Текст книги "The Story of Me "
Автор книги: Lesley Jones
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 28 страниц)
Chapter Ten
I jump, then attempt to drag my eyes open as I try to work out what’s going on around me. I can hear voices and I feel myself being lifted; my face is slapped, not hard but enough for me to feel it. I can hear Jackson calling my name, and I’m aware I’m being carried, but I just can’t open my eyes properly or string a sentence together. I stop trying to fight it, curl into Jackson’s chest and go back to sleep.
* * *
I know I’m in a hospital before I even open my eyes; I would know that smell anywhere. I hate it; that smell means only one thing to me: death.
My throat feels scratchy and my stomach and ribs ache. I lay still for a while longer, trying to process why I might possibly be in the hospital. The last thing I remember clearly is Roman dropping me off; he didn’t come in, and I showered.
Shit!
I spoke to Cam last night, I think.
I open my eyes and look around. It’s a standard hospital room; stark, white, and sterile. It smells of death, death and loss, and I really need to get out of here. I catch movement from the corner of my eye and realise Jackson is asleep in a chair next to my bed; he’s sitting exactly like Sean was when I woke up after we lost baby M, and exactly like Marley was when I lost Sean and Beau. I burst into tears. Jackson instantly lifts his head, and his eyes meet mine.
“What the fuck did you do?” he asks through gritted teeth. I frown as I try and remember, but I can’t. What the fuck did I do?
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. Did I hurt someone?” He stands abruptly, pushing his chair back noisily on the tiled floor.
“The pills, George! Why, why would you do that?” I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.
“I don’t know what you mean, Jax. Please tell me, coz I can’t remember.” I’m wearing a horrible hospital night gown, and I use it to wipe my tears and my nose on. My tears and my nose; I remember wiping them last night. I was in bed crying; why the fuck am I crying? Well, der, probably coz my life is a fucking fucked-up mess. I’m suddenly pissed off with Jackson, and I just want a straight answer.
“Will you please just tell me why I’m in the hospital, Jax, and why I feel like I’ve done ten rounds with Tyson?”
He turns on me so abruptly that I push myself further down into the bed.
“You took an overdose, George. You OD’d on Valium. What the fuck were you thinking; how could you do that to us?” What the fuck is he talking about? My mind races; I did not take an overdose last night. I can’t remember exactly what I did do, but I just know I didn’t do that; not once I got back to my apartment anyway.
“I didn’t take an overdose. I smoked some weed and did a line of coke at the hippy house with Roman, but I didn’t OD; he brought me home and I was just fine.” I start to cough as my throat feels sore and I can hardly swallow. I sit up slowly and reach for the water at the side of my bed. Jackson just stands with his hands on his hips at the end of my bed and glares at me.
“Roman let you do coke and weed at the hippy house?”
“I’m thirty-fuckin-two, Jax; Rome didn’t let me do anything. I chose to. I was fine; he dropped me home, and I was fine.” Why would anyone think I’d taken an overdose?
“What about the Valium all over the floor? I couldn’t wake you up. I had to shove my fingers down your throat to make you vomit, then you choked and I had to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. You were a mess, George. A fuckin’ mess.”
I hold my head in my hands. I didn’t take an overdose. I know I didn’t take an overdose. I try to remember what happened once I showered.
“What happened when Roman dropped you home? Oh, and just so we’re clear, George, I’m gonna knock him the fuck out when I catch up with him.”
“What, why?”
“He took you to fuckin’ Narnia.” Well, the orgasms have been good, but I wouldn’t stretch it that far.
“Jax, I swear to God, I have never, ever climbed through a wardrobe with Roman. I’ve had some great sex, but I have never climbed through a wardrobe with him.” I think I’m funny, but Jackson clearly doesn’t.
“The hippy house George, where all his weirdo mates live. We all call it Narnia. He shouldn’t have taken you there but aside from that, what happened when you got home? Talk me through it.”
“Can I get a coffee first?” He stares at me for a few seconds and his bottom lip trembles; mine instantly has the same reaction. “I swear, Jax, I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” He moves across the room to my bed and wraps his arms around me.
“You fuckin’ scared me, George. I thought I’d failed. I thought I’d let you down.” We both cry. I want my mum right now. I want my mum and my dad and my big brothers. I want my best friends and my nieces and nephews. I want to go home.
“I think the nurse is gonna wanna check you over. I’ll send her in, then go and get ya a coffee.” He kisses the top of my head then leaves the room.
The nurse is in almost instantly; she’s an older woman, in her forties maybe, with the most beautiful auburn hair. ‘Eve’ it says on her name badge.
“Okay, Georgia, good to see you’re back with us. You gave your brother a fright earlier and the emergency room doctors, too. You’re lucky he found you when he did.”
“I didn’t take an overdose,” I interrupt her. I need to make it clear that I didn’t take an overdose.
Eve doesn’t say anymore as she takes my blood pressure, temperature, monitors my saturation levels and writes notes down on a chart. She suddenly stops writing, tilts her head and says to me, “Do I know you; have we met before?” I shake my head. This is all I need, this story getting out… ‘Rock star’s widow in suicide attempt’. Lennon had managed to keep the other incidents and the time I was committed out of the press, but he might not be able to do that for me here. Then another thought strikes me: has Jackson called my family? Do they all think I’ve been alone here and tried to kill myself?
“Well, you look familiar, darl.” She chews on the inside of her bottom lip as she looks at me then continues. “Your blood pressure’s a little low, but that’s not surprising with what you’ve taken. The doctors will be here in a minute to talk to you anyway.” Jackson comes back through the door with two coffees in takeaway cups. “Here’s that handsome hero of a brother of yours.”
“He’s not…” Jax shoots me a look and shakes his head, “handsome,” I continue and she laughs.
“Well, you’re his sister so you would say that, but believe me, if I was ten years younger...” She winks at me, then turns and leaves the room as she shakes her head.
“Did you call my mum and dad, my brothers?” I ask him. He puts the coffees down.
“No, I didn’t call anyone. I told them I’m your brother, your next of kin, so they wouldn’t try and get in touch with anyone else.”
He takes the lids off our cups and stirs in sugar, then passes me mine; he takes his to the chair he was sitting in earlier and sits back down.
“Talk me through it, George. I wanna hear about what happened last night; everything you can remember.” He looks thoroughly pissed off with me, I conclude as I study him for a few moments; I take a sip of my coffee, which is hot and dire.
I must pull a face as he says, “It’s wet and it’s warm. Stop being a princess and just fucking drink it, George.”
“It tastes like crap,” I complain.
“I don’t care, George; that’s all that’s available. Have a drop then talk.”
I huff like a child then start my story. “I went out for dinner with Roman, then he took me to meet the Manson family. I smoked the weirdest weed I’ve ever had. It was really trippy. Then we did a line of coke. I had a bit of a freak out after that.”
Oh, God. My cheeks burn as the memories of what I let Skye do to me come flooding back. What the fuck had I been thinking?
“Why’d you freak out?” I stare at him for a few seconds. I knew I could tell him anything; it was me who would be embarrassed, not him.
“I was proper off my tits,” I try to reason with him, but he shakes his head at me.
“Why. Did. You. Freak. Out?” I screw my nose up and just blurt it out.
“I got it on with a girl and then I decided I didn’t like it, and I just needed her to stop.”
He frowns, closes his eyes for a few seconds and shakes his head. “Where the fuck was Roman when all this was happening?”
“Watching.”
He nods. “I’m gonna fucking kill him. I swear, Georgia, I will kill him when I see him.” I feel defensive of Roman. He didn’t make me do anything last night; everything I did was of my own free will.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jax; Rome didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. She asked if she could kiss me and I let her, and we went back to her room…”
He looks up from his coffee. “She lives at the Narnia house? What’s her name?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Her name’s Skye, and she looked like Tinker Bell.”
“Skye Turner. He watched, while Skye fucking Turner did her thing and came after you?”
I was confused. “No one came after me. The weed we had fucked with my head. It made me horny and just, I was just…” I try to think of a way to describe how I felt.
I had only ever tried LSD once, years ago when I was still at school. Marley had got it from somewhere; it was a little square piece of paper with the Superman logo on it. Sean, Marley, Jim and myself had all bunked off school and hid out in our summerhouse; it was a rainy winter’s day, and we knew my mum wouldn’t come out into the garden for anything. We had got our mark in the register after lunch and then all met up outside the school gates. We walked home to my house, snuck in the side gate and hid out in the summerhouse. We’d divided the little square into four, put the tiny pieces on our tongues and just let it dissolve. It took about an hour for the effects to start, and they were pretty similar to what I’d had last night; everything was bright, colourful and beautiful, and I just felt calm and peaceful…
“The weed I had was like a combination of taking acid and ecstasy, and I was fine with that; I felt great. Roman didn’t have any because he wanted to be straight for me; he wanted to be able to look after me.”
“That’s fucking good of him,” Jax gets in sarcastically, and I let out a long sigh.
“I should have just stuck with the weed. I was fine. I was better than fine; I felt the best I have in a long time.” I recall the feeling of total relaxation I’d had last night; free, uninhibited, that’s how I had felt. “Skye asked if she could kiss me, things got a little heavier, and we went back to her room while she went and showered. While me and Roman started getting it on, she got out the shower. We all did a line of coke and then she joined us on the bed. We were just kissing and fucking about, and then suddenly, it was just like bang; my heart rate increased and I just started to panic. I didn’t want her to touch me anymore. I just wanted to get out, get home, and be by myself.” Thinking about how the panic had come up from nowhere now was making me feel clammy, and I felt a little lightheaded. I finish the rest of my coffee and look over at Jax; his arms are folded across his chest, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
“He got me out of there, Jax, as soon as I started to freak. He told Skye to fuck off, and he got me out of there.” He pulls his brows into a deep frown.
“He shouldn’t have taken you there in the first fucking place, George; it’s full of weirdos. They do a lot of drugs. They grow a lot of their own stuff, and they have orgies up there. They invite people up there, get them off their heads and then get them to join in.” He runs both his hands through his hair. “I’m all for a bit of free loving, George; threesomes are great as long as everyone is sane and consenting. It’s not all right to let someone get off their trolley and then watch them do things they would never normally do.” I wasn’t going to waste my time explaining I was all good up until that point; I would just have to warn Roman that Jax was on the warpath.
“Anyway, Roman took me home, but I didn’t let him come in.” I think for a few seconds about the order in which I did things when I got home; I give a big yawn, suddenly feeling sleepy. “When I got in, I had a shower, but my heart was racing from the coke so I took a couple of Valium. They’re only a low dose, so I had a glass of wine as well.” Jackson’s shaking his head at me.
“Are you fucking serious? You took two Valium and then had a glass of wine?” I nod and screw up my eyes.
“I think I drunk the whole bottle.”
“Great, it gets better! Are you fucking stupid, George?” I don’t honestly know.
“I don’t know, Jax, I don’t know what I was thinking. I checked my messages on my phone, and for some reason, don’t ask me why, but I texted Cam.” As I speak, it all starts to come back to me.
“Cam, as in Cameron, the bloke you—”
“Yes,” I interrupt him.
“Why?” he asks.
“I don’t know… Something happened. During the night, something happened and it reminded me of him. I was… I felt lonely, and I don’t know, I just always felt safe with him. I just texted him and then he called me, but I can’t remember what was said.” I rack my brain, and I remember I was tired and just wanted to sleep; I just wanted to shut my brain up for a while.
And then it hits me.
Oh, shit.
The Valium.
My eyes shoot up and meet Jackson’s.
“I forgot,” I whisper.
“Forgot what?”
“I forgot that I took the Valium when I first got home. I drank the wine and my heart was still racing after I spoke to Cam, and my brain was just…” I shake my head as I try to think of what exactly was going on in my head last night, but I come up with nothing. “My brain just wouldn’t shut up.”
“And?”
“I took two Valium and went to sleep.”
“Two more Valium?”
I nod my head and close my eyes in shame. How could I have been so stupid? Well, I was, and now I have to face the consequences. I look back up at Jax; his shoulders slump, and I’m not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed.
“Fuck, George: weed, coke, Valium and wine; you could’ve killed yourself, darl.” I could. That easily, that stupidly. I could still be lying in my bed now; cold, dead, alone, but would that be any different to living? Then a thought strikes me.
“Why did you come over? What made you come to my place?”
“Bailey rang me. It must have been Cam who rang Bailey, said he had spoken to you on the phone and you didn’t sound right, but he didn’t know where you were so he couldn’t go and check on you. It was about six in the morning when I got to you. I broke the door down and all I saw…” He stops talking and rubs his hand over the stubble on his jaw. His eyes fill with tears, and I feel so guilty at what I’ve done; what I’ve once again put people I love through.
“Your arm was hanging off the side of the bed, you were at a horrible angle and there were pills all over the floor.” I cover my mouth with my hand and shake my head, trying to get the image from my brain. How must it have looked to Jackson? What must have been going through his mind when he walked in and saw me like that? “I slapped you, George. I slapped your face. I dragged you into the bathroom. I threw you into the shower and ran cold water on you. I stuck my fingers down your throat to make you vomit.” He stands up and paces the room as he talks then he stops and turns to look at me. “I don’t think I have ever been so angry in my life. After everything, George, after all the loss, all the devastation and heartbreak we’ve both been through, I couldn’t believe you would be so selfish and put me and your family through that.” He takes a few deep, calming breaths. “I probably slapped you harder than I should, so if your jaw or face hurt, I’m sorry.” I run my hand over my jaw and my cheek; they actually feel okay. I shrug and shake my head, trying to let him know it’s fine.
“I’m so sorry, Jackson. I’m sorry I put you through that, but please believe me, it was an accident; in no way did I intend harming myself.” I have so many thoughts running through my dysfunctional brain, so I stare blankly at him for a few seconds while I try to get them into some sort of order.
“How did I get to hospital?”
“Emily drove, while I held on to you and tried to wake you up.”
“What did you tell Bailey; have you rung him back?”
“Of course I rang him back; he was frantic, George. You’re fucking lucky he didn’t tell your Dad and they’re not all on their way here now.”
“But what did you tell him?”
“I told him you were pissed and sleeping it off. I didn’t wanna scare anyone until I knew exactly what was going on. I didn’t want to tell him bad news until I was sure it was bad news. George…” He sits down on the side of my bed and lets out a big sigh. He closes his eyes and rubs at his temples with his fingertips. “I thought you were gonna die; I thought lots of things. You did a stupid thing, babe.”
I cover my face with my hands. How do I apologise for this one; another Georgia fuck-up. “I think it’s time for me to go back to England.”
He pulls my hands from my face.
“You fucked up, George. We all do it.” I can’t help but laugh.
“D’ya know how many times I’ve heard that, Jax? I’m always fucking up. Everything about me is fucked-up. I am just one big fuck-up.”
“Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.” Before any more can be said, Nurse Eve and three doctors walk in.
* * *
By six on Sunday night, I’m back in my apartment above the bar. My blood pressure is still a little low, but apart from that, my stupidity has left me reasonably fine. It took a while to convince the doctors I was also mentally fit, but once they were reassured Jackson would take care of me, they let me go home.
Brooke is back from Sydney and just going to work a shift in the bar when we get home. Her hands are on her hips, eyebrows raised and foot tapping as we walk through the battered door.
“Ten seconds, ten seconds to start explaining to me what the fuck has gone on here before I call your brothers.”
“I’m sorry,” is all I can think of saying.
Emily had dropped myself and Jax off and driven home, so it’s just the two of us bearing the brunt of Brooke’s wrath.
“Are you lying? Did you do it on purpose? Were you trying to not wake up?”
“No.” I shake my head emphatically. “It was a stupid, drunken accident, but I swear to God, that’s all it was.”
She looks from me to Jax. “You believe her?”
He nods. “I do now, but I thought the worst when I walked in here last night.” We walk into the apartment, and I put water in the kettle and switch it on. I need a cup of tea; a cup of tea, a McVities dark chocolate digestive biscuit and a cuddle from my mum.
“Where was Roman while all this went down?” I look straight at Jax. I know he’s pissed off with Rome but this wasn’t really his fault, and I can’t let him take the blame for this.
“Don’t even go there, Brooke. I’m gonna kill the cunt when I see him.”
“Jax, it wasn’t his fault; he just... I told him to go. I didn’t want him to come in…”
“That’s not the point, George.” He turns and looks at Brooke. “He took her to fuckin’ Narnia last night. He let her smoke some of their homegrown shit, then he gave her a line of coke. Then he sat back and watched while nut-job Skye Turner cracked on to her.” Brooke looks wide-eyed between Jax and myself.
“You have got to be kidding me?” She walks over to the kitchen bench top and leans her hip against it. “Why the fuck would he do that?” I’m getting pissed off with the pair of them now. I wasn’t helpless or innocent in last night’s events, and Roman was just trying to help me.
“Will you both please just shut up and listen?” I cross my arms and look between both of them. “This wasn’t Roman’s fault, not in any way. He took me there so I would chill out and relax. Someone recognised me in the bar earlier and I freaked out, so he took me somewhere where no one would recognise me. Even if they did, they wouldn’t give a fuck about who I was.” I pause and pour hot water over the teabag in the cup I have set out. Jackson has already helped himself to a beer and I don’t blame him; I could use one myself right now, but alcohol is probably the last thing my poor body needs.
“Roman didn’t smoke the weed; he did a line but he didn’t smoke the weed. He stayed straight and he told me just to go with whatever felt right, that I could trust him. If there was anything I didn’t want to do, I just had to say.” I go to the fridge and get the milk out, adding a dash to my tea.
“He shouldn’t have—”
“Shut up, Jax. Let her speak,” Brooke says to her brother.
“He was just trying to show me that I can trust people. He just wanted me to have one night where I could forget everything: forget the pain, the hurt, the fuckin’ big hole I live with inside me, all day, every day. He just wanted to help me forget it all.” I’m crying now and I so didn’t want to cry. I continue anyway as I need them to understand what Roman was trying to do for me. “When it all got too much, when Skye got too heavy and I told her to stop, he made sure she did. When I asked to come home, he brought me home, and when I told him I wanted to be on my own, he left me on my own.”
“And that’s where he went wrong,” Jackson says.
“He shouldn’t have given you all that shit then left you, George; I’ve gotta say, I do agree with Jax on that one. But the rest of it, I understand what he was trying to do.” Brooke comes around the bench top and gives me a cuddle. “I’m glad you’re okay. I have to go to work, but we seriously need to get away from here next weekend. You’re coming to Sydney with me, no arguments.” I nod. Perhaps Sydney isn’t such a bad idea after all. Perhaps I should pack up everything and fly straight home to England from there; it would make sense, if I’m planning on leaving anyway.
“Sounds like a plan,” I say to Brooke as I give her a hug.
“Go shower. You look like shit and smell like vomit. I love ya, darl, but you stink.”
* * *
I finally convince Jackson to leave around seven. I clear up the mess in my bedroom, clean the vomit from my shower, jump in and scrub myself clean. Finally, washing the smell of the hospital from my skin, the smell of death, and the smell of loss. I just wish I could wash it away from my life as easily but I can’t. I just have to live with it, so instead, I slide down the tiled wall of the shower and have a good cry. It’s moments like these that I miss Sean so much. He was more than just my husband; he was my other half, my conscience, my best friend. It’s times like these, when I fuck up, that the ache in my heart, in my gut and my bones is just that little harder to bear.
I wrap my hair in a towel, dry off my skin and pull on my jarmies; it’s not cold by any means but I have a chilled feeling inside me, and I just can’t seem to warm up. I put my phone on charge and make myself a hot chocolate, take it back to the bedroom and get into bed. I have a plug socket next to the bed, so I can switch my phone on and use it while it charges.
I have dozens of missed calls, voice mails and texts from Jackson, Bailey and Cam and a text from Roman sent a couple of hours ago, asking how I was feeling. I delete all of Jackson’s; I’m too ashamed to listen to his worried voice. I don’t really want to listen to my big brother’s messages either, but at least I don’t have to face him any time soon.
“Little sister Georgia, how are ya, baby girl? Can you give me a call back please? I need to speak to ya, and it’s pretty urgent.”
The next message was left about seven minutes later.
“George, I ain’t fuckin’ about now, pick up the phone. I’ve had Cameron King on the phone. He reckons he spoke to ya and you sound pissed or stoned and weren’t making sense. Can ya ring me, please, George? Love ya.”
The time of his next message is just three minutes later.
“George, I swear to God, if you’ve done something stupid, I swear, I’ll knock seven kinds of shit out of you. Now pick up the fuckin’ phone now, George.”
My big, bad brother Bailey is sobbing his message into the phone, and I’m sobbing as I listen. I blow my nose and calm myself down before hitting call on his number. It only rings twice.
“Bails?”
“Don’t you ever, ever fuckin’ pull a stunt like that again.”
“I’m so sorry, I got drunk and then I just fell asleep. My phone was on silent, and I just slept through it ringing.”
“Do you know how worried I was? Do you have any idea? Fuck, George, do you know what was going through my head, what I thought was happening?” He sounds just like my dad when he’s pissed off and I start to cry; not because I don’t like being told off—well, I don’t like it but I deserve it—but it’s because the sound of Bailey’s voice is just making me so homesick. I really want to go home; I want to be around my family, but I’m scared, so scared of going back to England. I’m scared of being back around people and places, around anything that’s going to remind me of Sean. I want to go back, I’m just not sure if I’m ready to. Up until last night’s disaster, my reclusive little life in Australia had worked out well for me. I could be normal, just a normal person with no past of any importance. I know it’s running away from the truth, and I know I’m just hiding from things that need to be faced, but I just don’t know if I’m strong enough to face it all yet: people, the press, the public. I know it’s been a year now, but the ache’s still there and it hurts as much as ever.
“I’m sorry, Bailey. I am really sorry for making you think that. I’m sorry for the things I’ve done in the past that would make you think I would do something like that.” I wipe my nose on the back of my hand as I speak into the phone. I can hear my brother crying. “I love you, Bails. I’m so sorry you got me for a sister.”
“George, I wouldn’t swap ya for the world, babe. I might sell ya for a few quid, but I wouldn’t swap ya.” I laugh a little at what he says. My dad used to threaten to sell us to an Arab in the desert when we were little; it’s a saying I haven’t heard in a while.
“Well, you wouldn’t get a lot for me; I’m damaged goods.” I meant it jokingly, but in all honesty, that’s exactly what I am.
“George, you’re not damaged, babe; you’re just…” I can hear his brain tick down the line as he tries to think of a polite way of saying I’m a bit touched in the head. “You’re a beautiful young woman, trying to find her way in life after having the most devastatingly, fucked-up thing happen to her.” I’ve never heard my brother speak so eloquently. Lennon yeah, Marley, occasionally during interviews, but Bailey, never. Because of our age difference and the fact that he wasn’t involved with the band, he is the brother I am least close to. It doesn’t mean I love him any less; I just haven’t shared as many experiences with him.
“I love you, Bails.” I can’t think of what else to say to him.
We chat for a good half hour, about Sam and the kids, my parents, my other two brothers, and then I ask him the question that’s been on my mind since I first called his number.
“What exactly did Cam say when he called you last night?” He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, then I hear him let out a long breath.
“The first time he called, he said he had just spoken to you and you sounded a little off. He just wanted to know where you were living so he could go around and make sure you were all right.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him not to worry. I’d deal with it.”
“Bet that pleased him.”
“Na, George, it fuckin’ never.” I close my eyes. Thinking about how pissed off that would have made control-freak Cam, causes a little tug at my heart. “He got right on the turn and started having a go, saying we should be looking after you better, you shouldn’t be on your own, et cetera. And course, he doesn’t know you’re in fucking Australia, does he, so he’s wanting to know why you’re off your tits at five on a Saturday afternoon, and why ain’t none of us doing anything about it.” I shouldn’t laugh, but after hearing my brother’s strong cockney accent and imagining the conversational standoff that would have gone on between the two of them, I just can’t help it.
“So, how was it left?”
“Well, first he threatened to blow my legs off if I didn’t tell him where you were.”
“What?”
“George, this is Cameron King we’re talking about; he has been known to get a bit nasty.” I’m only too aware of how ‘nasty’ Cam can get. I witnessed him blowing off a bloke’s kneecaps in a pub car park many years ago, but I’m not about to confess that to my brother.
“So then what?”
“I told him if he blew my legs off then he would have no chance of ever getting back with you, and that the ol’ man would hunt him down and blow his fuckin’ head off.”
“Bails!” I shriek at him. I don’t know what bit of his last sentence I’m more pissed off about.
“Look, George, the bloke’s bang in love with ya, babe; he always has been. He was devastated when you got back with Sean, then after the accident, he called constantly.” He goes quiet for a few seconds. “He was actually really good to me. We had a few beers and chatted a few times, ya know, when you weren’t doing so good.” I feel a sharp stab of guilt in my heart at the negative effect my suicide attempts have had on my family. “He’s had his own shit to deal with in the past, George, what with what went on with his misses and kid and everything.”
“Chantelle, yeah, he told me about it.”
“Did he? Strange, really, that you two have both been through something similar, both lost your other half and your babies.” We both remain silent for a few seconds as we get lost in our own thoughts and digest that coincidence. I had in fact thought about that a few times since my birthday; how many people in this world lost a partner and child at the same awful moment? Thankfully, very few but it had happened to both Cam and me.
“He was one of the first people to call me after the accident, like within a couple of hours, George.” I wasn’t aware of this fact; I’d only found out months later, on my birthday, that he had asked about me at all. “He called a couple of times a week in the beginning, just to see how you were doing, asking if there was anything he could do.” He pauses then takes a deep breath. “Why were you talking to him last night, George? How come you were on the blower to him?” I knew this question would come, and I’d already decided I’d be honest with my brother; it was the least I could do.
