Never forget you, p.28
Never Forget You, page 28
‘Of course I mean him! Or were there other men in the room you’d slept with too. Are you really that much of a slut?’
His words silenced me as effectively as a slap. My jaw tightened, and I glared at him in the darkness. ‘I can’t believe you just said that to me! On our wedding night!’
‘I can’t believe you flirted with another man on our wedding day!’
I sat there, mouth open. I’d wounded him? Well, he’d definitely got me back for that, and there was no way I was having sex with him tonight, not even if he got down on his knees and begged me.
I moved the leg that was dangling off the edge of the bed towards the floor and flumped down hard on the mattress beside him, turning away from him.
‘No.’ The word left an imprint in the silence that followed.
I ignored him.
I was just pulling the duvet up to tuck under my chin when he spoke again. ‘No. You can’t sleep here. I can’t share a bed with you after the way you’ve made me feel.’
‘But …’ I rolled over and looked at his back.
‘You need to get out.’ He said it so softly, so calmly, that at first I thought I must have misheard him. ‘Now,’ he added, and this time there was steel beneath his words. In my mind, I saw a flash of the man he’d become on the balcony two weeks earlier. The stranger.
I was so shocked that I did what he said. Before I’d even had time to analyse how to respond, I was on my feet, legs and arms suddenly cold.
What did I do now? I couldn’t go down and ask hotel reception if they had another room – it would be too humiliating. Besides, I hadn’t got a credit card or money to pay for one. Justin took care of all of that. ‘But where will I—’
‘There’s a perfectly serviceable bathroom in this suite, but don’t use the sofa – I have a feeling I won’t be able to sleep much, so I might want to get up and watch TV.’ His words were as empty and passionless as if he was ordering a coffee, less so, maybe, because he always charmed the baristas at his favourite cafés, especially the young, pretty, female ones.
I opened my mouth to protest, but he reached out to my side of the bed, grabbed a pillow and flung it in my direction. It dropped onto the floor beside me. I picked it up and stared at his silhouette in the darkness. My prince charming, the love of my life, my groom …
And then I hugged the pillow to myself, turned and walked towards the bathroom.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Now.
IT WAS FAR too hot in the hospital, so Alice took her coat off and laid it on the trolley next to her. She still couldn’t quite get used to thinking of herself as ‘Lili’, even if her sister kept calling her that. She and Lo were sitting inside a cubicle in the Accident and Emergency Department. Lo’s fiancé and their parents were outside in the big waiting area near reception.
Lo had insisted they drive slightly farther to the Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley, saying that if Alice was kept overnight, it was much closer to where their parents lived in Penge. It was a large, modern hospital with a dizzying amount of floors and corridors and so many people.
‘You really ought to go and be with Isaac,’ Alice told Lo. ‘I’ll be fine on my own, or someone else can sit with me.’
‘No,’ Lo said from where she was sitting on a hard plastic chair on the other side of the cubicle. ‘I’m staying right here.’
‘Okay.’ From what Alice had gleaned on the car journey here, Lo had spearheaded the search for her, almost cancelling her wedding, so if her sister wanted to stay, she could stay. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure. Fire away.’
Alice frowned, gathering her thoughts. ‘Back at the castle, you said you thought “the bastard” had done something to me. What did you mean?’
Lo sighed heavily and ran a hand through her wavy, highlighted hair. ‘I’d spare you this if I could, but it’s probably better that you know. I wouldn’t want him using this situation to reel you back in, especially not after recent events.’
Alice swallowed. This did not sound promising.
‘You were married. And he wasn’t a good guy.’
‘I was married?’ Just the idea of it made her stomach roll, reminding her of how she’d felt on the concourse of Glasgow station.
‘But it’s okay. You’re doing better now. You’re not with him any more.’
‘I’m divorced?’
Lo nodded. ‘You moved out more than a year ago.’
Her throat was dry, and it was getting hard to swallow. ‘Why did I leave him? Or did he leave me?’
‘You left him. After four years together. Three as his wife.’
Alice absorbed that, then asked, ‘You mentioned that you thought he might have hurt me. Was he … Was he abusive?’
‘Not in the physical sense but, like I said, he wasn’t a good guy, and even though your divorce was made final a month ago, it hasn’t prevented him from causing trouble. Recently, he—’ Lo stopped herself, abandoned the hard plastic chair and came to sit on the trolley beside her. ‘Listen … I know you said you’ve been checked over and everything, but the story of your marriage … Well, it’s a lot. I’d really rather wait to say more about Justin until after we’ve seen the doctor. Does that make sense?’
Alice nodded. Unfortunately, it did.
Justin. She’d had a husband called Justin. And yet she had no memory of him. But from what Lo had said, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. ‘Do you really think he has something to do with what happened to me?’
‘We don’t know what happened to make you leave. You’d filed for an injunction against him, which he definitely wouldn’t have taken lying down, but you disappeared before I could ask you how he’d reacted to being served.’ Lo paused, looking stricken. ‘When you first went missing, I … I wondered if it was my fault.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because of where Isaac and I decided to have our wedding.’
‘The castle?’
Lo buried her face in her hands momentarily before looking back at Alice. ‘Oh, God, Lil … I’m so sorry about this … How do I even say it?’ She grimaced. ‘You had your wedding there too. Well, not exactly in the same place – Justin could afford the banqueting hall inside the castle. But Isaac had his heart set on Hadsborough, and I asked if you minded, and you said no problem, go ahead. But I had this little niggle telling me it was a bad idea. I should have listened to it … But by the time I’d realised it was the wrong call, it was too late to back out.’
‘It’s okay … If I told you it was fine, there’s no way you could have known it wasn’t.’
Her sister looked so guilty that Alice reached across and covered her hand with her own. ‘This was not your fault. I wish I could tell you what set me off, but until my memory returns, if it returns … I won’t be able to shed any light on that.’
‘You disappeared after my hen night. But nothing out of the ordinary happened. We drank cocktails, we danced, and then went home. But then the next day, you didn’t answer any of my calls or texts, so by the day after that, I’d begun to get worried. I’ve got a spare key to your place, so I went around and let myself in. Everything looked as it should be, but you weren’t there, and no one at your work had seen you. That’s when I called the police. They found some CCTV of you walking down Beckenham High Street about six o’clock on Friday morning. You had a jacket on, and you were wearing jeans and carrying that bag.’
As Lo said this, Alice saw a picture of herself digging her hands in her jacket pockets as she entered Beckenham station. This was quickly followed by another ‘flash’ – being on the Underground, hanging onto an overhead rail, letting the sway of the train lull her as it raced through the tunnels.
‘I remember that! I’ve been having these images in my head sometimes. At first, I wasn’t sure if they were memories, but I’m getting more and more convinced they are.’
Lo’s eyes lit up. ‘Do you think that means your memory is coming back?’
‘I don’t know, but … Oh, God, I hope so.’
At that moment, a young female doctor appeared around the curtain. ‘Now,’ she said, looking Alice up and down. ‘Why don’t you tell me what the problem is?’
Alice sat on the edge of the bed in a clean, bright room on one of the upper floors of the hospital, having just signed the paperwork so she could be discharged. Last night, she’d had another round of tests similar to those she had in Lochgilphead, and when the consultant psychologist arrived on her morning rounds, she’d referred Alice to the memory unit at Imperial College London and said that she was free to go home, although it would be good if she wasn’t on her own for a few days. Her parents had very kindly said that she could stay with them. They seemed genuinely sweet people, but it was going to be very odd sharing a house with complete strangers.
At least now she’d been given a clean bill of health, Lo would stop talking about cancelling the wedding. She could manage being a bridesmaid, couldn’t she? All she had to do was stand around and smile for bit, hold some flowers, eat a nice meal … She’d be fine tomorrow. Probably.
She wished Ben were here. He was always such a good sounding board, always made so much sense. Where was he? Back at Marco’s hotel? She’d meant to call him last night, but she’d dropped instantly into a deep and dreamless sleep as soon as she’d been brought up to her room in the early hours of the morning.
She took her phone off the nightstand and dialled his number, but it went straight to voicemail. ‘Hi,’ she said when the beeps had finished. ‘I’m at the hospital, but I’m getting ready to go home. It was my family, as security probably told you. My mum and dad were there. My sister, Lo – that’s short for Elodie – insisted on taking me to get checked over, even though I’d already told her I’d been given a clean bill of health – well, except for the memory loss, that is.’
She was rambling, but it was just so nice to let it all spill out to someone who knew her, really knew her.
‘I know my full name, Ben. I know who I am. I’m Olivia Jasmine Everett, and I live in Beckenham, but everyone calls me Lili. My family would love to meet you, to say thank you for coming all that way with me, for bringing me home to them. Lo has invited you to the evening reception tomorrow. If you can make it, of course.’
Her pulse quickened at the thought. There was nothing to stop her and Ben being together now. As far as she understood it, she was completely and utterly single. Hope began to float like a helium balloon inside her chest.
‘Anyway, no worries about dressing up too much – Lo knows you’ve lost your wallet and didn’t come prepared to go to a wedding, so, um … text me back, or call me and we’ll sort out the details …’
She hung up, then stared at the blank magnolia wall of her hospital room. There was nothing to do now but wait for her parents to bring the car around to the front of the hospital.
Her phone was in her hand, so she opened up the camera roll and scrolled through all the photos and videos she’d taken over the last couple of days. It was only when she got to the most recent ones that she realised she hadn’t made any entries in her travel journal since she and Ben had been hiding in the maze at Hadsborough Castle. A whole chunk of the story was missing.
She held the phone up, switched to video mode, stared at herself on the screen and began to record. ‘Lili? Hi. This is you. The other you. There are a few things I need to tell you …’
Chapter Fifty-Six
Now.
BEN WOKE UP feeling as if he’d been hit by a truck. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and reached for his phone. Seeing the time on his lock screen woke him up pretty fast. Half-past ten? He never usually slept that late. However, yesterday had not been a very usual day, and it had been past four when he’d finally dozed off.
He’d just pushed himself up to rest against the headboard when his phone rang in his hand. FaceTime from Norina. ‘Hey, there, sleepyhead,’ she said, quickly taking in his dishevelled state. ‘How’d it go?’
Ben hid a yawn with his hand. ‘Yeah, sorry I didn’t get back to you. It was a bit of a crazy—’
‘Ben!’ His aunt gave him a look he knew was not best to ignore.
‘Sorry. The news is … Mission accomplished. Alice is reunited with her family, and I’ll be heading home later today.’
Norina blinked. ‘That’s it?’
‘What more do you want me to say? I mean, I can fill you in on all the details later when my brain’s decided to remember what being awake is, but that’s basically what happened.’
‘You’re not seeing her again before you come back?’
Urgh. This was one of the downsides of video calling. His face had probably already given him away. ‘No. It’s probably for the best if I don’t.’
Norina frowned. ‘I thought maybe you liked her.’
Ben shifted position and sighed. After a long while, he said, ‘I do … But it turns out she’s engaged to someone else. Not much I can do but let her go back to her life, and I’ll go back to mine.’
‘Och, that’s too bad.’
‘Yeah …’
‘Uncle Ben!’ A small face appeared on the screen, one with large glasses and an even bigger gap in her bottom front teeth than when he’d left. ‘Look! My second tooth fell out!’ She brandished the item in question so close to the screen that all Ben could see was a blurry white lump.
He grimaced. ‘Wonderful!’
‘That means the tooth fairy is going to come tonight! Do you think we can catch her? I’d really like to have a fairy of my own!’
He did his best to keep a straight face. There was something wonderful about Willow’s unwavering optimism, given all she’d been through. Sometimes he thought he was certain to learn more from her as she grew up than she’d learn from him. ‘I don’t think we can. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to keep her locked up. And if you did, nobody gets visits from the tooth fairy any more. Not even you!’
‘Good point,’ Willow said seriously. ‘I’m going to go and put this under my pillow right now, just to make sure everything’s ready for tonight.’ And she disappeared from view before he could yell, ‘Bye … Love you …’
‘That child,’ Norina said, shaking her head. ‘Anyway, I was going to say I’m sorry that things didn’t work out with Alice. But this week has been good for you, so it wasn’t all for nothing.’
‘It has? How?’
‘I’ve heard the “old” you on the phone since you left. Full of energy, enjoying life. I’d started to wonder where that guy had gone. It’s been long enough now since your sister passed to maybe see a glimpse of him again. You know, you came home to Invergarrig to be Willow’s guardian, but that doesn’t mean you have to put your own life on hold. You have to find some way to stop punishing yourself for what happened to Cat.’
Ben exhaled. ‘That’s what Alice said to me.’
‘Memory or no memory, that girl has her head screwed on right.’
‘I know you’re both right, but I can’t get away from the fact that if I hadn’t been absent so much, if I hadn’t jumped ship and moved away at the first opportunity, things might have been different for Cat.’
Norina gave him a sympathetic look. ‘It probably did have some impact, but you can’t carry the burden of what happened to her all by yourself. I never did like my brother-in-law – warned my sister she shouldn’t have married him – but he was the key player, the culprit, in this scenario. And although she stood up to him, did her best to protect the two of you, I never understood why your mum didn’t leave him, so I suppose she had a part to play too. And Cat made her own choices. It wasn’t you who put the needle in her arm, Ben.’
‘No, but I feel like I set the stage so it was easy for her to do.’
‘You only remember the fact that you left home at eighteen, but you conveniently forget all the times you were home, all the times you made her clean up her act, or gave her money for rent and food, even making her do a will for Willow. I lost count of the girlfriends who got fed up and walked away because you always put Cat first. You were always helping your sister.’
‘But not that last time, not when she really needed it, when it might have made all the difference.’
‘We’d tried for years to help her, and you know that not setting boundaries only did more harm than good. Even if you had given her that money, it wouldn’t have changed anything. It just would have delayed it.’
He looked at his aunt bleakly. ‘That night, when she came to see me to ask for the cash, she got so angry. It was the last time I saw her.’ His throat tightened. ‘She told me I was just like him … my father.’ He refused to call that man ‘Dad’.
‘I want you to get that out of your head, you hear me? You are nothing like that waste of space! Ben Robertson, you are a good and kind and loyal man. Willow is lucky to have you as her stand-in father.’
Ben looked away, aware that his eyes were stinging. He trusted Norina’s opinion and hearing her confirm what Alice had told him made something break free inside him.
‘We all feel responsible for Cat,’ Norina said huskily. ‘We all wish we could have done more, but in the end, the choice to change was in her power, not ours.’
‘I know,’ Ben whispered, and for the first time, he felt the truth in those words, rather than just telling himself they were right.
‘And as for Willow … You can see for yourself how much that little girl adores you. If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that you’re never going to let her down.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, swallowing a lump in his throat, and then, because it was getting all too emotional for him, he added, ‘Anyway … I’d better go and find out about train times. I’ll call you again when I’ve got more details.’
‘Aye, you’d better,’ his aunt said, her expression more playful than her tone. ‘My car is still stuck in Glasgow, and I’d really like to know when I can have it back!’
