Back in intensive care I keep my head down, walking straight to bay B, but you’re not there. I make my way back to the whiteboard and find you in bay F.
It’s the same as the other areas, but smaller. Only three beds, and a nurse at a desk stationed by the door. I reach into my bag and feel for your phone, my hand closing around it.
The nurse looks up at me with a questioning smile. She’s wearing a pale-blue tunic and there’s a fob watch hanging from her breast pocket. Her hair is brown with bold chunks of blonde streaked through it, and styled in a high bun.
‘Can I help you?’ she asks.
‘Hi, I’m Jenna Lawson. I’m a doctor in A&E. I just came to check on one of my patients. It was touch-and-go for a while and I wanted to see how he was getting on.’
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Who are you looking for?’
I glance at the beds. One is a boy in his late teens with a bald head and a body so thin that I can see the shape of his skull where his cheeks have sunk in. Cancer, I guess. Bed 2 is a woman about my age. Unconscious and on a ventilator. Bed 3 is you.
‘Matthew Dover.’ I nod towards you and that’s when I see why you’ve been moved. The ventilator is gone. Your body is still wired to the machines, but you’re breathing on your own, which means you’re no longer in an induced coma.
A stone drops in my stomach, the sudden rush ofemotion burning on my face. My grip on your phone tightens until the sharp crack digs into my palm. Red Bull and stomach acid scorch the back of my throat and for a horrifying second I think I’m going to be sick.
Fight or flight? The desire to run is overwhelming.
‘He’s not awake yet. They only brought him in here a little while ago, but you’re welcome to sit with him for a minute.’
‘Thanks.’
I walk forwards on legs that don’t want to carry me and make a fuss of moving the visitor’s chair, positioning myself halfway down your body, my back to the nurse. The urge to look at you builds until I stop resisting.
The graze on your face is no longer the raw angry red it was on my first visit. Now it’s one long scab that must be itching like hell. There’s more colour to your skin. You look peaceful. Asleep. You are asleep, I remind myself.
You’re wearing a hospital gown, loose around your chest where the wires wriggle their way to the machines. Your arms are lying by your side over a tucked bed sheet. I shift closer, my hands trembling with fear and caffeine.
I watch your monitor and your slow steady heartbeat, the opposite of my own. I risk a look behind me to the nurse. Her head is bent over a chart by the patient with the hollowed cheeks.
Now is my chance.
Your phone feels damp as I unpeel it from my hand. There’s a deep red groove across my palm from where the crack has pressed against it. My skin crawls – beetles scurrying over my body – as I reach out andtouch your hand. Your skin is dry but warm, and as I unfurl your fingers your hand twitches in mine.
I stop, not daring to breathe. My whole body is tense. I’m ready to run. I glance at your face – your eyes are still closed – then the monitor. Your heartbeat is steady. It was nothing. An involuntary spasm.
When I move again it’s not slow and steady, but quick. Your thumb is out and I press it against the Home button.
Your phone springs to life. I’ve done it. I’ve actually unlocked your phone. A dozen different apps appear on the screen and behind them is another photo of your cat.
The photos icon is at the top of the screen and it takes three jabs of my finger on the cracked area for the folder to open.
Tiny images appear before my eyes. I click on the last photo you took and the same grey tabby cat fills the screen. I swipe left. More cat photos. Then food, delicately placed on plates. Then a road. A blur of cars. A bin overflowing with litter. A dead seagull. The sky. A tree. On and on they go. Hundreds of images of nothing.
Swipe swipe swipe.
And then it’s photos of your sister, her eyes fixed on the camera. Dozens of them. She looks worried. Then there are more of Sophie, walking away this time. Then a house with a big driveway. And finally I see what I’m looking for.
Me.
My face from behind the windscreen waiting at the traffic lights on Wednesday. The photo is blurry and I’m out of focus but it’s definitely me. If I zoom in I can see a smudge of Beth’s red hair in the back seat.
You bastard.
This is the proof I wanted to find. The evidence that will convict you. I keep swiping through more photos of me in the car. I see myself staring at the traffic lights and then the horror when I spot you.
There are hundreds of photos here. More nonsense ones of nothing in particular. Then it’s a busy street and a woman who at first I think is me, but it’s not. This woman has blonde hair and long legs and I recognize her instantly. It’s Rachel. Lacey’s mum.
