“Olivia, baby, are you there?” He sounds worried.
“Mmm,” I manage to say before I feel sleep calling me.
“Olivia, where are you? I’ve been calling for hours.” He sounds scared.
“Home, ow.” I moan as I attempt to move but then there is just nothing again. Maybe I succumb to unconsciousness or maybe this is all a dream.
The next thing I know I am floating with voices around me, lots of them. I try to open my eyes, but nothing seems to work. I don’t have the ability or strength to manage it, not even when I hear Mason’s voice again, and although I know it’s his voice, I have no clue what he’s saying. Suddenly cold air hits my face and I shudder, feeling cold and exposed and then I hear Mason’s words.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m here, Livy.”
Time passes, not that I know how much time, but I do know that my surroundings have changed. I am no longer in my flat. I am in the hospital with a concerned looking Mason standing over me.
“Hey there.” He brushes the hair back off my face.
“What happened?” I sound hoarse.
“You had a break in, your place was vandalised.”
“What?” I’m startled at his words. “I remember. Things were a mess and I think I must have been hit.”
“That seems to be the general consensus. I called you over and over and when you eventually answered you said where you were and then I think passed out. I came around and found you, then called for an ambulance and the police. I’ve had a locksmith change your locks, but you’re coming home with me once you’re discharged,” he says authoritatively.
I have no energy to argue and honestly, I don’t want to because I have never felt anything other than safe in Mason’s company and that is what I am desperate to feel right now. “Thank you,” I say with my eyes closing again.
It’s the early hours of the morning, almost light with daybreak before we arrive back at Mason’s and he is clearly concerned by the cut on the back of my head and the concussion that was diagnosed. He has memorised all the signs to look out for that could indicate the need for further medical attention. I smile as he insists on undressing me, not in a sexual way, but a purely loving, caring way. He carefully slips one of his t-shirts over my head and tucks me in like a small child and much like a small child I am falling asleep immediately, not quite sure how I got back here or what happened between arriving home and waking up in hospital.
He wakes me throughout the night and not like he has in the past, by touching me and caressing me. No. Tonight it is purely to check that I am okay and conscious. This continues until after ten in the morning when I find Mona checking on me, causing me to wake with a start.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” She affords me some space when she steps back. “Mase asked me to check on you.”
“It’s fine,” I reassure her as my heart slows to a dull roar now. “Has he gone to work?”
“Yes, but only because he had something he couldn’t move. He said he’d be back by eleven.”
I nod, wondering why he feels the need to rush back when his office is on the floor below the bed I currently occupy. My head feels like it has been hit with a hammer and unsure exactly what they did to it at the hospital I resist the temptation to shower in case I’m not allowed. Instead, I get up and make my way to the kitchen.
I’m sitting at the breakfast bar drinking the tea and eating a piece of toast that Mona made when Mason returns at exactly eleven o’clock.
“Hey, baby.” He checks my face and head. “The police have called and are coming over this afternoon to take a statement.”
I nod but there is very little I can tell them. “I need to go home and see what state the place is in. What time are the police coming? I don’t know what happened last night…” I’m beginning to ramble.
“Half one for the police and you just tell them what you do know. As for going home, that’s not going to happen today, tomorrow or anytime soon, Olivia.”
˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜
Less than two weeks later I have recovered but still haven’t returned to my own flat having remained in Mason’s until a couple of nights ago when Sarah and I arrived at the wedding hotel which is where we are now. Sarah is beginning to stress; I can see it and with her mother flapping round us I completely understand why.
“Sarah,” her mother, Miriam, says with criticism ready to be unleashed. “Are you sure you want your hair down?”
And there it is. The one thing Sarah has been doubting herself is now about to become the biggest issue of the day, her wedding day. We, we being me, Sarah, her parents, sister and the young attendants are all cocooned in a few neighbouring hotel rooms, and Miriam is nervous, excited and emotional which only makes her need for perfection even more desperate.
“Liv, up or down?” Sarah asks with Miriam frowning at me, daring me to disagree with her so I aim for diplomacy.
“What does Jed prefer?”
“Down,” Sarah replies with the soppiest of smiles I have ever seen her wear.
