice for what we’re about to do.”

She turned to look at me and gave me a small smile. “You need a piggyback?”

“I think you’ve been carrying me for a few weeks too many already, sis. But thank you.” I laughed.

We made our way over to the rest of them, albeit slowly. My right leg was stronger than my left—the left having taken the full force of the impact—and I was getting good at putting my weight on the balls of my feet again. The aches were there, of course they were, but shit happens in life, and you can’t always have a pain-free existence. Sometimes you just have to take the hurt, swallow it down, and tell it you’re bigger and stronger than it is.

I looked up to see Paul and Suzie smiling at me, their faces much sadder than I liked seeing. I guess today wasn’t about the jokes and innuendos, though.

“Hey,” I greeted them both, only to be met with a hug from Suzie and a manly pat on the back from Paul.

“How’s the healing going, bro?” he asked me as he took a step back to look down at my legs.

“Slower than I want. Faster than they expected.”

“Dick still work?”

“So far, so good.” I smirked, shaking my head at him and rolling my eyes.

“Thank fuck for that.” He smiled, but it wasn’t the usual grin of mischief Paul had to offer, more a small attempt to lighten a sombre affair.

I looked past him to see Alex standing there with Natalie. He had a loose-fitting beanie hat covering his hair, something he’d started wearing a lot of since his accident. Natalie said it was a way for him to hug his own brain back to healthy. Me… I wasn’t so sure. I just had to hope he wasn’t grieving more than he let on and this wasn’t his new attempt to hide away from the world again.

We were all dressed casually. No need for formalities when it came to sending off the ashes of a man who didn’t deserve our respect. Still… there was a part of me that wondered if we should have dressed in suits and skirts, just to show Nicholas Law we were better than him. To show him that we were good to our bones, even when the bad tried to take us down with them.

I hobbled over to see Alex and Nat, Sammy hot on my heels, with Suzie and Paul trailing behind her.

“Nice day for a funeral,” I said as Nat leaned in to kiss me on the cheek.

“Hey, mate.” Alex offered me his free hand—the one that wasn’t hugging an urn full of his father to his chest.

“Hey,” I answered, giving him a nod before my eyes fell to the heavy, black ball of stone in his hand. I let out a heavy sigh, unable to take my eyes off it.

“Hard to believe that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?” Alex asked, forcing me to look back up at him.

“And relief that the two of us aren’t in there with him.”

“That, too.” He smiled sadly. His eyes squinted against the sun, and despite the weeks that had passed, there were still signs of the accident on his skin. A few small, barely noticeable scars ran through his eyebrow. His knuckles were scabbed over, still bust up as his body failed to heal fully.

“How you doing, anyway?”

“Still standing.”

“Same here.” I laughed weakly. “Just about. Now we just need you to regain your full memory, and we’ll be fighting fit in no time,” I told him.

Alex had woken up from the accident a slightly different man in some ways, but still the same old Law in others. When he was asked about current affairs, he struggled. When he was asked anything about Natalie, he answered in a heartbeat. Then there were the grey areas of his mother and father. Alex knew his dad had been part-evil, there was no denying that, but there were years of his earlier childhood that had simply… fallen out of his head. A blessing in disguise, I reckoned, but who was I to decide what memories were best for him and which were worse? The bad shit was what made a man good. Nothing created empathy quite like disaster.

“I’m just happy to be alive,” Alex sighed, turning to the side to look out at the views all around us. “There were things I never thought I’d see again. Colours I’d never appreciated. All I saw in that room was the darkest blacks, and bright whites that hurt. I was the same temperature all the time. I was numb. Being up here is exactly what I was missing.”

I looked around, taking it all in for myself. There was a small summer breeze blowing around us, making everything seem more… alive. I knew what he meant when he spoke about the flowery, poetic things. A near-death experience forced you to focus and see the good shit all around you. It was a shame more people couldn’t go to the edge only to be pulled back to safety at the last minute. If they did, maybe the world would be a little bit more in tune with itself.

“Why here?” I asked Alex.

“This was the place Dad brought Mum on their first date. I figured I’d give him one last gift before moving on, even if he doesn’t deserve it.”

“He created you,” Natalie said beside him, reaching up to grip his bicep. “He deserves it for that and that alone.”

Alex glanced down at her, holding her gaze for a moment before he pressed his lips to her forehead and then looked back at the rest of us.

“Thank you all for being here. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, we did,” Paul told him.

“We really did,” said Suzie.

“We’re your family now, Alex,” Sammy muttered.

“I’ll be the Uncle Knobhead of the family, don’t worry,” I added, grinning at him.

He smirked and huffed out a tiny laugh before he looked down at the urn and opened it up. He and Natalie turned away from us, and we watched silently as small handfuls of Alex’s father were left to drift off into the breeze. Nothing was said as the black and grey specks floated off into the distance, some rising high, while some fell straight to the ground. It was several small explosions of death being set free right before us.

Creepy yet calming.

Surreal yet grounding.

It made a huge lump form in my throat—one I had to swallow down as the reality of Alex’s losses hit me like a freight train. The guy was a fucking orphan, and he hadn’t even hit his mid-twenties.

What a tragedy.

After some time, when the urn had been emptied, and Alex had done all he could, Sammy put her arm around Natalie and walked her back to her car with Paul and Suzie huddled together following them closely. I stayed by Alex’s side, looking down at the same small clump of dust that had formed by his boot-clad feet.

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could think to say. I was sorry… for him. I was sorry his Dad hadn’t been enough. I was sorry things had always been so wrong and screwed up. I was sorry he had to see his Dad beneath his shoe, and I was sorry that he seemed unable to cry or react to it.

“Don’t be,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

“I know.” I nodded, not really knowing at all.

“Not all deaths should be mourned. I lost my dad a long time ago. The man I’ve just set free wasn’t the man who held me in those first few seconds of my life. He wasn’t the man who taught me how to swim, or ride a bike, or even the man I swear I saw kiss my mum with affection sometimes. He changed. He changed so much it was like he murdered himself along the way. Killed off the nice guy so the beast inside him could survive in his body.”

I dipped my head, the fear of losing my own father tearing a hole through my chest.

“I went to see his body before he was cremated,” Alex admitted quietly. “I had to see him one last time. It didn’t matter to me that he was cold—he’d been that for most of my life. I just needed to see him calm. I needed to see him without a crease on his forehead or that lingering sadness behind his eyes or the anger in his balled up fists. I needed to see a version of my father that looked peaceful.”

“Shit, Alex. You’re stronger than me,” I told him, and I meant it.

“When someone dies, all you’re left with is this shell. Everything about them looks different. Everything changes. With no voice and no expression, you just stand there and imagine everything they could have been if only they’d tried that little bit harder. I wondered what it would be like to stand over him and cry. I wondered how it must feel to grieve someone I was supposed to be torn up about leaving me. All I felt was… numb. Detached. Like that wasn’t Dad and this wasn’t my life. It was kinda peaceful seeing him that way.” Alex rocked on his feet and sighed heavily, blowing off the weight of his whole life and letting it sail away in the sky with his father’s ashes. “Not all deaths are a loss. Some bring freedom with them. Now I have no one else to care for but Natalie, and I’m going to spend every second I’m alive using all my breaths to make her happy. I won’t make my father’s mistakes. I’m going to give Natalie everything I have.”

I stared up at him, half broken for a boy who’d never had love as a child, half envious for the man who knew exactly who he was about to become.

“I’m glad you got the girl,” I told him honestly.

Alex looked at me, his face not giving anything away. “Me, too.”

I was about to say something to follow that statement up—maybe make a reference to how suited they were, or remind him that I was a friend now, not an opponent, and I wanted happiness for him in any way he could get it. But Alex glanced over my shoulder, a slow, all-knowing smile creeping onto his face before he looked back at me and slapped a hand against my arm.

“How about you go get yours now?”

I blinked, frowning in confusion before I turned around to see her standing just a few meters away from me.

She was like a vision against the green fields, the blue skies, and I swear the sun seemed brighter as soon as I laid eyes on her. My grin tore free immediately as Danni began to walk towards me, her hair loose and wavy in the breeze, wearing her tight jeans, grey hoodie and that to-die-for smile.

Everything else disappeared the moment I saw her.

She was the bright light at the end of the dark tunnel.

She made my body feel stronger just by being near.

She made me want to run to her, if only I could run at all.

When she came to a stop in front of me, Danni wasted no time before she pressed her lips to mine and threw her arms around my neck. The two magnets of who we were clicked into place and I closed my eyes, moaning softly into her mouth and letting go of one of my crutches just so I could touch more of her, feel her, make sure she was real.

Her tongue danced over my tongue seductively, and everything that hurt before she arrived settled down into a calm state of numbness.

I didn’t have a chance to think about who was watching, who might have issue with it, or what anyone else thought. I didn’t even care. All I could think of doing was getting her closer and holding her to me, never wanting to let her go. I curled my fist into her hoodie, drawing her closer, pressing my lips to hers even harder, until there was no way to breathe unless I stole her breaths. I wanted to steal everything of hers and keep it locked inside of me forever.

The thing that turned me on the most was feeling that she clearly wanted it, too.

Nicholas Law may not have brought people together in his life, but his death was making everything click into place. Every fucking thing.

I’d never been more grateful for the tragedy that had been our lives for the last few months. If this was what was waiting for me at the end of it, I’d go through every second of it all again to feel my bones healing and burning when pressed against her.