‘No, it’s okay. I think I’ll be out for the count once my head hits the pillow.’
Alice predicted well. Her breathing slowed not long after he heard her plumping up the pillow, but while she was right about the speed with which she fell asleep, she was wrong about the quality. He read on his phone for the next hour or two, during which she had patches of tossing and turning. He’d just about nodded off, his phone lying on his chest, when she suddenly gasped and sat up.
Ben also lurched to a sitting position. ‘Are you okay?’
She breathed heavily for a moment, then said, ‘Yes … Just a bad dream.’
He knew all about bad dreams, had been plagued by them for a good while after Cat had died. They hadn’t been identical, but they’d all run along the same theme: she was in danger – locked in a house, being sucked under swampy mud, flailing far out at sea – and he could never get to her in time to save her. ‘What was it about?’
He heard her inhale and then exhale, and then she began talking.‘I can’t remember. It was a feeling more than anything … of being breathless. And being trapped. I was trying to get away from something when I woke up. But it’s like the atmosphere of the dream is still with me now I’m awake.’
He hated it when that happened. ‘This is a stressful time for you. It’s not surprising it’s leaking into your dreams.’
She was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s not just the dream that’s making me feel this way,’ she replied quietly. ‘It’s real life.’
He propped himself up on his pillows and turned towards her. ‘In what way?’
‘All I’ve wanted since that day I met you outside the café was to find out who I am, to slot back into the life I left behind. After talking to the doctor, I have to acknowledge that I might not like what I find. Things might not be perfect. I thought I was ready for that, but now we’re on the way, now we’re getting closer, it’s all becoming very real. And I’m scared. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes,’ he said softly.
‘It does?’
‘It was hard to come back to Invergarrig when my sister died. I thought I knew what my future looked like, and then one day –poof! –it was gone, and I had no idea what would replace it. I still don’t, really … That was daunting enough, even when I knew who I was and where home was supposed to be. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to not know those things either.’
She nodded, and he thought he could see a rather wobbly, grateful smile curve her lips. ‘It just feels very …’
He waited for her to finish her sentence, but the room was completely silent for almost a minute, and then he realized why.In the dim light, he could see she’d covered her face with her hands.
‘Alice?’
She tried to answer, but all that came out at first was a gurgling sniff, and then she managed, ‘I just f-feel solonely.All the time. It’s like I’m in this world with everybody else, but I’m from a separate planet, a place no one else understands because they’ve never been there. I just … I just want it all toend!’
It was all Ben could do to stay anchored to his stupid sofa bed and not leap over to where she was and gather her up in his arms. But he kept his backside glued to the mattress.
When she’d composed herself, she said, ‘I keep thinking about that image I saw so clearly in my mind back at the station. It could be a memory, but you’re right – it could just be my addled brain playing yet another horrible trick on me. But then I think, “What if it isn’t? What if it’s real?” and I go round and round in circles trying to work the answer out. It’s exhausting. And I keep thinking: all I want is one thing, just one fact to know about myself to anchor me in place, to make me actually feel like a real person … not a figment of someone’s imagination that might disappear at any second.’ She buried her face in her hands again, and her shoulders began to shake. Ben’s eggshell-thin resolve cracked.
Don’t do it, don’t do it,a voice warned inside his head as he threw his duvet back and stood up.She needs a friend, not…
Shut up,he argued back.I know that. Don’t you think I know that?And to prove his point, he didn’t get into bed beside her but stayed on top of the duvet,putting an arm around her from the side so she could lean into him. She let out a strange little sob, and then the floodgates opened.
He’d never been that good with other people’s emotions. Not really, even though he was definitely a people person. There was getting deeper, connecting, and then there was … this. It reminded him of his sister, how she’d worn all her feelings on her sleeve for the world to see, how he’d tried to tell her over and over to buckle them up inside when she got upset because you never knew when the door would slam open and an angry voice would tell you to shut up or they’d give you something real to cry about.
But, somehow, he didn’t want to crawl away, find an excuse to do something else,gosomewhere else, while Alice turned the front of his T-shirt into a lake. He didn’t know what to do or what to say to solve her problem, although he desperately wished he could, but he could do this. He could hold her. He could try and absorb some of her pain.
She eventually ran out of steam, becoming heavy against him. ‘Why don’t you try and get some sleep,’ he whispered, but when he tried to pull away, she grabbed his arm, kept it pinned against her.
‘Please … Don’t go. Not just yet.’
He remained still for a couple of heartbeats, then said, ‘Give me a second …’ before putting one foot on the floor and reaching over for the single duvet on his bed. When he returned, pulling the duvet with him, Alice had sunk onto the mattress, facing away from him. He scooted in close, staying on top of her duvet but pulling his over him until he was spooning behind her. Close but not too close.
There. All very platonic. No skin was touching skin, except if you counted where his forearm lay across hers.
He lay in the darkness, feeling her heat seep through the duvet, hearing the soft rasp of her breathing. ‘Sorry …’ she finally whispered, and it was that one tiny, scratchy word that broke him.
She didn’t need to be sorry about anything. If there was anyone who was sorry, it was him. Because he had the power to solve her problem. He could give her that one thing she’d asked for, no, practicallyprayedfor. He could give her one fact. At the very least, he could give her a name. One that actually belonged to her.
The doctor had said it might upset her, make her emotional state worse, but what was this if it wasn’t ‘upset’? More than that, if this wasn’t ‘downright heartbroken’? As far as he could tell,notknowing was causing way more damage.
