While Laurie sits on the sofa flicking through a magazine, I call Scottie. I try to keep calm and positive, telling myself that one day Angus and I will go on a run again, or we’ll all be in the kitchen at Soul Food, and this nightmare of a morning will be a story to tell, not a terrifying reality. I wish I felt as positive as I sound when I explain what happened and what the doctor told us. It’s not easy to keep calm when Scottie is upset. The truth is I feel sick to my stomach, as I try to reassure him everything will be OK, that he mustn’t feel guilty for being so hard on Angus, and that he will get the chance to tell his brother he loves him. Angus is going to wake up, I tell him, trying to convince myself too. He’s going to come round. He will walk again. Yet wherever I look, I see Angus lying on the road. I hear him in pain. I see his foot. See the blood. After finishing my call with Scottie, I tell Laurie I’m going to call Milla, my doctor friend. I need to hear her voice. If there’s one person who can reassure me…
‘Try not to panic until Angus has had the scan,’ she advises.
‘What’s a displaced ankle fracture?’
‘It’s where the bone snaps into two or more parts.’
‘Oh fuck,’ I say, thinking that’s going to hurt. Laurie throws the magazine back on to the table and paces the small bare room again.
‘It’s treatable, Holly. They’ll relocate it, stabilise him. They’ll be doing everything they can. The scan is ruling out options, not confirming them. He’s in the best possible hands, I promise.’
I take in another deep breath. I feel guilty wishing Laurie wasn’t here. Her restlessness and anxiety aren’t helping.
‘I’m sorry, Holly, it must have been such a shock,’ Milla says, jolting my thoughts.
I don’t think I’ve processed it yet.
‘How are you?’ she asks, softly.
There’s a part of me that feels proud Angus rushed to the rescue. It would have been against his nature to do nothing. He acted on instinct and saved that little girl’s life. Yet, right now, there is another part of me that wishes it had been someone else who’d dived in front of that car. Why didn’t we leave the café a few minutes earlier? Why did we have to go on a run this morning? If we hadn’t, none of this would have happened. Why had the mother let her child run away from her? Why couldn’t she control her? Why, why, WHY? I want to scream.
‘Holly? Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ I say, on the verge of tears.
‘They’ll let you know as soon as they can. He’ll be a priority case.’
I picture Angus again, visualising him attached to every single kind of drip, fighting for his life. I imagine his heartbeat slowing down until it flatlines.
Just as Jamie’s had.
‘I can’t lose him, Milla.’
I realise in that moment that I can’t lose another person I love.
‘You won’t,’ Milla says, before promising to call me later.
Laurie stops pacing when I hang up. She stares at me. ‘You think he’s going to die?’ I can see the fear and panic in Laurie’s eyes. That she, too, can’t lose somebody she loves. Maybe the first person she haseverloved.
I shake my head, but I can’t speak. No words will come out.
‘What if he never walks again?’ Laurie persists.
I see images of us dancing that night. Returning home together, hand in hand.
I see Angus racing out into the road.
I hear his body smash against the car.
‘Or he can’t come to the café, Holly?’
Stop it, Laurie. I can’t hear you.
I see his blood.
‘Holly!’
I feel sick. I’m going to be sick. I can’t breathe.
