She seems to think I know this but I don’t. But she’s so upset I don’t stop her and put her right. That would be insensitive, so I put my arm round her and let the words wash over me and when she’s finally silent I hand her a box of tissues, although I don’t really know why she’s crying. Has something bad happened?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Present Day
Just like the haze over the River Dart on a summer’s day, the mist burns away. I begin to understand what has happened to me. There is no big moment of revelation. After repeated conversations, most of which I don’t remember, the facts sink in and stick. Mostly.
I’m pretty sure they’re telling me the bare minimum, but I gather that the night before the wedding, I slipped and hit my head in the hotel garden. Nobody knows exactly how long I was lying there before somebody found me.
I was rushed to hospital in Torquay, where they did various scans and tests. My brain was swelling, so they used medication to sedate me – putting me into a coma, effectively – for a couple of days, and then gradually withdrew the medication as the swelling went down.
Every day since I regained consciousness, one of the hospital psychiatrists has asked me questions. Apparently I got quite irritated with her for bothering me and I refused to answer them sometimes. What I understand now is that these questions were designed to see if I was emerging from post-trauma amnesia.Yesterday, I answered them all correctly for the first time. I am now officially fully awake.
But it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. Over the last week or two I’ve had numerous tests. People came to visit. I don’t remember any of that happening, although I remember Simon and my mum being here. The doctors have reassured me this is completely normal for someone who was as deeply unconscious as I was. It still doesn’t make it any easier to grasp.
There is one thing I remember for sure. Something so vivid, so real, that it makes the current impressions of the world around me seem flimsy and transparent in comparison.
I remember getting married.
To a man I hate.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Five years ago
Do you remember what happened directly after the game?
Her memory is fuzzy, probably because of the sneaky tactics of those guys who’d decided it’d be funny to pick on her when they had to nominate someone to drink, and then everyone else had bundled in and joined the fun. She now remembered lying back on the floor when it had finished, thinking she needed a pink boa to match the other girl, and how the room had spun so hard she’d had to get up again. After that, it was pretty much a blur for an hour or more.
Someone put some music on. People started dancing or passing out.
Her next clear memory was being with Megan in the en-suite bathroom to the master bedroom. It had taken her twenty minutes to convince her friend to unlock the door.
Do you know why Meg ran off? The first time?
Her prediction had come true. Megan plus alcohol equalled ‘flight risk’.
No. Not exactly sure. She was dancing, having a great time. Next time I looked, she was gone.
She didn’t know if she’d danced or not, or who with, but some time later, when the fuzz had cleared a little, she realized she hadn’t seen Megan for a while.
When I found her in the bathroom, she was acting really strange, saying that ‘they’ were following her, but I never got out of her exactly who.
She now wondered about the guys Simon had mentioned when they were playing the drinking game. Could it have been more sinister after all? Were they looking foranydrunk girl to take advantage of?
Paranoia?he suggests.
She frowns and typesMegan usually had two stages of drunk: loved-up and sobbing. I never saw her being paranoid.
But it wasn’t just the drink, was it?
No.
And that would explain it.
What happened in that bathroom?he asks.
She cried, rambled on for a bit, but then she seemed to calm down and she ended up hugging me, telling me what a brilliant friend I was. We tried to get to the landing while hugging, but we got as far as the bedroom, ended up bumping into the bed and falling onto it.
