You’ve dyed your hair,” I announce so loudly everybody in the room looks our way.
I give David a smile when he chuckles. It’s the second time I’ve heard him laugh this week. It makes me happy and brings me so much joy. Not the nurse Joy, but the synonym for happy, joy.
“I have.” Geoffrey grins, looking a lot younger now, but I have to admit, his grey speckled hair did give him that handsome aged look that only men seem to get.
“Finally getting yourself a life outside of this place?” I joke, hitting him on the arm with my notebook.
“It’s about time one of us did,” he retorts.
I pretend to wet my finger and when it touches his arm I make a sizzling sound with my tongue. “Damn, I need some aloe for that burn, Doc.”
Chuckling, he gives me a gentle push away from him. “I have things to do.”
“Who is she?” I ask, following him like a child, my hands tucked into the pockets of my jacket. “Or he… if you swing that way?”
“Cerise,” he warns, but I see his amusement in the crinkle of his eyes.
“Oh come on!” I whine playfully, following him outside, onto the gorgeous cobblestone winding path that leads from the common area to the greenhouse. I went in there once until a bee chased me out. “You spend all day every day…”
“Except Sundays.”
“Except Sundays, prying into the deepest parts of our humanity…”
“Song name,” he jokes, yanking my notebook from me.
I wrestle it back off him and hit him with it again. “Is she pretty?”
He sighs but the corner of his lips twitch with amusement. “She’s beautiful.”
This makes me smile more. “Oooh! Tell me more. Is she young? Is she old? Is she a doctor like you?”
“That’s all you’re getting from me,” he states, pushing open the door to the greenhouse and holding it open for me to step through. “You’ve been writing a lot lately. Anything interesting?”
“Just poetry and song lyrics. The norm.”
“That’s good. It’s good you’ve found an outlet.”
I nod my agreement. “How do you always manage to turn the conversation onto me?”
“Because it’s my job to.” He smiles warmly and gently strokes the head of a rose. “The last of the season, I’m surprised it lived this long.”
“Is gardening your thing?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. I just like the smell and the quiet. Nobody comes here.”
“I wonder why,” I remark sarcastically, looking around the barren greenhouse where few flowers bloom with life.
“Smart arse,” He mumbles, yanking on my braid which makes me laugh.
I gasp when he takes the final rose from the bush and cuts the stem.
“Ouch,” he hisses when he grips it and accidentally nicks himself on a thorn.
I wince and take his hand in mine to assess the damage. A small bead of blood gathers on the very tip. You’d think after what I’d done to myself blood wouldn’t bother me, but for some bizarre reason it sends a wave of sadness through me and shame.
Taking a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, I quickly wipe the blood away and announce, “Well unless it turns into sepsis, I’m sure you’ll live.”
He rolls his eyes and flexes his hand. “For a moment there I thought you were going to run.”
“I almost did… the blood,” I admit and shudder dramatically. I find him so easy to talk to. “It made me feel guilty.”
“We call that a trigger.”
I take the rose from him after pulling myself up onto the side beside the plant pot and, with his permission, I shave the thorns off with a nail file type tool. He moves around me, watering the dying flowers and plants that are getting ready to sleep for the winter.
I start singing after I smell the rose and then hold it up to my mouth like a microphone. It’s been a while since I sang. It feels like forever but it’s likely been longer. The notes come easily, easier than they ever have because it’s been so long since I let go. My voice sounds good, relaxed and well rested. I enjoy it but I don’t want to push it so I quieten, ready to stop.
When I finish, I clear my throat, embarrassed when he starts clapping and cheering.
“Come on,” he says, holding out his hand to help me down. “I’ll escort you back.”
I grin up at him. “Sorry for crashing on your quiet time.”
“It was the best break I’ve had all week. Don’t ever think you’re imposing.”
He escorts me back across to the building and it’s not until I’m back in my room that I realise he never took the rose from me. So I inhale its sweet scent one more time and place it on my windowsill with my notebook. I’ll press it into the pages when it starts to lose its life, forever immortalising it and remembering the path I took to good health and happiness.
* * *
“Have I had any mail at all?” I feel as disappointed as I sound. “And you definitely sent that letter last week?”
She looks a little insulted when she responds, “Of course, Cerise. I promised I would. I put it in the pile with all the mail myself.”
“It’s not instant messaging, Cerise,” Geoffrey states, frowning at the file in front of him as he ticks boxes and reads the text. “It’ll take time to get there and return.”
I huff and tap my foot on the floor. “I’m getting really restless.”
“Go and play chess with David,” the nurse I offended a moment ago with my lack of faith chuckles. Her name is Poppy. She’s brilliant, one of my favourites. I have so much respect for her. “He needs the company.”
“Or…” Geoffrey puts in. “You can come with me on an errand.”
“Errand?” Both I and the nurse ask at the same time.
The curious, narrowed eye look she gives him does not go unnoticed.
“The staff lounge needs more milk and we’re running low on chocolate, thanks to greedy over here.” He nods to me and I stick my tongue out at him. I have no regrets.
“I’m not sure that’s wise. She’s still…”
Geoffrey gives Poppy a look that silences her immediately. “Poppy, how I work with my patients is up to me.”
“Yes, Doctor Foreman,” she mutters, looking embarrassed. “I just meant because of the cameras and such that have been camping outside.”
“They know I’m here?”
Geoffrey shoots her with another look and she busies herself as he guides me away with a hand between my shoulder blades. “There will likely always be someone out there until you leave. You know this. We’re prepared for this.” He stops us both and turns me to face him, his eyes holding such warmth and kindness that my insecurities momentarily vanish. “It’s just to the shop, which is just around the corner. You can do this. We’ll be in my car. It’ll be fine. Okay?”
My nerves have my hands shaking but he’s right; we are prepared for this. I have to face it eventually.
I nod a little too quickly. “It’d be nice to get out of here.”
“And get more chocolate,” he adds, grinning, then nods his head towards the door. “Go get out of that bloody dressing gown. You look like a mental patient.”
I laugh loudly at that. “I am one.”
When he leads me out of the private building and through the main hall that I vaguely remember coming through when admitted, I keep my eyes on the floor just in case anybody decides to look at me funny.
“Chin up, Cerise,” he whispers, gripping my bicep gently. “I’ve got you.”
I don’t look around but I take a deep breath and absorb the warmth from his calming energy. “I can do this.”
“You can.”
We exit the main building. He signs us both out and I stick to his side like Velcro to felt. “You’ve got this, girl.” The transgender woman behind the desk grins and I definitely remember him. I mean her. Darn it. I promised myself I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Bloody hell.
“Thanks,” I mumble and Geoffrey leads me to the entrance doors. We still have to cut across to the carpark but the thought of stepping through those doors is… it’s intense. I’m almost ready to have a panic attack but he takes my bicep in his hand again and I find the strength to do it.
The cold air fills my lungs. It’s as though the air on this side of the building is different to the other, more private side.
I see the gates in the distance but make a game of trying to guess Geoffrey’s car.
“Mercedes?” I question, seeing a TT in the distance.
He shakes his head, smiling secretively.
“BMW?”
Again, he shakes his head. “Omg!” I place my fingers to my lips and start giggling when he presses his keys and his sleek black car lights ping on and off. “How did I not guess that you drive a Bentley? You look like just the type of person to drive a Bentley.”
“Are you saying I’m an old man?”
“Anybody over thirty in my eyes is old.” I wink at him and wait for him to open my car door.
I play with all of the buttons and admire the cream leather interior as he rounds the car.
“Are you always this nosy?” He chuckles, snatching the magazine from my hand that I found stuffed under my seat.
“Definitely.”
“Okay.” His face is now serious as he turns to me. “We’re just going to go to the shop, nip inside, grab milk and some goodies, then come straight back. That’s how easy this is going to be.”
I zip up my baggy parker jacket and nod once with determination. “I can do this. Easy peasy.”
“Good girl,” he says quietly and it reminds me so much of Lockhart.
Lockhart.
Just thinking of him makes my heart hurt.
Not now, I need to focus.
“Hey look!” I point to the gate. “There’s nobody there ready to take my picture.”
He seems to blow out a relieved breath.
“Maybe they’ve moved on at last. I bet I’m hardly famous anymore.”
We fight over the radio like old friends as we drive three streets away, to a small corner shop. There’s nobody around but a woman in the distance pushing a pram. That’ll be me soon, if I get my shit together.
“I’m not ready,” I say when he reaches for his door handle. He doesn’t reply. He simply opens his door, unfolds himself from the car and, in a few swift strides, he’s around to my side.
“Out.” His palm and gently curved fingers wait for my hand. I place mine in his and he closes around it with a firm grip. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
I look around us both again for any sign of life. I’m being paranoid.
With an arm around my shoulder, he holds me tightly to his side for the support I need and takes me into the small store.
“Chocolate and milk,” he whispers in my ear, relaxing me. “That’s all we need.”
“Okay.”
He pushes open the door and helps me inside. As he promised, it’s empty save for the bored looking cashier behind the desk. We move straight to the fridge and he grabs two bottles of milk, one green lid, one blue, then we carefully approach the sweets aisle. He empties it of dairy milk bars, the large ones, making me hold them as he squeezes one milk bottle under his arm.
When we move to the till I feel amazing, like I’ve really accomplished something.
The woman doesn’t acknowledge us beyond the normal pleasantries as she calculates the total and holds out the card machine.
Geoffrey pays as I start to bag it up. When the things are in the blue and white striped bags, he hooks them over one of his forearms and leads me to the door again.
That’s when it all goes to shit.
* * *
“You’re okay,” he implores, though his voice doesn’t penetrate through me as I tremble and shake, my body in full blown panic mode. “We’re nearly there.”
“Is it true you’re a heroin addict now?” “Did Richard Thatcher rape you?” “Show us your scars, Cerise!” “Over here, look over here!” “Are you pregnant with Thatcher’s baby?” “How’s Lockhart? Have you seen him?” “Come on, Cerise, give us a smile!”
Their questions wouldn’t stop as they surrounded me, hounding me. One of them grabbed my sensitive arm, sending pain shooting through my entire body.
I froze.
I’m still frozen.
I didn’t know what to do.
One minute we were alone and the next…
“When are you coming back? Is it true Lockhart Enterprises dropped you?”
“Cerise, breathe,” he begs, driving us back to the centre with cars following closely behind. “We’re almost there. It’s okay. I’m here. I have you.”
Nobody has me.
My body starts to slump and strong arms reach out to catch me before my world turns black.
* * *
As I fade back into existence, the first thing I notice is a sweet yet bitter smell penetrating my nostrils.
I cringe and bat it away with my hand.
“You’re awake,” Geoffrey sighs, sounding worried.
I blink my tired eyes open, relieved to see that we’re back in my room in the recovery part of the rehab facility. “How’d I get here?”
“I carried you,” he admits, looking sheepish.
He removes a clip from my finger and unstraps a blood pressure cuff from my arm.
“Am I going to live, Doc?” I croak dramatically as he scribbles on the clipboard that rests on his thigh. I peer at the words he scribbles down, vasovagal syncope… yeah I’m not even going to try and translate that.
“Your nervous system shut you down, likely so you wouldn’t go into emotional shock again.” He shakes his head, looking angry.
I sit up carefully, feeling okay, just a little bit dizzy. “I’m so sorry…”
“Why are you apologising to me?” He frowns, sounding every bit as angry as he looks. “It was my stupid decision that put you in that position.”
I shrug. “I’m going to have to leave eventually.” Then, playing it off as though I’m not mortified and devastated, I ask, “How are your arms?”
“I needed the exercise.” He smiles but it doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Thank you… I’m embarrassed, but I appreciate it.”
He passes me a drink and I sip it tentatively, scared my nervous hands will spill it.
“Don’t be embarrassed. At least we know where you’re at emotionally.”
I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears before I can stop them. “I’m a mess aren’t I?”
“Not beyond repair.” He taps me on the head with his pen and points at my slightly swollen tum. I don’t quite look pregnant, nor do I feel it. I simply look as though I’ve eaten a large dinner. “I’ve got a foetal doppler, just to be safe after your fainting.”
“I’ve got that damsel in distress thing going on perfectly.” I lie back down and surprisingly he raises my shirt for me, just to the top of my stomach.
“Nice tattoo.” He points to the unicorn on my hip; it’s small, perfectly detailed and my favourite tattoo. Lockhart often tasted it with his tongue. The thought makes me shudder, or perhaps it’s the finger trailing around the outline of it. He seems to be in some kind of trance as he stares at it. I wait for him to finish and he jolts himself back to the now and snatches the doppler off the table. He squirts the clear lubricant onto the prong and places it against my stomach, just below my pierced belly button. “How far along are you now? Seventeen weeks?”
“And four days, but who’s counting?” I fold my arm over my eyes and breathe as the prong touches my stomach. At first all I can hear is a faint crackling until he rolls it around, pushing gently so my flesh sinks towards my back.
“There you are, little one,” he whispers and the sound of a frantic little heartbeat fills the room.
My lips part as I try to adjust to the fact that at some point in the months since I met Lockhart, our sex turned into life. Our love created this.
I wish so badly that he could be here to share it with me.
“She sounds perfect,” he says and I feel the doppler lift.
“Wait,” I plead, grabbing his wrist and looking at him through pooling tears. “Just another minute.”
He smiles softly and nods. I don’t let go of his wrist until I count one hundred and thirty beats of my baby’s heart.
I don’t know why I stopped at that number but it was at that number that I finally relaxed and let him go.
I’ll never stop hearing that gentle thudding in my head.
“I’ll be back later. Get some rest.”
* * *
Lockhart
“I demand you put her on the phone right now!” I yell.
“I can’t do that, Mr Lockhart. It’ll be detrimental to her recovery,” the same nurse I’ve shouted at twice already in the past week responds gently. “You know this.”
I rip a hand through my hair. “When I sent her to you, it was with the promise that she would be well cared for. They said five weeks… FIVE WEEKS.”
“She’s not ready, Mr Lockhart.”
I’m about to curse the woman to the earth when I hear a male voice say, “I’ll take his call in my office, Poppy. Patch him through.”
“Doctor Foreman is continuing your call. I’m sorry I can’t be of any help to you.”
I don’t reply. The words bubbling on the end of my tongue are too painful.
My mother, sensing my stress and likely hearing it too, places her hand on my shoulder soothingly.
I shrug her off and step away for space as I listen to the most ridiculous hold music I’ve ever heard.
“Mr Lockhart.”
“Five weeks,” I grit. “You told me she’d be well in five weeks.”
“Some people need more time…”
“Bull. Shit,” I snap and my mother warns me to calm down with her eyes and hands. I ignore her and continue, “You think I haven’t seen the pictures? You removed her from the premises without notifying me. I could have helped. I could have sent security.”
“The situation was under control.” He’s too cool, calm and collected, too at ease. It sends a nasty feeling up my spine which fires up alarm bells in my head. “She’s going through some things that can’t be tackled overnight. As you likely saw in the images, fainting in situations like that means she’s still unwell.”
I blow out a haggard breath, trying to understand the situation when I just need her in my arms. Having the mental image of her in this fucking doctor’s arms instead… it infuriates me. The thought of anybody touching her at all after what she’s been through makes me want to vomit.
“Then let me talk to her at least,” I beg, something I’m usually above, proof that I’ll do anything for this girl. “Please let me talk to her.”
He hesitates. “She’s not ready to speak with you yet, or anybody.”
“It’s your job to push her!”
“If I push her, she withdraws!” He shouts back, losing that calm façade for a moment. “We are making progress, Mr Lockhart. She’s laughing again.” How I long to hear her laughter grace my ears. “She speaks fondly of her time with you.” This makes me smile, though I wish it was her telling me of the memories she so fondly speaks of. “I will talk to her, Mr Lockhart.”
He sounds reassuring but I’m not reassured, not in the slightest. Something doesn’t feel right here at all.
“What of the baby? Did she terminate?”
“You know I can’t give you that information.”
“The hell you can’t…”
He sighs deeply. “I’ll do my best, but for now you’ll have to have patience.”
“She knows that I…” I pinch my lips together. I want to say it. I want to tell him that I love her so much that it hurts, but I don’t want to burden her with the pressure that she has to come out of there and straight into my arms.
I just wish I could speak to her for a moment. The first I’ve seen and heard of her is those images from last weekend. There’s no worse feeling than knowing that you can’t help the person you were supposed to protect.
“She’ll call,” he tells me. “Just give it time.”
“What can you tell me?”
“I can tell you that she misses you all and is often restless. She’s likely written her next album too, the amount she’s been scribbling away in her notebook.” He says this with such an obvious fondness my stomach curls with disgust. I brush it off. He’s just being professional and putting me at ease, talking to me as though I’m a friend… it’s what these doctors do. “She always has her face in that bloody book.”
How can I not smile at this admission?
“Thank you,” I reluctantly say, gripping my phone tight in my fist. “She’ll never leave if she doesn’t call. She’ll never get the courage.”
“I know,” he replies, his tone blank. “I must retire; it’s late and I’ve had such a long shift.”
“Doctor Foreman,” I say calmly, before he hangs up, “please tell me. I need to know about the baby.”
He responds with a curt tone, one I don’t appreciate at all. “Why do you so desperately need to know? What difference will it make when she is still in here, battling her demons, and you’re still out there, unable to help her right now? If she is still with child, you’ll likely question the identity of it, torturing yourself. If she isn’t, you’ll torture yourself wondering how she is, or again, if it was yours and she made the wrong decision.” He pauses and for the first time in a long time I’m rendered speechless. “Try to make this time waiting as judgement free and as relaxing as possible, because I guarantee you that whatever you are feeling, she’s feeling ten times worse.”
“I’ll leave you to do your job for now, but I’ll be expecting her call by the end of the week.”
“Did you not receive the letter she sent to you? It’d be nearing eight days now since it was posted, maybe longer.”
“There’s a letter? Ask her where she posted it to. She doesn’t have my permanent address.”
His tone becomes a judgemental one. “She doesn’t know where you live?”
“Just ask her and let me know.” I snap and hang up, already hating myself for not once taking her to my stupid house in the city. There were a lot of things I should have done that I didn’t.
“She’ll call,” my mother said, well versed on the events that have happened. “Son, she’ll call. Anybody could see how smitten with you she was.”
“She’s not her any more, that’s the problem… she’ll never be…” I don’t finish the sentence because I don’t want it to come true. I have to believe she’ll be my Wild One again. I just need to talk to her. That’s all. If she’d just call! “I’ll never forgive myself if she doesn’t get through this and even then…”
“Son,” My dad tries to talk to me but I can’t look at him.
“No,” I say to my mum, turning away from him. I see her shake her head at him and don’t relax my clenched fists until he leaves. “I have to go. I’m supposed to be picking up Rebecca in an hour.”
“What on earth do you see in that girl? What do you think Cerise will do when she returns to find you with another? That’s if she doesn’t already know.”
“Mother,” I kiss her forehead, “the less you know, the better.”
“You frighten me sometimes.”
I check the watch on my wrist again. “Tell him to stop trying to communicate with me. The day I talk to him will be the day Cerise forgives him.”
“Honey…”
“The only reason this happened is because he screwed up so badly a woman lost her life.”
“I know,” Mum sighs, looking ashamed. “Poor Cerise. Did she give her statement yet?”
I nod. “Apparently so. They won’t release it to me.”
“It’s for the best. You need to let her come to you in your own time.”
I leave, putting my phone to my ear to call Rebecca. My dad again tries to stop me before I leave and I know me ignoring him is torturing him but I can’t find the strength to care. This is on him. This is on me.
What happened to her…
No, I need to not think about it.
“Hey.” Rebecca’s tone is a sickly-sweet purr. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me too,” I reply. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Oooh, coming early. Aren’t I a lucky girl?”
“I’ll let you be the judge of that one.” I climb into my car and adjust my mirror. “I can’t stay late.”
“Again?” She whines; her voice is so irritating. “Never mind. I understand you’re under the scrutiny of everyone since that psychopath.”
Grin and bear it.
“Exactly.”