Chapter 11 #2
‘So you think that, even when you’ve loved someone and a part of you always will, sometimes it’s okay to step away from their lives and let someone else help them in a way that nothing you do ever can?’ He kept his voice low and steady, but Eve’s response was sharp all the same.
‘That’s not fair, it’s not the same situation.’
‘You’re right, it’s not, but we’ve both tried everything we can think of and come to the conclusion that there’s nothing we do can do to change the situation for Max or Meredith. If I’m not a bad person to draw a line in the sand about the extent of my involvement, then you certainly aren’t.’
She didn’t respond for a moment, but when she did the rawness of her emotions was spelled out in every syllable. ‘Then why do I feel like the worst person alive every time I look at Annie?’
* * *
Felix wanted to believe that his motivation for telling Eve about Meredith had been entirely altruistic; an attempt to help her see that moving on from her engagement to Max wasn’t the act of someone cruel or unkind, but he knew there was more to it than that.
He’d wanted to tell someone about Meredith, and the decision he’d made to leave.
He’d wanted that someone to tell him that he wasn’t a heartless bastard for stepping away from Meredith, and allowing the hope that she might finally beat her addiction to rest in the hands of other people.
There was also the fact that he liked Eve more and more, in a way that he had to admit wasn’t entirely platonic, which made him question his motivations all over again.
He shouldn’t have pushed things so far and he probably shouldn’t have told her about Meredith either, but it was done now.
All he could do was back off and let her mull things over.
If she decided she wanted to be straight with Annie, that had to be down to Eve.
All of which was why he moved the conversation on to a far more neutral topic, as they walked from where they’d parked the car towards the Chinese restaurant.
‘What was the first single you ever bought?’ It was one of those kinds of icebreaker questions you might ask on a first date, but it seemed like the ideal way to lighten the mood, and he could tell as soon as he asked it that the answer was going to be interesting.
‘Oh God, you’re going to judge me. Especially when you find out I knew all the dance moves and used to lip-sync to it in my bedroom.’ Eve pulled a face.
‘Well, you didn’t need to tell me that part, but now I really want to know!’
‘All right, it was ‘Don’t Cha’ by The Pussycat Dolls.
I was thirteen and completely left to my own devices a lot of the time as my mum was really unwell and Dad was already starting to check out.
It’s probably a surprise that I didn’t end up going down a very different path.
’ She grinned. ‘Although I’m not the world’s greatest dancer, so it probably had more comedy value than anything else.
At the time I thought I could be in the next big girl band, though. ’
‘If you think that’s embarrassing, you’ve got nothing on me.
Mine was ‘Rock Your Body’ by Justin Timberlake.
I was twelve and I recorded the video of him dancing on VHS tape, so I could perfect the moves.
’ Felix shook his hips and pouted in a way he knew for certain was more comical than sexy, but when Eve threw back her head and laughed, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen anything sexier in his entire life.
He had to get the thought out of his head, otherwise she was going to pick up on it and she wouldn’t want to be around him.
She’d made it quite clear why she didn’t even want to try moving on from her relationship with Max, so Felix making any kind of move on her, or even acting like he wanted to, would have been as unwelcome as it was inappropriate.
‘I definitely don’t feel quite as bad now.
’ Eve was struggling to stop laughing, as they turned into the street where the Chinese restaurant was, when he saw a figure out of the corner of his eye.
The woman was staggering along the pavement opposite them, bouncing off the wall and against the lamp post, then back again like a ball bearing in a pinball machine.
‘Is that Sophie?’ He squinted, hoping his eyes and the darkness were deceiving him, and that it wouldn’t turn out to be the woman he and Eve had helped get a place at Domusamare.
Her face was half in shadow and he could so easily be wrong, but as he turned to look at Eve and saw her face fall, he knew he wasn’t.
‘I think it is.’ She was already breaking into a run to cross the road and he followed suit, the two of them reaching the woman, who was now unmistakably Sophie, just before her legs gave way and she sank to the ground.
Thankfully her descent was much slower than it would have been if they hadn’t been holding onto her.
‘Sophie, it’s Felix and Eden, do you remember who we are?’ He spoke loudly and clearly, and she only gave a single word in response.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been drinking or taken something?’ It was Eve who asked the question this time, getting a similarly brief response.
‘Yeah.’
‘Can you tell us what you took?’ The words were barely out of Felix’s mouth before Sophie’s head lolled back and she began to convulse, Eve’s training immediately kicking in.
‘Call an ambulance, I’ll keep her head as still as possible until she stops convulsing and then get her into the recovery position.
There’s no way of knowing what she’s taken, but whatever it was I bet she took a lot of it.
’ Eve’s tone was urgent and she didn’t even look up as she issued the instruction.
‘Okay, but I might need to go back towards where the car’s parked to get a signal, because it’s notoriously patchy here. It might be quicker to ask the restaurant if I can use their phone. Is there anything in particular I should tell the ambulance service?’
‘Go with your gut instinct and say whatever you think you need to, to get them to come out as quickly as possible. You’ll get it right, I trust you.’
Felix broke into a run again, this time in the direction of the Chinese restaurant. He just hoped Eve was right about trusting him, because when it came to her, he wasn’t even sure he trusted himself.
* * *
Thankfully the waiting time for the ambulance had been relatively short and within twenty minutes of Felix making the call, Eve and Sophie were on their way to St Piran’s and he was following along in the car.
He’d felt guilty at the idea of leaving Eden and Drew without their dinner, but the thought of leaving Eve to face the situation alone had overridden everything else.
So even before one of the restaurant staff had kindly offered to drive over and drop the food off at Drew’s place, he’d already decided what decision he was going to make.
He’d made a call to the out-of-hours team at Domusamare on the way to St Piran’s.
They confirmed that Sophie was still staying at the hostel and that her son was living with foster carers.
So at least they didn’t need to worry about Carter’s safety.
Once Felix reached the hospital and parked the car, he headed straight into A no contact tagged as mum or dad, but I think we already knew that would be the case from the last time she was bought in, didn’t we?’
‘I’ll give the out-of-hours service at Domusamare a call and see if they can suggest anyone, or if they know what might have triggered this.’
‘Thank you.’ Eve reached for his hand and he tried not to think of it as anything more than a reflex action on her part, because allowing himself to believe she might like him as more than a friend was dangerous ground; territory he’d sworn to steer clear of less than an hour ago.
It was almost a relief when two seconds later she dropped his hand, as if only just having realised what she’d done.
‘I’ll make the call right now.’ He was already turning away. ‘Are you going to wait with Sophie?’
‘Yes, if she’s got no one else, I don’t want to leave her on her own.
No one deserves to be left on their own at a time like this.
’ Eve’s tone was light, but suddenly it felt like the comment could have been aimed at him and his decision not to help Meredith the last time she’d called.
Eve had said she understood, but that had been before they’d found Sophie, in the grip of her own demons, and there was a good chance that had been enough to change Eve’s opinion.
He didn’t have time to worry about that now.
They needed to know if anyone at Domusamare could shed any light on the situation, because whatever Eve might feel about the way he’d handled things with Meredith, Felix’s natural instinct was to be there for anyone who needed help, for as long as they were willing to accept it, and he was nowhere near ready to give up yet.