But they couldn’t be the ones Erik had been wearing when he went into the lake.
When I heard the bedroom door open, I reeled back, forgetting that I couldn’t balance properly. I stumbled and found myself falling straight back into a pair of strong arms. Erik’s smaller body pressed against mine, his warmth radiating out. His arms were tight around me and he held me steady as I got my foot under me and found the right point of balance on my crutch.
“Thanks,” I said.
He let go of me slowly, letting me adjust to not having his support.
“You okay now?”
“Yes. I-I was just startled, that’s all.”
“Oh?”
Was it me or did he glance at the cupboard?
I cleared my throat. “I didn’t mean to pry. I thought I’d put the empty box away somewhere it was easy to reach.”
“Good idea. Sorry my cupboards are so full of junk.”
“Yeah.”
“Come and get some lunch. I’m going to take some paracetamol in to Sonny.”
That jolted me back to our current situation. “Is he in pain?”
Erik reached out a hand and rested it on my arm, as though to steady me in advance of some bad news.
“He has a slight fever. I just rang the doctor again. She said to give him paracetamol and see that he takes on fluids.”
“Does he need to go to hospital?”
“No. She said we should keep an eye on him and let her know if anything changes.”
“What if it does?”
My voice had gone high-pitched but that was because my mind was filled with images of Sonny burning hot and fevered,of him nearly dying all over again, of the snowy roads covered in ice and Erik’s car skidding into oblivion.
I felt a sensation on my arm and looked down. Erik’s hand was rubbing at my bicep, and his soft voice was calming.
“It’s okay. The doctor wouldn’t take unnecessary risks. She said we were to watch him overnight. If there’s no change by morning or he gets worse, I can take him to her in the village.”
“In the snow,” I said, and yes my voice was so high that it cracked.
“It won’t come to that,” he said. It almost sounded reassuring. Erik always sounded so certain, and I wanted to curl up and trust him.
He shoved the empty box into the cupboard and shut the door quickly.
“Probably don’t open that door unless you want to get hit by a box falling out of it. I keep meaning to clear that cupboard out but I never get round to it.”
I nodded absently and Erik began to manoeuvre me into the kitchen. Perhaps the shock had shaken something loose in me because I blurted out, “Your skates are back in the cupboard.”
“Oh.” Erik’s voice changed ever so slightly. “Those are my spare skates.”
“Sure.”
That was logical. It was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I had no idea why I didn’t believe him.
