“Right.” Tim looks as thrilled as I am about this prospect of communicating with each other again. Our mobile phones have been confiscated, and I don’t have access to my email account anymore. My mum and his parents must be hurting so much to be so ruthlessly cruel. But we’ve found a way.
We will always find a way back to each other. I know that now.
So, even when Mr Ratcliffe finds us, and even when Tim is sent to the Head’s office with Sadie and Alex for punishment, I keep smiling to myself, feeling calmer than I have in longer than I’d care to remember. We’ll win.
In the end, Tim and I will win, no matter what they try to do.
Chapter 3
Now
Nat and Tim are both 30
Tim
My phone rings just as I’m heading into my two o’clock meeting. I frown when I see it’s my daughter.Something’s wrong.She never calls me at work.
Nodding at my boss through the glass wall of the conference room, I pick up. “Hey, El.”
“Dad?!” Her voice is cracking, high with panic.
“What’s the matter? What’s going on?” Everything else vanishes around me. I can’t remember the last time I heard Eleanor sound like this.
“Dad…” She begins crying as she talks, gasping between sobs and syllables. My stomach plummets as she continues. “We were in a crash. Me a-and Mum. We’re at the h-hospital…”
I don’t even tell my boss I’m not going to be able to attend the meeting that’s now starting. I just start speed walking back to my desk to pick up my keys. “Eleanor, are you OK?”Please, let my baby girl be unhurt. She’s talking on the phone. That’s got to be a good sign, right? She’s only fifteen. She should beexemptfrom harm.
“I’m fine. It’s… Oh, god… Mum’s hurt…”
Fuck.“OK, sweetheart, I’m on my way. Are you at Foxton General, or St Mary Magdalene’s?”
“Foxton General. They’re taking her to surgery…”Jesus. My heart twists the way it does every time my little girl cries. Thistime, though it physically hurts. Because this isn’t a scraped knee or a lost toy, something easily rectified, like when she was small. This is real life being vicious and frightening. And my gut feels hollow at the thought of Nat being so badly injured that she needs to get operated on.
“Alright. Where are you? Are there people around?”
“Yes. There are, like, tons of nurses, so I’ll be fine. I’m sitting in the waiting room at A and E.”
“OK.Stay right there. Don’t go anywhere, and stay close to those nurses. I’ll be there as fast as I can.” There’s no time to waste waiting for the lift, so I run hell for leather down ten flights of stairs to the staff car park.
Images of Nat go screaming through my head. From when we were teenagers walking home together, and when we threw Eleanor’s fifth birthday party and she helped our daughter blow out the candles on the cake I made, to the last time I saw her a couple of days ago on her way out to teach her dancing class. Her hair was piled high in a clip, and her leotard…the way it clung…I tried so hard not to notice.The way she pronounces all her Ts and Hs, never skipping them, thanks to her strict mother. She’s been a constant throughout the years as we learned together and grew together as parents. She’s everything to me, just like El.Please, god, not Nat. I couldn’t take it if she’s…
I force myself to pay attention to my driving on the way to the hospital, the same one where Eleanor was born fifteen years ago. The last thing she or anyone else needs is for me to get into a car wreck as well.She’s OK. Theybothare. It’s all gonna be fine. Maybe if I wish for this insistently enough, it’ll have an impact on reality.
Someone in the sky is on my side because I find a parking space straight away, which is fortunate because I’d have just stopped anywhere and settled the parking fine later. I race through the automatic doors and damn near skid to a stop by the front desk, where a nurse is tidying up some paperwork. “Natalie Karas? She was brought in after a car crash.”
The nurse on duty spends what feels like ages looking it up on her computer. “How are we spelling Karas today?” I tell her, gritting my teeth because I will never be one of those people who shout at hospital staff. “Are you family?”
I pause, not knowing how to begin to answer that question.Not technically, but in practice, absofuckinglutely.Fortunately, Eleanor picks that moment to appear and throw her arms around me. “Daddy,” she sobs, and my arms automatically go around her, my knees shaking with relief that she’s here and upright and doesn’t appear bloodied or swathed in bandages.
“El.” It comes out as a huge exhale of breath. “Are you OK?”
She nods, then shakes her head against me and cries harder.
The nurse clears her throat gently. “Miss Karas is being operated on right now. I’ll take you to the waiting area.”
When we get there, Eleanor sniffs as the nurse leaves. “She looked at you like you were a snack,” she sneers, never a fan of women noticing her Pops.
I ignore the comment. “You’re OK? Pinky promise?”
