Chapter 30
THIRTY
SADIE
I’ve dealt with all sorts of obstacles in my life.
From subjects I struggled with at school, to career choices, childcare conundrums and, of course, a divorce that left me despondent and detached from the woman I used to be.
Right now, the obstacle I am facing feels like it is my biggest, which is ridiculous because it shouldn’t even be an obstacle for me at all.
I’m simply trying to make my way back from the bathroom to my bed, a journey of only a few steps, yet it feels like I’m trying to scale Everest, such is the strain it is putting on my legs.
I let out a deep breath, at least the fifth one I have exhaled since I began this ‘journey’ while the nurse by my side continues to help me along, holding on to my arm in case I fall to the floor.
But I’m determined not to fall. It’s a fall that got me into this mess in the first place and there’s no way I’m going all the way back to square one.
I just want to get out of this hospital so I can get on with my life and, by life, I mean ruining Luna’s.
‘Come on, Sadie,’ I say to myself, not needing the nurse to offer me any words of encouragement or motivation, as I have all the motivation I need.
The sooner I am declared physically fit and well enough to go home, the sooner I can find a way to make everybody see what kind of person Luna is.
It’s imperative that I am back to full fitness before I attempt that, though.
She has proven once again she is a very, very dangerous and deadly foe.
That alarm we heard a week ago. The lockdown we all went into.
I should have known it had something to do with her, and I am absolutely sure of it now that I know who was involved in that incident.
It was Gemma, the woman who had been in prison for starting the fire at my parents’ house; the woman who had always maintained her innocence.
She had done such a good job of that that I eventually believed her, despite hating it at one time in my life, and I also believed something else she had said.
She thought that Luna was to blame for all the bad things that had happened to us and how we had both been inexplicably cut out of Reid’s life.
I thought about things from my perspective and realised she had a point.
But the rest, as they say, is history. I’m here in hospital, lucky to still be alive, but Gemma was not afforded that same fortune.
She is dead, and while the official story from the police is that she died whilst trying to escape from the prison officer who was chaperoning her, I think there is far more to it than meets the eye.
Somebody wanted it to look like that.
Somebody who was also here in the hospital at the same time.
Somebody named Luna.
I have no doubt that she killed Gemma. I don’t know the exact ins and outs of what happened, but I figure that Luna must have seen Gemma here and took her opportunity to remove her from the equation.
She had to have been aware that Gemma was being vocal about her suspicions of her, so she has silenced them before they could get any louder.
Now, with my fictitious amnesia, Luna thinks she is safe and can continue to get away with what she has done.
But she is wrong. I will get her for everything she has done to me, my family, Gemma, and everybody else she has hurt along the way because they were unlucky enough to cross paths with her.
But first, I will make it back to my bed.
I grit my teeth and force my heavy, aching legs to move through the final few steps I need before I reach my destination.
I slump down onto my hospital bed and let out another deep sigh.
It shouldn’t take as much work as it does for me to walk around, but as the nurse keeps reminding me, I am getting stronger each day and the road to recovery is already being well traversed.
I just wish there was a shortcut. But as the nurse also reminds me, there is not.
Perhaps there could be if I was actually honest and told everybody that my memory was not as bad as I am pretending it is.
That might speed up the process of me being allowed to leave here, because it would make me seem less of an invalid who requires around-the-clock care in case I have a sudden relapse.
But I have to keep up the pretence to not only keep myself safe from Luna, but also to keep that woman clueless as to what is coming to her.
As the nurse leaves me to rest in my bed, I know she will be back soon to run through the latest round of cognitive function tests I need to practise every day.
I’d heard all about the importance of brain training and playing puzzles like Sudoku to keep your grey matter firing on all cylinders, but this is something else.
In here, as a patient with a brain injury, I am having to do all sorts of things that seem simpler than Sudoku and yet are clearly the level that the staff here think my intelligence is currently at.
Like being shown picture cards of certain fruits and having to name them before putting them into a story to demonstrate my brain’s current capability to link items and perform associations.
Half the time, it feels like I am a toddler being played with by the parent.
It reminds me of when I used to show Arthur and Ruby picture cards in an effort to teach them a new word or at least stimulate their brain so that it wasn’t all just cartoons and snacks.
It’s not that the tests I am having to take are particularly hard.
What is hard is completing them whilst pretending to have memory loss.
I can’t just ace every test because if I did, that news would filter from the doctors to my family and I can’t have Reid telling Luna that I am making good progress with my mental faculties.
I need her to think everything is a struggle for me, from the simplest of things like figuring out why two picture cards are connected.
If she hears that I can barely tell a story about two red apples and a yellow banana, she’ll never suspect that I am out for revenge and that she is the only story I really care about.
I want her pity rather than her paranoia, so I will keep making sure to come across as someone who is far from the person they used to be.
But on the other hand, I really, really want to leave this hospital, so it’s a fine line to tread.
At least I get plenty of visits in here.
My parents come by to see me every day, always armed with plenty of snacks because Mum is trying to get me to put on the weight I lost in my coma.
As for Dad, he sits and reads newspapers to me, ones he collected while I was unconscious because he thinks it’s a good idea to update me on everything I missed while I was out.
I told him it’s hardly current affairs if it happened months ago, but he still does it, reminding me that the more I know about the past, the less I will struggle with in the future.
If only he realised that such a sentiment extended far beyond simply giving me the news headlines from the last year.
If only he knew that I know everything about my past, including the most important part of it all.
Luna is the danger.
Unsurprisingly, she has not come to visit me, neglecting to join Reid, Arthur and Ruby when they call by the hospital to see me.
Luna is conspicuous by her absence. The official line from Reid is that she is at home looking after baby Jude, and while that might seem like a good and valid excuse, I know she is avoiding me.
It’s also not just because of any awkwardness on her part because of how we fought before my accident after I had ‘broken in’ to her home.
It’s simply awkwardness that comes from Luna worrying that spending time with me will jog my memory and make me recall the truly awful person she is.
She can stay away all she likes as I’ve already recalled everything.
So why haven’t I spoken to the police and told them what I remember?
Why haven’t I pointed them in Luna’s direction as they investigated Gemma’s death or asked me what I can remember about the night of my accident and subsequent injury?
Why haven’t I worked more urgently to try to get my children out of the house they share with Luna so I can guarantee their safety?
It’s the same reason I am playing dumb and forgetful now.
It’s simply too risky.
Luna is so smart, so clever and so many steps ahead of everybody at all times that I cannot afford to tip another person off about what she is capable of until I have truly got her trapped in a situation she cannot escape from.
To tell a police officer risks them not believing me, or worse, going to speak to Luna only for her to talk her way out of it, and once she has done that, what would be stopping her finding a way to kill me like she killed Gemma?
She might not be able to get to me on her own in this hospital, but a desperate woman like that, with a whole family to lose, might hire a hitman to take me out.
If that sounds fanciful or even delusional, I only need to look back on everything that has actually happened so far to realise that absolutely nothing is out of the question where Luna is concerned.
She will do anything to get what she wants, so I have to behave like that too.
She’s won every battle we have waged so far.
But there is still a war to be won.
That’s the only one I need to win.