Forget Me Not (Remember Me Series) (12 page)

“You scared me.”

“Sorry.”

Sheepishly I scrubbed my hand back over my head. My hair was beginning to grow back, slowly but surely. Shaving it had seemed like the right thing to do before and now… Now it felt right to let it grow again. I wanted Bella to remember me as the man I had been before she went missing. I didn’t want her to have anything to do with the new me.

“We don’t have much time.” 

Sarah turned on her heel and headed for the bank of elevators, she expected me to follow her and I didn’t disappoint. We travelled in silence up to the ward where Bella was. It wasn’t until we started towards her room that Sarah finally spoke.

“I don’t think any of us ever said thank you for bringing her back?”

“I don’t deserve thanks.”

“Why do you always do that? Whenever I try to say something nice to you, you won’t let me. It’s like you enjoy punishing yourself.”

“The only person on this earth that will ever change that is lying in a bed behind that door. I don’t expect her to ever forgive me for what I allowed to happen to her, so I deserve to be punished.”

Sarah reached out, her hand touching my arm softly.

“She will forgive you. Bella could never hold a grudge against anyone, especially when what happened wasn’t your fault.”

I didn’t say anything else. What was I supposed to say? She obviously didn’t know the full story, she obviously didn’t understand, and I wasn’t going to set her straight. Bella could do that if she wanted.

I pushed the door open and stared at her. There was a tube in her mouth, it half obscured her face and I felt my heart constrict. The room spun for a second and I grabbed onto the door frame. I had thought that she looked small and frail before… Now she was barely there. It was a like a ghost had taken her place, moved the real Bella and was now lying in the bed, tricking everyone else but me.

I was suddenly beside her bed and I had no idea how I had gotten there. I didn’t remember walking across the room. Instead all I knew was her. She was the only thing in my head, in my sights and I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off her, not even for a second.

“Bella, I’m here, I’m here sweetheart.”

Tears slid down my face again and I dashed them away with the back of my hand. She didn’t need me crying over her. She needed me to be strong for her, and that’s what I would be.

“You need to wake up now. Everyone is so worried about you.”

Sarah sat in the chair on the other side of the bed and watched silently. I didn’t care that she had seen me cry, I didn’t care that she was watching me. Bella needed me.

“I love you, Bella. Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare leave me here alone, do you hear me? I need you to wake up. It doesn’t matter what anyone else needs, Bella, and I don’t care that I’m being selfish. I need you to wake up. I need you.”

Something flickered behind her eyes, her fingers tensed softly around my hand but it wasn’t enough. I wanted her to see me. I wanted to tell her that she was loved.

“Bella, come back to me. Come back to me, love, I found you.”

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed the tips of her fingers softly. She stirred, her eyes flickering open for a second. She moved again as I continued to kiss her fingers. I willed her to open her eyes properly. If I could get her to wake up then maybe she stood a chance of being alright.

She opened her eyes and stared around in confusion. I watched as she struggled to focus in on me and when she finally did something softened in her eyes. Her body relaxed, it was like watching all the tension wash out of her.

I held her hand and we sat in silence. There was some much I wanted to tell her, so much I had to say to her but in that moment I understood the need for silence. It had been so long since she had looked at me, so long since I had seen her gaze trained on mine. Part of me wasn’t even sure about where to start. What could I say to her? Words seemed so pointless. There wasn’t enough words in the world to convey how sorry I was for letting her down. But in that moment of simply holding her hand and feeling her gaze rest on mine none of that mattered.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Bella’s father’s voice ripped through the silence and peace of the room. I didn’t turn to him and it wasn’t because I was feeling rebellious, or that I wanted to piss him off more than he already was. I just didn’t want to lose sight of the woman I loved. She was here, really here… And she wanted me here, I knew that.

I was forced to look up at him when his fists closed in around the collar of my shirt. He used all of his strength to drag me up from the chair and I let him. The last thing I wanted was to upset Bella. She needed people to be calm around her… She needed to rest and heal and that wasn’t going to happen if I was fighting with her father.

It took all of my strength to resist the urge to land him on his ass. He dragged me from the room out into the corridor. It wasn’t until the door had swung shut that I finally let my temper lash out.

Shrugging free of his grip I turned on him, using my body to drive his against the wall. For the sake of Bella I would do a lot of things, but I wouldn’t become a walk over. Not for anyone, not ever.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” I demanded, my voice low and dangerous. “That’s your daughter in that bed. Do you really think it’s such a good idea to go around manhandling people like that in front of her? Hasn’t she gone through enough?”

“You have no idea what my daughter has been through…”

“I might not, but I have a far better idea than you. I knew Christopher, I knew the monster he was and I did everything I could to get Bella back. Tell me, Richard, what did you do?”

His face went pale, the colour draining from his face as he fought to keep his calm. What was it about me that pissed him off so much? Had I been wrong in my thinking? Did he actually care for his daughter, did he care enough to honestly believe that I was bad for her? Or was it all superficial?

“I… I did what any father would do…”

He stuttered, his words tripping over each other as he struggled to come out with something, anything. And when he couldn’t he stared at me, dumbfounded before finally cracking.

“I had to keep my family together.”

“Always the good little soldier?”

I knew it was mean, a cruel jab at his past in the army. I’d looked into Richard’s past and I knew all of his dark secrets. There was nothing he could hide from me. I knew he had been dishonourably discharged from the army for cowardice. Of course he’d tried to have all that covered up later, claiming it was a misunderstanding. But I knew the truth, I’d seen his records. And he knew from the look in my eyes that I knew his secret.

He swallowed hard and tried to push me away. I let him, taking a step away from him. Judy immediately stepped in, grabbing her husbands arm as she tried to straighten his tie.

“Richard, you can’t let him talk to you like that? Do something.”

But he didn’t. Instead he shrugged free of her grip and strode off down the hall, his polished shoes squeaking across the linoleum. She turned on me, her face flushed before she ran after him. As she turned I caught sight of a slight bruise across her cheek. Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if Richard had been taking a little domestic discipline into his own hands.

When it was just me and Sarah standing there I let out a long sigh. I was tired, more tired than I had ever been in my life. It was as though all of my nights spent tossing and turning over Bella were finally catching up to me.

“Are you going back in?”

Sarah touched her hand to my shoulder and I smiled at her.

“Thanks for calling me over.”

She shrugged and I caught sight of something in her eyes, something I hadn’t seen before.

“You really care about her?”

Her question caught me off guard. I found myself staring through the window into Bella’s room as I answered. It wasn’t a difficult question to answer.

“Yeah, yeah I really do. I love her.”

“But how did you spend two years just searching for her?”

“I couldn’t give up on her.”

“But if Christopher was as bad as you thought then… how?”

I shrugged and put my hand on the door.

“I had to know, I had to find her… I’m just glad it turned out the way it has… I’d never really allowed myself to hope before.”

I didn’t wait for her to ask me anymore questions. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it softly behind me. I wanted time with Bella and I didn’t want anyone else with us.

She half smiled around the air tube as I sat back down beside the bed. Her hand crept across the bed and I took it in mine once more, pressing my lips to her palm.

“I love you.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Bella

My recovery seemed to take forever. My body healed, slowly, each day making me a little stronger. The only thing that didn’t get better were the nightmares. Every time I closed my eyes I could see him. He haunted me night and day and my broken sleep seemed to make the healing process even slower.

Aidan stayed with me through it all. He was the only thing I could count on. But not even he could stop the nightmares. How could I be with him when my mind was struggling to cope with everything I had dealt with? I knew he loved me, I could see it in his eyes every time he looked at me. But there was something he wasn’t telling me. Something had happened during the two years I was missing, something that he was keeping from me. He probably thought he was doing the right thing… But all it was doing was making it harder.

“The doctors seem to think I’m ready to leave.”

My stomach twisted painfully. How could I tell him? How could I say it to him, he had stood by me through everything. I knew it would break his heart to hear it. Aidan sat by the bed, studying his fingers intensely. It was almost as though he knew what I was going to say. If he had known it would have made life easier. It didn’t change the fact that I had to tell him.

“I’ve been getting the apartment ready for you…”

With a sigh I cut him off. Placing my hand over his I squeezed his fingers gently in an attempt to get his attention.

“Aidan, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea that we move in together…”

His head jerked upright and the look in his eyes constricted my heart. How could I explain it in a way that he would understand?

“I don’t understand? I thought you wanted to be together?”

“And I do, I really, really do. It’s not about that. It’s just after everything I’m not sure who I am anymore… I feel like I need to get my own identity back and…”

“And you can’t do that with me?”

His tone was filled with pain and bitterness. I felt like a monster telling him that I wasn’t ready to be with him. He had put his life on hold for two years for me, all so he could look for me. He had rescued me from that monster and here I was throwing it all back in his face.

“I want to do that with you, Aidan. But I’m not ready yet… I’m not sure how I’m supposed to be now and I don’t want to mess up what we have.”

He shook his head and stood. His hair had grown a little more and I longed to run my fingers over the silky velvet feel of his head.

“Aidan. Please?”

“Bella, I love you but I’m not sure what you want from me? Take the time you need, I wouldn’t ever stop you from having what you need. But I don’t get it.”

His shoulders were stiff with tension and I found myself reaching out to him. I wanted to feel his arms around me. I wanted to feel the protection of his embrace but I was afraid. I was afraid of what I felt for him. What if it all went wrong? What if after everything that had happened we were simply too different, too changed? My life was shattered and I had no idea how I was supposed to begin picking up the pieces?

“Aidan?”

I reached out to him and he ignored me, he moved for the door and tugged it open.

“I do love you but I don’t know what the right thing is anymore. I never thought loving you would be so hard, Bella but it is, and it’s killing me.”

He slammed the door behind him and I let him go. His words hurt but I understood them. It was something I was feeling too. Was love supposed to hurt this much?

“Have you got everything?”

Sarah’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. I hadn’t been able to think of anything but Aidan since he’d left. I was like some sort of record caught on repeat, my mind replaying over and over the argument. Was I wrong? Had I been too hasty? Was I being a coward?

“Bella?”

Sarah stood in front of me, her expression impatient as she stuffed the last of my clothes into the carry bag.

“Yeah, there’s nothing else.”

“Why isn’t Aidan here?”

She tried to keep her voice empty, but I could feel the curiosity rolling off her.

“We had a disagreement.”

Sarah sat on the edge of the bed and dumped the bag onto the floor at her feet. She fluffed her blonde hair back from her face and made a face at me.

“A disagreement? What about?”

“I told him I wasn’t moving in with him…”

Her eyebrows shot up, practically disappearing into her hair line.

“Don’t look at me like that, Sarah.”

“Like what? I’m just surprised. Why hadn’t you told him before?”

“I didn’t know how to say it… I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to really be around him.”

“Bella, that doesn’t make any sense. You say you love him and now you say you’re not sure how to be around him?”

I shrugged, how was I supposed to explain something I didn’t even understand myself? I couldn’t just go to a book shop and get myself a self help book, Trauma for Dummies. What to do when you’ve been held prisoner and tortured for two years. How was I supposed to be normal when I didn’t feel normal anymore?

All I wanted was to get my life back on track, but if I was honest with myself I had no idea how to do it. I’d been attending therapy sessions but I couldn’t see how it was helping me. The worst of what had happened to me wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. How could I sort through my issues if I couldn’t even talk about it?