‘Put the sodding thing away,’ she said through gritted teeth, and he turned his attention back to her.
‘You seem a bit grumpy,’ he muttered, a crease forming between his eyebrows. ‘That’s one of the warning signs. I think I’m just going to ring the hospital back. You might –’
‘You will do no such thing,’ Katie told him. ‘The last thing I need is for the local A&E, which I have to refer to and discuss patients with, to think that I can’t even take a little bump to the noggin without making a blooming ridiculous fuss. Honestly.’ She reached over and this time did manage to grab the sheet, which tore down the middle. Sam looked ready to grapple her for her half, but glanced down at her ribs and settled back on the sofa.
‘Give. It. Back.’
‘Not until you promise to stop making a fuss.’
Sam scowled at her and then at the crumpled half of the sheet in her fist. ‘I promise,’ he ground out.
As soon as Katie handed over her half he started smoothing it out again, holding the two pieces together.
‘I really can get someone to come and look after me, you know,’ she told him, trying to put more determination behind her words, but finding that difficult, what with her head pounding and her ribs aching. ‘You don’t have to stay.’
She started blinking furiously, sudden emotion gripping her as she imagined what he would likely be doing and who he’d be doing it with if he wasn’t stuck here out of a misplaced sense of guilt. Because Katie had worked it out now. All this concern, the insistence that he be the one to look after her: he felt guilty. He thought he’d let her – and, perhaps more importantly, Rob – down after promising to protect her. This was his way of making up for it. What he didn’t realise was that ithurtfor him to be here like this in her house and for him not to be holding her; for him to be treating her like some sort of maiden aunt.
‘Doesn’t say anything in here about food,’ Sam muttered, totally ignoring her comment. ‘I’ll make some soup,’ he decided as he grabbed the remotes and flicked through her planner until he had the latest unwatchedGoggleboxon the go. She ground her teeth and stayed silent. For some reason the fact he would know exactly what she wanted to watch on telly wound her up even more.
After some burnt toasted sandwiches and soup, Sam packed her off to bed, still using the absolute minimum of physical contact. Just after he’d pressed another two painkillers into her hands and watched like a prison warden as she swallowed them, Katie decided to ask the question that had been plaguing her all day.
‘Why are you still here?’ she whispered. To her shock he actually looked pained for a moment, scrubbing his hands down his face, then holding his head as he looked at the floor, muttering, ‘I don’t know.’ After that flattering little gem, he looked up to stare at her in her bed for a long moment, his fists clenching in his lap so hard that the knuckles were white, before he abruptly got up and swept out of her room. Katie lay awake staring at the ceiling and trying to work him out until the painkillers kicked in and she fell asleep.
Every hour on the hour Sam woke her up and asked her the most ridiculous questions (who she was, where they were, who he was), most of which she answered with ‘bugger off you sadist’. Once he was satisfied that she was essentially okay, he let her drift back off again. The only time she had woken up naturally by herself, she’d blinked up to see him hovering over her, simply watching as she slept. When he’d noticed she was awake he’d gone through the same routine as before, but this time, just before she drifted back off to sleep, she could have sworn she felt his breath against her face and his nose glide across hers before the darkness claimed her again.
When morning finally came, Katie woke up alone. She groaned as she sat up, her face and ribs now aching more than yesterday. Thankfully there was another glass of water and painkillers on her bedside table, and after gulping them down she managed to slip out of bed to pad down to the kitchen in her dressing gown.
‘Hello, darling.’ Mary Longley was standing in Katie’s small kitchen next to the kettle.
‘Oh … hi, Mary … um …’ Katie frowned and looked around the kitchen in confusion.
‘He’s gone, dear,’ Mary said gently, pulling away from the counter to move to Katie and push a steaming cup of tea into her hands. Mary’s eyes searched Katie’s face for a minute, settling on the bruising and swelling around her right eye. Her mouth tightened before she took the cup of tea back out of Katie’s hands, placed it on the counter and engulfed her in a gentle hug. ‘I’m so sorry you were hurt, honey,’ Mary muttered into Katie’s hair, and to her dismay Katie felt her eyes sting with tears. Mary was as close to a mother as she had in the world, and maternal affection was exactly what she needed at that moment.
‘I’m okay, Mary,’ Katie lied, her voice hoarse.
Mary pulled back and held her shoulders. ‘You’re not,’ she told her. ‘But you will be.’
She kissed Katie’s forehead and then moved back to the kitchen cupboards. ‘Right: breakfast. Please tell me you don’t still eat these?’ She held a box of Pop Tarts up in front of her and away from her body as if they were contaminated with a flesh-eating virus. Katie smiled, biting her lip, and Mary huffed out a breath in disgust. ‘Well, today you’re having porridge,’ Mary bossed, clanging around with the pots and pans.
‘Where … where did he … ?’ Katie trailed off, avoiding eye contact with Mary as she slid onto one of the kitchen stools and started to sip her tea.
Mary stopped her banging and turned to face Katie. ‘Sarah rang him this morning to check on you. He said he had to leave, and seeing as I’m staying there whilst we wait for the baby, I grabbed the chance to evacuate.’
Katie gave her a weak smile. No doubt things were hectic at Sarah and Rob’s, but she knew that wasn’t why Mary was here; Mary was worried about her.
‘Anyway the last thing you need when you’re trying to heal is an overbearing hormonal pregnant woman cluttering up your house. I love my daughter, don’t get me wrong, but she has always been a drama queen.’ Katie let out a very half-hearted giggle and lapsed back into silence.
‘I’m sorry this happened again,’ Mary said, still staring at Katie, and for the first time it registered that Mary was looking pale, her eyes creased with worry. ‘I promised your mum that we’d look after you … I … we didn’t look after you.’
‘Mary, please,’ Katie begged, ‘please don’t talk like that. I’m fine and what happened wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault; it was Daniel’s. And now it’s over.’
‘Yes,’ Mary said firmly, her mouth tightening into a grim line. ‘It bloody well is.’ From the look in her eyes Katie could tell that Mary knew Daniel hadn’t ‘escaped’. Possibly she even knew more than Katie about what happened to him. Katie herself had decided that she didn’t want to know. Sam was right, the less knowledge she had the better.
All she really knew, and she knew this down to her bones, was that he was nevercoming back.Never.
‘Sarah wanted to talk to you about Sam. That’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t let her come.’ Mary had turned away from Katie to go back to making porridge and her voice was deceptively casual, but Katie could see the tension in her shoulders. ‘You know, Katie, you and I – we’re very much alike. We like to fix people, we like to pick up the lost cause and turn it around.’
‘Um … I’m not sure I follow, Mary.’ Katie frowned down into her tea.
