Chapter 41
Josh
Along night followed my visit to the hospital yesterday. Sleep eluded me as I agonised over Elle’s revelations. The first thing I did when I left the Princess Grace was drag my sorry ass off to an NA meeting.
Because if I didn’t, I was going straight for a bottle of the best scotch I could find and pretending like drinking four-figure scotch was somehow classy and not the desperate act of a pathetic fucking man who was scared to face up to the pain he’d caused the people he loved.
Person he loved.
The meeting helped me get my head straight enough to make my way home and figure out a game plan. And by the time I collapsed into sleep around 3am, my plan looked like this.
One. Don’t have a drink. Don’t pop a pill. Don’t fall at the first fucking hurdle. You let her down last time, man. Don’t you dare do it again. She needs you fully functional.
Two. You better persuade her to listen to your side of the story. She may tell you to go to hell. But without her hearing it, she’ll never trust you. Not really. Not enough.
Three. Do everything in your power to make sure nothing like this ever, ever happens to her again. Elle’s got herself a new pit-bull.
Four. Get some fucking sleep. See Point One.
I must have crashed hard, because when I wake up, I feel pretty intact, and I mentally high-five Yesterday Josh for staying away from temptation. I’m still reeling from everything Elle had kept to herself.
That when she was busy dazzling me and making me fall hard for her in Cannes and afterwards, she was hiding her illness.
Putting on a brave face.
Giving me a sanitised version of herself in case showing me the real Elle, ill and vulnerable, would put me off.
That when I pulled my unforgivable Twitter stunt, I triggered a flare-up so bad her doctors contemplated removing her colon.
I’ve gotten very good at shutting things out over the years. Obviously, hard liquor and a pharmacy of substances have helped enormously. But I’ve been so busy looking inward, hating myself, despising my weakness, that I can totally ignore the impact I’m having on those around me.
I’ve been working hard on this, these past few months, in rehab and since getting out. But for all the steps I’ve followed, for all the meditations I’ve done, I’ve never allowed myself to visualise exactly what it must have been like for Elle when I sent that tweet and shut myself off from her.
I told myself a million times it was for the best, that she’d be hurt, confused, but she’d see sense and go about collecting her Academy Awards and choosing from her endless choice of the best projects out there.
And she did. She did Fae, and every choice she’s made since then has been on point. But now I have another image. One I can’t get out of my head.
Elle in such emotional turmoil over my baffling silence that the trauma hit her body like a fucking sledgehammer. Elle haemorrhaging. Purging all her fluids. Weight dropping at a terrifying rate. Hospital beds. Transfusions. Drips. Her doctors’ worried faces. Total agony.
It’s too much. I can’t fucking bear it.
I need to bear it.
I need to feel it.
There’s no way around this. The only way is through it.
Even though, now that I know the truth, I can’t believe she’ll ever be able to trust me. Surely every self-protective instinct she has in her body will tell her to cut me loose, for her own good?
When I get to her hospital room, she’s sitting on the bed in jogging bottoms and a light sweater.
I’m beyond relieved to see that the tubes are gone and there’s a little more colour in her cheeks and lips.
Thank fuck there are people out there who dedicate themselves to putting their fellow humans back together and act as a counterbalance to those of us who go around breaking them.
I move over to the bed and cup her face in my hands and kiss her on the forehead again. It feels warmer now. More human. I rest my forehead against hers when I’m done. I won’t let her push me away today, because she needs me.
Almost as much as I need her.
Or, at least, as much as I need to help her right now.
To be the slightest bit of use to her.
To do something to claw my way out of the deep pit of shame and horror and remorse I’ve dug for myself.
I pull back to see her, keeping that face in my hands.
‘How are you doing?’
She looks up at me. Shrugs. ‘Okay. Knackered. Feeling pretty shitty. Thanks for coming.’
I shake my head. ‘Oh, no. Don’t thank me. This is all my doing, remember?’
She smiles weakly.
‘Let’s get you home. Is your little dog there?’
‘She’s with a local dog-sitter. They’ll bring her home later, if I’m up to it.’
We get Elle discharged and stocked up with the pain relief, antibiotics and heavy steroids she’ll need to reduce the inflammation.
A porter brings a wheelchair, and I get her in it.
The porter takes her overnight bag and we get her down to the basement parking lot and bundle her into my car.
If there are paps outside her house, I swear I’ll…
There are no paps.
She lives a lot closer to the place I’m renting than I realised—just a couple streets away. She gives me her keys and I run up the steps to her front door, open up, and go back down for her. Help her out of the car.
She bats my hand away. ‘I can walk.’
‘Not a chance, beautiful.’ I pick her up and carry her up the stairs and into her hallway. ‘Couch or bed?’
She sighs. ‘Bed, probably. Next floor up.’
I carry her upstairs, her head resting against my shoulder. Her house is beautiful: elegant and feminine and tasteful. Just like Elle.
‘Do you own this place?’
‘Yeah. Nora rents off me. It’s much nicer than living by myself.’
I think of my empty place in Pacific Palisades. ‘I know what you mean.’
‘It’s this door, here.’
Holy fuck. We’re in her bedroom. It’s a huge, beautiful room. Light and airy. Cherry blossoms painted on the pale blue wallpaper. Enormous white bed.
I pull the comforter back with my free hand and lay her down against the pillows on one side of the bed—the side that has photos and books on the nightstand.
She sinks into the pillows with a little groan.
I set to work untying her sneakers, and get them and her socks off of her before I pull the comforter up over her.
I smooth my hand over her forehead before sliding it around the back of her neck.
‘What can I get you? What do you need?’
‘I need to be really careful with what I eat.’ She puts her hand on her stomach. ‘Can you run downstairs to the kitchen? Adela, my housekeeper, should be there. Ask her for rehydration drinks and bone broth, and see if she’ll pop out and get some fruit? Honeydew melon and bananas. Thanks.’
‘Of course.’ My thumb strokes along the line of her jaw.
She has no idea how beautiful she is, even like this.
The late-morning sun pouring through her bedroom windows illuminates her clear, pale skin and the purple shadows under her eyes.
‘I’ll go see her. Do you want me to stay downstairs, or… Do you need to sleep?’
She yawns. ‘I might nod off, but I’d rather have you here. Is that okay?’
I swallow, surprised she wants me around when she was so pissed at me the other day. When she’s worked so hard at hiding her health issues from me. I’m pumped she hasn’t asked me to get the hell out of here. ‘Of course it’s okay. I wanna be here with you.’
I go introduce myself to Adela, who hooks me up with the broth and the drink and some straws, and decline her offer to take the tray up to Elle.
I got this. I got her. I sit on the edge of the bed and hold the straw to her mouth as she sips.
She gets a decent amount of her drink down her, and a little bone broth.
‘You can get on the bed with me, you know.’ Her voice is drowsy. I go around the bed and hop up onto it, lying next to her on my side. I smooth my hand super carefully over the flat of her stomach. She has a heat pad on it.
‘Does it still hurt?’
‘Yeah. But it’s manageable.’
She rests her hand over mine, and I lie there and watch in awe as she drifts off to sleep.