Rhapsody on a Theme (28 page)

“He also said,” Jayden continued as Darren pulled out of the car park and turned towards home, “that he’s going to match your drinking?”

“Mm.”

“He said that last time too. What does he mean?”

“He’s only going to drink as much booze as I do,” Darren translated. “So, you know, I’m not the only one not hammered and we can watch out for weird drug interactions or whatever.”

Jayden frowned and the other side of the car went quiet. Darren felt his guard going up and tried to keep calm and not…jump the gun or provoke a row.

“I don’t want you drinking,” Jayden said eventually, and Darren groaned.

“Seriously, Jayden? It’s a stag do.”

“It doesn’t mean you have to get wasted!”

“Uh, yeah, it kind of does. And it’s
Ethan’s
stag do to top it off. He’ll be blind by the morning.”

“That doesn’t mean
you
have to!” Jayden insisted hotly, and Darren sighed.

Back up
, he told himself.
Placate him, or he’ll dig his heels in
. “I’m not going to get smashed,” he said, indicating to come off the main road and into the housing estate. “I’m not going to be stupid, Jayden.”

“I don’t want you drinking at all.”

“I had a pint with my old man when he came. I had a pint with Rachel last week when she made curry.”

“That’s different,” Jayden snapped. “That’s not in bars and clubs with a bunch of drunks. The atmosphere’s different, and anyway I know you, you’ll drink to keep up, and then you’ll be…”

“Be what? I’m
not
going to be stupid,” Darren snapped. He was beginning to get angry now. He was on medication, sure, but he’d read the stupid leaflet of shit-not-to-do that came in the box and he’d asked the doctor and as long as he wasn’t an idiot about it, he
could
drink. And he wasn’t going to be the only one sober at a stag do, that would be more depressing than anything the bloody prega-thing could come up with. “Jayden, for God’s sake, drop it.”

“No, I will not bloody drop it!” Jayden exclaimed hotly as they parked up outside the house. Rachel’s cat was sunbathing in the middle of the drive, so Darren remained on the road, but Jayden made no move to get out. “You’re not drinking, Darren, I won’t…”

“You what, you won’t allow it? I’m not a fucking lunatic in the asylum, Jayden, you can’t make that decision for me!” Darren shouted, flaring up.

“You’re
ill
, and I won’t fucking let you backslide because you want to get pissed with them and pretend we’re still
kids
!” Jayden shouted back, going red in the face. “You’re not drinking and that’s
it
, I will call Paul tonight and tell him you’re not having
any
alcohol and…”

“Then what is the fucking point in going?!” Darren snapped. “It’ll be worse for my fucking mental health to be sat around bored and sober when everyone else is wasted and enjoying it, or are you afraid I’m so fucking mental I’ll have half a can of Stella and try to chuck myself off Tower Bridge?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Jayden fumed and shrugged half out of his seatbelt. “I’m not discussing this anymore, not when you’re like this, Darren, you…”

“You’re not
discussing
it, you’re making a ruling!”

Jayden opened his mouth—but then there was a deafening blare, a woman screaming, and Darren was simultaneously punched in the face by his steering wheel and in the gut by his seatbelt as, in a deafening crunch of metal and a bang like a gunshot, his seat was rammed forward and his vision went white. Pain exploded like fire on his forehead.

He smelled smoke.

Airbag charge
, he realised faintly.

Then nothing.

Jayden’s face hurt. His shoulder hurt too, so intensely that he felt almost confused. He faintly realised that there was a hot liquid on his face, and when he tried to wipe it away, his left hand didn’t want to know, hanging dead at his side. His shoulder felt painful and weirdly numb at the same time, where the seatbelt was still wrapped over it. He felt sick and shaky, like the world was still spinning, and the
bang
was echoing in his head like a boom in a cave. He was shivering.

A car crash. They were in a car crash. He’d never been in a car crash before, and holy shit, he felt
wrong
.

“Jesus,” he croaked. His back and neck hurt too, but nowhere near as bad as his shoulder. He didn’t want to look. He’d had enough injuries over the years—albeit not car-induced ones—to have a fair idea of why his shoulder hurt so badly, so he tried to focus on the pain in his head. Forehead, specifically, because he’d cut himself, and there was a red tinge to his vision where the blood was in his eyes and…

Tk-tk. Tk-tk.

Jayden blinked fuzzily, the tapping noise rousing his mind a little more out of the shock, his vision swimming, and then the quiet caught up to him. “Darren?” he croaked. “Darren!”

The driver’s airbag had gone off and inflated, and the smooth white surface was smeared with blood, the sight making Jayden’s stomach turn. He called again, reaching out with his right hand, but stopped short of touching, because there was blood in Darren’s hair and his face was turned towards Jayden because they’d been arguing and he was out, he was completely unconscious, just slumped over the airbag and the steering wheel, nearly hanging in his seatbelt, eyes closed and…

Tk-tk, tk-tk.

“Darren?” Jayden pleaded, ignoring the tapping on the window. “Darren, can you hear me?” Did he look normal? He didn’t look twisted or broken or anything, so he couldn’t have…he couldn’t have broken his neck or his back or anything, he’d look funny, and anyway the impact hadn’t been
that
hard, right? If it had been that hard, wouldn’t Jayden feel worse too, or be hurt worse, or something? He’d had his seatbelt partly off, and Darren hadn’t. Or maybe the steering wheel had done something, or they hadn’t been hit straight, or…or…

There was movement beyond Darren’s slumped form, and the driver’s side door was wrenched open. The car rocked slightly. A man filled the gap, and a dog was barking somewhere. Jayden couldn’t
focus
, and he felt the panic swelling up like blood in a fresh wound.

“He’s breathing,” the man called to somebody over his shoulder, then locked eyes with Jayden. He was in his early thirties or so, with calm blue eyes. “It’s cool, mate, we’ve called an ambulance. You all right?”

“He’s hit his head,” Jayden ignored the question. “You’ve got to…I don’t know, he’s not been well, he could be really hurt.”

“I’m not a doctor or anything,” the man said, one hand still resting very lightly on Darren’s jaw, two fingers extended over his parted mouth to feel him breathing. Because he was, he was breathing, Jayden could see his back rising and falling in shallow bursts. “He’s breathing all right. You know. Regular, like. I’ve done first aid, right, so he’ll be fine. We’ve called an ambulance.”

“Is everyone okay?” a woman’s voice called, sounding reed-thin and panicky, and the man glanced aside.

“You just stay there, love, and flag down the ambulance for me. They’re both okay for the minute. You stay there, you’re doing good, okay.” Jayden guessed that the woman had hit them.

“Darren,” he whispered again, shifting his attention back and touching Darren’s arm lightly, not daring to shake him or even hold on too firmly. The pain in his own shoulder was becoming dizzying. He felt sick, and his fingers were shaking. “Darren, come on. Come on,
please
.”

But Darren wasn’t cooperating, his skin was cool and clammy under Jayden’s fingers, and then the sirens were on top of them, deafeningly loud and filling the car with blue light. The blue bouncing off the red blood looked dizzy and sickening. The man disappeared, and a woman in green took his place, ponytail askew, and then there was a cold wind and there was someone at Jayden’s side too.

“What’s your name, sir?” a woman’s voice asked, but Jayden kept focused on Darren.

“Jayden. He’s Darren. He’s got a head injury, you have to help him.”

“And you’ve dislocated your shoulder, Jayden, so we have to get you out of the car and off to the hospital,” the woman said. “You might have a concussion too. Where do you hurt? Jayden? Where do you hurt, Jayden?”

“Just my shoulder. Look, deal with Darren first. He’s hit his head and he’s ill, he’s mentally ill and he’s on medication, it could be dangerous, it could be…”

“What’s he got?”

“Depression. The doctor put him on…”

But the woman was already interrupting. “He’ll be fine, Jayden, long as he isn’t going to have a seizure or attack someone or anything like that. Now, have you hurt your neck or your back?”

“No. Please, you have to help him first, you…”

She ignored him, palming his back and neck professionally before coaxing him to sit back in the seat. His shoulder exploded in a fiery ball of pain, and for a moment, Jayden forgot everything, even Darren, just hissing through his teeth as she worked the seatbelt off and began to fold a sling around his elbow. He clutched his arm to his chest, trying to relieve the pain, and took a shuddering breath through his nose as it subsided.

“There you go, dear,” she said, beginning to strap his arm to his chest. “Now…”

He tuned her out, though, when he heard a deep groan from the driver’s side, and twisted his head painfully to see Darren’s face crease in a scowl and a ripple of tension run from hips to shoulders. He was coming around, his hands curling and his arms coming up to grip the wheel again. He was shaking too, his fingers trembling.

“Darren?” Jayden begged. “Darren?!”

“Stay still, lovey,” the woman seeing to Darren said gently, a hand on the back of those curls. His hair was clotted and bloody, knotted into lumps, and Jayden felt sick all over again at the blood smeared on the paramedic’s gloves. “You’ve been in an accident. Can you tell me your name, my love?”

Darren groaned again, folding a hand up to cover his face, and then roughly pushed off the airbag. “I can feel that I’ve been in an accident,
love
,” he snarled, and grimaced. “Bloody hell, my
head
.”

“Darren, I need you to stay still until I can assess…”

“Fuck me, who hit me?”

“You’ve been hit by a Peugeot. The other driver is fine…”

“Bugger the other driver,” Darren grumbled. “Ow, Jesus. I feel like I’ve gone a round in the ring.
Fuck
.”

“You may have whiplash, so I do need you to…” the paramedic began, but Darren snorted.

“Bugger that. Give me a hand,” he said instead, and suddenly he was hauling himself up and out of the car. The man from earlier was hovering, and Jayden saw him reach out an arm to help—and then both when Darren staggered.

“Darren!” he called urgently.

The sway was almost drunken, and Darren’s hand groped for the car door. One knee went lax, as though he were carrying no weight on that leg at all, and Jayden felt his own heart crawling up towards his mouth in panic. But Darren didn’t collapse or faint, and after a minute, straightened again and took a few more drunken steps away from the vehicle.

“M’all right,” Darren called back, then the man and the paramedic were walking him away and…

“Okay,” Jayden said. “I want out the car now.”

* * * *

They were taken in separate ambulances, and Jayden remained calm—well, sort of—until he was taken into a ward off A&E and still couldn’t find Darren. His pleas for information started as polite requests and ended up in swearing at the doctor who came to put his shoulder back in.

“You’re not doing fucking
anything
until I know my partner’s okay!” he snapped, and part of him knew it was completely irrational, but the majority just didn’t care. Darren had had blood in his hair and had been knocked out and…and…

But nobody would find Darren—or even someone who
had
been treating Darren—and one nurse had gotten annoyed with him because he couldn’t give her another emergency contact (because his emergency contact
was
Darren, for God’s sake!) and then his phone started going off in his pocket, and it was probably a nurse at the other end of the hospital trying to call him to say Darren had been in an accident and
he knew, thank you, because
…

Then Rachel arrived.

She appeared at the entrance to the bay like a skinny angel in baggy jeans, then flew across it to the foot of Jayden’s bed and said, “Heard you’re being awkward!” with inappropriate, Rachel-esque cheer.

“Rach, go and find Darren,” he ordered. His shoulder was still dislocated, and he hadn’t let them put it back. He couldn’t shake the
fear
. But with it still hanging out of the socket, it was too painful to move, and he
needed
to know. “Please, they won’t tell me how he is, and he was unconscious and…”

Rachel scowled. “You what? I’ve just seen him, he’s about five bays down. He’s the one who called me.”

“How is he?” Jayden demanded desperately, clutching at the information. “He hit his head on the steering wheel, there was blood everywhere and he was…”

“Yeah, he’s getting stitches now,” Rachel said. “He split his forehead open. Kind of neat. Want me to bring him round when they’re done sewing him up?”

“Is he all right?”

“Yeah, he’s fine, about five stitches in his forehead and a bit of glass fished out of his cheek. Smashed his glasses up,” she said and grinned. “Going to have a
glorious
shiner, mind, his eye’s already started going black. Aren’t you going to that wedding next week?”

Jayden began to finally relax. Rachel couldn’t lie to save her life, and she wasn’t shy about breaking bad news, and she
knew
Darren, she knew what he looked like when he
wasn’t
okay…because that was what Jayden was
really
scared about, because Darren had walked away from the car, he’d been coherent (if irritable) when he’d come round, but what would a head injury do to him, how would it…?