Chapter 16 #2
‘I don’t understand.’ Bex didn’t want to believe this was possible, and maybe if she reminded Ken why it couldn’t be, he’d realise he must have got it wrong. Briony couldn’t be in danger. She just couldn’t. ‘They said there was less than a 1 per cent chance of serious complications.’
‘I know, but someone has to be in that 1 per cent and oh God, Bex… I can’t believe it was Briony either. I’m so scared, and I don’t know what to say to your mum when she wakes up.’
‘Don’t say anything, not yet. The last thing she needs is to worry about that.’ Somehow, she managed to keep her tone steady, even though the voice inside her head was screaming at her to get to the hospital. If Briony was really that unwell, Bex had to get to her.
‘I’ll have to tell your mum, because someone needs to be there for Briony.’
‘And you can’t be in two places at once.’ She repeated the words he’d said to her when she’d arrived at the hospital, but she didn’t wait for him to respond. ‘You don’t have to be. I’ll stay with Briony until we know she’s going to be okay, and you focus on Mum.’
‘But you’re going home tomorrow.’
‘Not now I’m not. I’ll stay as long as it takes.
’ She was already pushing her chair away from the table, desperate to get to the hospital.
There was no point even trying to tell herself that her overwhelming desire to be with Briony was purely for her mum and Ken’s sake, because she knew it wasn’t.
Her little sister’s life was hanging in the balance and nothing in the world could stop her getting to Briony’s side.
Bex couldn’t stop shaking even when she reached the hospital.
Both Donna and Briony were in the Critical Care Unit.
Her mother was in high dependency, where she’d need to stay for a couple of days, but Briony was in the Intensive Care Unit, for patients who needed the highest level of monitoring.
Bex had called ahead to the ICU to check whether she would even be allowed to visit, and had been told she would be, but that there were a strict set of protocols to adhere to.
She couldn’t help wondering if the hospital’s willingness to let her visit was a bad sign.
Surely it would be better if Briony was kept protected within ICU, from any risk of infection, and only allowed visitors again once she was out of intensive care, but then maybe they didn’t think she was going to get that far.
It had been that thought which had made her shiver and, once she started, she didn’t seem able to stop.
She had to try to get control of herself though, otherwise the staff in ICU might think she was unwell and refuse to let her visit Briony.
She couldn’t allow her sister to lie there alone, wondering if anyone cared what she was going through, because lots of people did and Bex was undoubtedly one of them.
She wasn’t sure exactly when the switch in her head had happened and she’d started referring to Briony as her sister again, even if only in her subconscious.
Maybe it had been when she’d first realised that the love she had for Briony had never completely died, or maybe it had come later.
Either way, the word came from Bex loud and clear when she arrived at the ICU.
‘I’m here to see my sister, Briony Deyes.
’ Both of them had taken their stepfather’s surname when he’d married their mum, with Bex becoming a White when she married Matt.
Briony’s nickname had always been Hollywood, or Holly for short, because she was so dramatic.
Becoming Holly Day must have seemed the obvious choice when she developed her online persona, but there was so much that Bex didn’t know about her sister’s life, and how Briony had reached this point.
Suddenly she was desperate to find out everything she could about how Briony had spent the last sixteen years.
She just hoped to God it wasn’t too late.
‘Will she be able to hear me?’ Bex asked the nurse as she stood at the side of Briony’s bed, looking at her sister hooked up to various machines, the bleep-bleep of the devices somehow both comforting and horribly disconcerting all at the same time.
‘It’s quite likely that she can, even though she can’t respond, and it’s been shown to have a positive effect on recovery.
’ The nurse gave her a kind smile. ‘I know it can be hard to think of things to say when someone is in a situation like this, but I’m sure you’ve got hundreds of memories of growing up together that you can talk about.
I’m an only child, but I’ve got friends with sisters, and they all have so many stories, it makes me really envious. ’
‘Yes, we did everything together when we were kids.’ She turned away slightly, not wanting the kindly stranger to see the expression on her face, or ask her any questions that might make the tears she was holding back start to flow.
There were no memories she shared with Briony for the last sixteen years, a complete blank space that should have been filled with laugh-out-loud moments, celebrations, commiserations and so much more.
Having a sister had always felt like such a gift until Liam had come into their lives.
Bex had felt hugely lucky to have the family she did, even though her father was a complete let-down.
With a mum like Donna and a sister like Briony, she’d been blessed, but overnight it had felt like she’d become an only child, one who’d lost her other half.
‘Okay, I’ll leave you to it for a bit.’ The nurse smiled again, probably too busy to even have noticed how on edge Bex was. It was to be expected anyway, all the visitors to ICU were spending time with loved ones who were incredibly unwell and it was hardly a place to laugh and joke.
‘Oh Briony, this was supposed to be straightforward, what have you done to yourself.’ Bex’s voice was barely more than a whisper as she sat by the side of the bed. ‘If you die before we have the chance to sort everything out, I’m going to be so mad at you.’
Briony’s eyelids flickered slightly and for a moment Bex expected them to open wide and for her sister to respond, but they remained firmly shut.
The nurse had said that Briony could probably hear her and Bex found herself hoping that the words had reached her sister.
She wanted Briony to know that she was finally ready to try and sort things out between them.
She had no idea what that would look like and what kind of relationship, if any, they might be able to salvage from the ashes of their previous one, but she wanted to try.
Things could never be how they might have been, but there had to be something more than the void between them, that had been replicated by the void in her heart which nothing else had been able to fill.
Matt and the boys were more than Bex had ever dreamt of, but they didn’t make up for losing Briony.
Her little sister had been one of the loves of her life from the moment she was born, and no one could just get over losing someone like that, no matter how hard they might try to pretend. Even to themselves.
‘You better not just be doing all of this for dramatic effect.’ Bex stroked the fingers of Briony’s right hand, which was resting on the bed, as still as a stone.
‘I know what you’re capable of. I remember that time I was off school with mumps and you wanted to stay home with me.
You hated the fact that you couldn’t, and you thought you were missing out because Mum got me those copies of Sugar magazine and enough sweets to open my own shop.
You decided you had to get in on the action, but I knew it was because you missed me and just wanted to be allowed to stay in the same room as me, because you told me so about a thousand times! ’
Bex couldn’t help smiling at the memory as she continued.
‘Mumps was too hard to fake, so you thought you’d give chicken pox a go and use Mum’s new lipstick to paint spots all over your face.
The only problem was that you’d already had chicken pox and they were more like polka dots.
You looked like Mr Blobby and it was the first thing that had made me laugh since I got ill.
But poor old Mum, that was the only decent bit of make-up she owned. ’
The smile had left her face now and she breathed out slowly, the memory of her mother’s reaction twisting something deep in her gut.
‘She tried not to show it, but she was so upset at the stub of lipstick that was left behind and, when she started to cry, so did you. You kept promising to pay her back for it and she kept saying it didn’t matter, but you knew it did.
You can’t have been more than seven or eight, but I could see how much it upset you and it didn’t surprise me when you put some of your birthday money in an envelope and left it under Mum’s pillow.
Of course she wouldn’t take it, but it made her cry again for all the best reasons.
You were such a sweet kid and even when you did something wrong, it was usually for the right reasons.
All the kind and loving things you did far outweighed the other stuff. ’
Just like her mum all those years before, Bex was trying and failing not to cry.
‘You’ve more than paid her back now though, Briony.
This gift you’ve given her of a second chance might just be enough to wipe the slate clean for all of us.
I think we could both use it as a second chance too, but you’ve got to get better so that we can try.
You can consider getting better as payback for what happened with Liam, okay?
And unlike the money under Mum’s pillow, I promise I won’t give this gift back.
Just get better, that’s all I’m asking.’
Bex squeezed her sister’s fingers gently, willing her to realise she was there by her side, even if it turned out that she couldn’t hear.
‘Remember when Mum had to work that job cleaning offices after we got home from school? I must have been about thirteen and you were still in primary school. She used to say to you, Bex is in charge, so do as she says. Well, I’m still in charge, okay?
And what I’m saying is that you have to find the strength to come back from this.
Tom already thinks the world of you, and I know my other two boys will too, if they get the opportunity to know their auntie.
They’ll never forgive me if they don’t get that chance because I shut you out for such a long time and I know that’s mostly my fault. ’
Tears were rolling down her face now, plopping down to where she held Briony’s hand in hers.
A mixture of guilt, sadness about all the time they’d wasted and terror that they might never get the chance to put any of that right, meaning that she’d lose her little sister all over again, all coming together.
‘I should have given you the opportunity to explain and realised long before now that you wouldn’t have caused me pain just for the sake of it.
Liam would have made my life hell and you knew it.
I wouldn’t listen, but he quickly proved you were right.
You put yourself on the line to save me from getting hurt. Just like you’re doing now.’
Her words were choking in her throat and she wanted to grab Briony out of the bed and shake her until she woke up, whatever it took.
She looked so tiny and fragile all of a sudden, like the little sister Bex had always been so desperate to protect.
Briony didn’t deserve this, she’d been willing to risk her life to save Donna’s.
That was the person she’d always been, not the monster Bex had created in her mind in an attempt to make their separation less painful.
This couldn’t be it. She couldn’t have blown the chance to get her sister back.
The sense of powerlessness made her chest ache, like a lead weight had been laid upon it.
There was nothing Bex could do to change what was happening, but she could make a promise to her sister that if she came back to her, she’d never turn her away again.
‘Please, Briony. I need to know you can hear me when I say I’m sorry for not forgiving you years ago and for making you feel like you could never come home.
I need to know you forgive me for that too, because Port Agnes is your home as much as it is mine, but it hasn’t felt the same without you.
I never stopped loving you, I didn’t realise it until recently, but it’s true.
Just fight this, please, and come home for good. Mum needs you and so do I.’
Standing up, Bex leant forward so that she could kiss her sister’s forehead, trying not to wonder if this might be the last time she did.
Her throat was burning with the tears she knew she was going to keep crying even when she left her sister’s side.
She didn’t know if she was allowed to kiss Briony, but she didn’t care.
Some rules were meant for breaking, and the rule she’d set out about not allowing Briony to get to know her three boys needed to be broken too.
All Bex wanted was for them to have the chance, because she’d be the one who’d be broken forever if they didn’t.