Shattered: A Shade novella (16 page)

‘Promise.’

He
reaches out to stroke the back of my shoulder over my shirt. His thumb digs in,
releasing a sharp bit of tension I didn’t know was there. I exhale as the pain
radiates up to my neck and out to my elbow, then fades. He’s quite good at
this.

With
his arm around me, we’re closer now. I shift nearer so he can reach the center
of my back. Eyes closed in concentration, he works his way down. I notice his
hair doesn’t smell of smoke.

I lay
a hand on his waist to steady myself. He opens his eyes in surprise. His mouth
is so close to mine, I can feel his quickening breath.

Martin
shifts beneath my palm, and my hand slides forward over his lower back. This
all feels so foreign, yet so familiar. Not like touching a girl for the first
time. Not quite right, but not wrong either.

Barely
an inch of space separates the lengths of our bodies. We lie in our embrace,
eyes locked, trembling with sudden uncertainty.

‘How
is it no one touched you for weeks?’ he whispers, though there’s nobody to hear
us. ‘Were you not … hurt?’

I
swallow. ‘Define “hurt.”’

‘Beaten.’

I wish
. ‘No.’

‘Then
where did these demons come from?’ His right hand quivers, still pressed
against my heart. ‘What did those people do to ye?’

Lying
with him here, having just escaped what felt like death, I feel safer than
ever. So I tell the truth, in a way, hoping and fearing he’ll hear what I mean.

‘They
did nothing.’

‘Nothing,’
he repeats, pensively.

I
expect him to add
And ‘nothing’ gives you
nightmares. ‘Nothing’ wakes you screaming.
I expect him to doubt me like he
did before. Like all the others do.

Instead
Martin gasps. ‘Oh. Oh, no.’ For a moment, his eyes fill with rage, and I know
if DMP or Nighthawk agents were here right now, Martin would punch their
throats until they never breathed again.

But
they’re not here. It’s just us.

So he
kisses my forehead, then tucks my face tight against his neck. ‘God, Zachary,’
he says in a rough voice that sounds on the edge of tears. ‘I
cannae
think of anything worse than nothing.’

And I
know he understands.

Chapter
Twelve

In
the morning I go back to the hospital, stopping at Mum’s
favourite
bakery on the way. The ICU nurse informs me Dad’s been moved to a room in the
regular medical ward.

‘He’s
quite improved overnight,’ she tells me. ‘Your father’s got a lot of fight in
him.’

‘Believe
me, I know.’ I return her smile and head for the lift.

Downstairs
in Medicine, Mum’s standing near the window of the waiting area, gazing out at
the snow flurries. She looks at me with surprise, then glances at the clock.

‘Why,
Zachary Moore, what brings you out at this early hour?’

I chuckle
as I set the teas and the bag of pastries on the table beside her. Ten
fifty-seven isn’t early for normal people. I didn’t doze off again until after
six, but it was the best sleep I’ve had in ages.

‘Mum.’
I reach out and take her in my arms. She gasps, frozen at first, then joins me
in our long, tight hug.

When
we finally let go, her eyes are wet. ‘What happened?’

‘You
might say I’ve had a breakthrough.’

We
sit on the low couch together as I tell her about my worst nightmare and
anxiety attack ever, about Martin teaching me how to breathe. I leave out the
muscle spasms and how he soothed them, and obviously the part where I told him
the DMP had done ‘nothing’ to me, and how he was the first to understand that
‘nothing’ didn’t mean
no harm
. He
understood that ‘nothing’ meant
nothing
.

She
gives me a warm, sad smile. ‘Whatever would we do without Martin?’

I’ve
no answer. While I lay in his arms this morning, memories pouring out of me
like blood from a wound, he just … listened. I told him how, during those first
two weeks in 3A, I’d fought back in fierce, futile ways: clogging the toilet
with paper towels, or writing obscene notes on my walls with crayons, or having
a defiant
wank
in full view of the ceiling camera. I
told him how they outwitted and outwaited me. I told him how, as a last resort,
I gave myself over to madness.

I did
not, however, tell him how Logan saved me. That’s between us.

I
hand the white-paper bakery bag to my mother. ‘They’d the blueberry scones you
fancy. Got the last two.’

She
claps her hands like a little girl. ‘Who are you, and what have you done with
my son?’

I’m
stung by her pleasure at my ‘return’. Was I so far gone that a hug and a pair
of blueberry scones provoke such celebration?

‘So
your father and I were talking this morning about the situation at home,’ she
says as we set into breakfast. ‘He’s asked to have his own room, apart from
me.’

‘Oh,
no. Are you not getting on?’ My parents have always argued a lot, but they
always make up quickly and fervently.

‘It’s
not that. He doesn’t like disturbing my sleep. He says he wants his own space
to be miserable in.’

‘That
makes sense.’ I used to be that way too, when I was sick or unhappy. Back
before I was terrified to be alone. ‘He hates being watched all the time,
especially when we’re watching for signs he’s – he’s getting worse.’ I
almost said
signs he’s dying
.

‘I
think that’s it. If he can be out from under my worried eyes at night, it’ll
let his mind rest. But that means you and Martin will share a room full-time.
You can move into Martin’s room with the two single beds or stay in your room
with the queen-sized.’

It’s
not an easy choice. In Martin’s room I’d still have his company, without having
to share a bed. He’d be less likely to wake me coming home from work in the middle
of the night.

But
if Martin were across the room, I’d have to hold my own breath to hear his.
There’d be that moment of panic when I’d wonder if I were alone.

‘I’d
rather not change rooms, if that’s alright.’

‘Of
course.’ She sips her tea and frowns. I must’ve put too much sugar in. ‘Martin
helps you sleep, doesn’t he?’

I
nod. ‘And he’s better at ducking punches than you are.’

‘I’m
sure he is,’ Mum says with a light laugh. Then she reaches out cautiously and
puts her hand over mine. ‘Zachary, you and Aura are in the midst of a long
separation, in both time and space. Considering all you’re facing with your
father and whatever memories still haunt you from this summer, if you were to
find even the tiniest bit of comfort in Martin’s … well, I wouldn’t blame you.
No one would.’

I’m
not exactly sure what she’s on about, but I
am
sure I don’t want to have this conversation with my mother. ‘If Dad moves to
the guest room, then you or I can sleep in the other bed when he needs close
watching.’

Mum
hesitates, perhaps wondering if I blanked out during her previous statement,
since I failed to acknowledge it. Daftness has its uses.

‘An
excellent point.’ She crumples the empty bakery bag and brushes nonexistent
crumbs off her lap. ‘Speaking of your father, shall we go see if he’s awake?’

Date: 19 November

Weight: 65 kg

Hours sleep in last week: 41

Nightmares in last week: 5

Flashbacks in last week: 2

Panic attacks in last week: 2

Days since 3A: 86

Days until Aura: 31

Aura’s wearing my
favourite
jumper tonight, the
red V-necked cardigan that looks soft as kitten fur. As she speaks, fluttering
her hand and shifting in her chair, my eyes are glued to the jumper’s top
button, hoping it will magically pop open.

It’s been weeks since I’ve thought about sex in anything but the
abstract, but the last few days I can think of little else. The first morning I
woke with a raging
stauner
in my boxer shorts, I felt
like singing. It was like greeting a long-lost friend.

Perhaps it’s the change in meds: after the severe panic attack I had
the night Dad was in hospital, my doctor switched me from
Klonopin
back to the faster-acting Xanax, at least for the next month. Side effects may
vary, as they say. So that’s one explanation.

Another explanation: I’m finally returning to life.

Aura folds her arms on the desk and leans towards me. Does she know
how this motion pushes up her tits? She must – she’s touching them right
now with the backs of her wrists. She can touch them any time she wants. I’m
pure jealous.

I squirm in my seat. If I can somehow hint to Aura that this need has
returned, maybe we could, I
dunno
, do something about
it.

‘Isn’t your dad’s chemo tomorrow?’ she asks. ‘Third Thursday of the
month?’

I blink. That was a bit of a
stauner
kill.

‘
Em
, yeah.’ She keeps track of my life
better than I do sometimes. ‘Mum said I could take him alone this time, just
him and me. So that’ll be fun.’

Aura laughs at my sarcasm. ‘He still hasn’t learned how to be a good
patient?’

‘I guess he’s better than I’d be.’
No,
don’t mention yourself. That’ll raise questions.
‘Tomorrow the key will be
making sure he eats and drinks every few hours instead of passing out and
sleeping straight through the night. Friday he’ll wake feeling spectacular, so
I have to keep him from charging out of the house to climb Ben Nevis on a pogo
stick while fighting terrorists in hand-to-hand combat.’

She laughs again, a sound that now soothes my nerves instead of
grating on them. ‘How do you keep him occupied?’

‘Mostly we play video games. The trick is to let him win without him
knowing I’m letting him win. Which is easy,
cos
he’s
better than I am.’ I revel in the sight of her smile and the fact that I’ve
caused it. ‘Friday night the
nausea’ll
set in, and
that’s when Mum takes over. She’s got a stronger stomach than I do, so she’s
better with the
boaking
.’

‘Ugh. Sorry you have to go through that. I’m sure it doesn’t help you
recover from – you know.’

I grip the seat of my chair to keep my arms from wrapping around my
own waist. All I want is one conversation where she doesn’t poke at my wounds.

Instead of snapping at her, I just shrug. ‘That’s the way it goes.’

She waits a few moments, then gives up and peers past me. ‘Where’s
Martin? Doesn’t he have Wednesday nights off?’

‘He does.’ I don’t remember telling her that, but my memory’s not
trustworthy. ‘He’s out to dinner with his boyfriend.’

‘It’s two o’clock.’ She bobs her eyebrows. ‘Maybe they’re having more
than dinner?’

‘Perhaps.’ It’s only 1.52 a.m., and this lad’s actually an
ex-boyfriend, now just a friend. But Aura doesn’t need those details. ‘He’ll be
home in—’ Sixty-eight minutes or less. ‘By three o’clock.’

‘Well, good for him,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know he was seeing anyone.’

I’m confused. ‘Why would you know?’

She shakes her head. ‘Speaking of food, I’ve invented a new sandwich.
You’ll probably think it’s gross.’ She holds up a pair of jars. ‘Peanut butter
and lemon curd.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘We ran out of jelly. Lemon curd was all we had left.’

‘Where’d you even find that?’

‘Our grocery store has a teeny tiny British section. Stuff like tea
biscuits,
HobNobs
—’

‘Dark chocolate?’

‘Sorry, milk chocolate. Anyway, this lemon curd stuff looked good, so
I bought it.’

‘And tragically paired it with peanut butter.’

‘It’s the ultimate Scottish-American
mashup
.’
Aura grins as she presses the jars together. ‘The new taste sensation.’

‘You’re adorable, ye know that?’

‘And you’re in a weirdly good mood. What’s up?’

‘This is what’s up.’ I show her my pile of sticky notes. ‘Thirty-one
days until we see each other in Ireland. We’re almost three quarters of the way
there.’ Seventy-three-point-five percent, to be exact.

‘Yay!’ She pumps her fist. ‘Still too far away, though.’

‘Yes, but—’ How to express this without sounding insane? ‘It’s
starting to feel like it might not be just a dream.’