Chapter 41
Jamie
I saw you, Doctor. Don’t think I’m na?ve.
You stopped and watched me, thinking I was lost in this book.
But how am I supposed to focus? We’re under the same roof.
I can smell your perfume a mile off, five seconds before you appear.
Your movements, your little habits — every breath you take lands before my every fucking heartbeat.
When I’m with you, everything hurts less. The pain eases, swallowed by your light. In your eyes, I’m someone else.
It feels like forever since we last kissed, but I remember your taste clear as day, and I want it again.
At least one more time.
The Doctor decides to come over, and I’ve no choice but to close the book and face it: I want the Doctor, and I don’t want to leave.
He comes into the room with a tray, sits on the bed, and sets it carefully on my lap.
“I might’ve stood up.”
He shrugs. “We’re good here. Remember, you’re naked.”
“Afraid of what’s down here?”
“Afraid you’ll keel over. Your clothes are nearly dry anyway.”
I don’t know if he’s just saying it for the sake of it or if he genuinely can’t wait to see the back of me.
That’d be mad, though. I see the way he looks at me — wanting me, holding himself back.
Still, I walked out the other night and made it pretty clear I’m not the kind to stay.
Then I turned up at the hospital car park and just proved I’m half-cracked.
Maybe what he said is just a handy excuse. Maybe, in his own quiet way, he’s telling me I’m free to go — that I don’t owe him anything, that I don’t have to stick around to prove otherwise. That’d be pure Doctor, that would.
He shifts closer to the tray and settles cross-legged on the bed, searching for a comfortable position.
He’s in an old college T-shirt and sweats, barefoot, his hair still damp and messy.
There are tired shadows under his eyes that soften the edges of his face.
I can’t help wondering if he ever actually gets enough rest — if he ever really switches off, takes even a little time for himself, or if he just keeps going until he finally drops.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen him so much himself — no stiff clothes, no scrubs, none of the sharp jokes or smart defences.
And if I liked him before, well, it’s getting a bit complicated now.
A fucking mess, as Ryan said.
“Are you not eating?”
I shove the thoughts away and pick up the spoon.
“I know it’s only soup, but that’s what you need. Trust me.”
“It’s grand. I just don’t have much of an appetite.”
“You? Not a hope.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have to feed all that you’re carting around with you.”
I laugh. “All this?”
“I’m fairly sure those muscles aren’t made of gummy bears.”
I laugh harder, the tray rattling on my legs.
“Seriously, I gave you enough medicine to knock out a horse. You need your strength back.”
“So you wanted to knock me out and then take advantage of me?”
His brow barely twitches, but the tiny shift sends a spasm through my chest.
“It never even crossed my mind.” The words hit like a final blow.
I don’t answer. I just keep eating, forcing the spoon to my mouth, ignoring the heartburn flaring again — it must be from the meds he gave me or from not having a bite in me all day.
Guilt and disappointment settle over me like a heavy blanket.
We eat in silence. Neither of us knows what to say. The jokes and teasing are gone now, and that’s on me. The Doctor doesn’t seem like someone who gives second chances, even though I’m here in his house and he’s taken care of me, even though he still looks at me.
The Doctor doesn’t want me anymore.
I don’t finish my soup, and neither does he.
We both drop our spoons onto the tray. After making me take a few more tablets with water, he gets up, clears everything away, and heads into the kitchen.
I let myself fall back onto the bed, with no strength, no breath, and no real wish to wake up in the morning.
I know what’s waiting for me, and I don’t want to face it.
“Are you tired?” he asks on his way back to the bedroom.
“Yeah”
“It’s the meds. Maybe you should lie down and try to rest.”
“I’m not sleepy. I slept most of the day.”
“Do you want a hand to get to the sofa? There’s a TV in the living room.”
“Why don’t you read to me instead?”
“What?”
I reach for the book on the bedside table and hold it up to him.
“Wasn’t it just a romance?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Does the Captain like love stories?”
“It’s not just a love story.”
“Then you were reading very carefully.”
I shrug.
“You can keep reading it if you want. I have at least a dozen other books waiting for me. I can read something else.”
“I’d like to hear you read it.”
The Doctor looks a little uncomfortable, but when I hand him the book, he takes it and sits on the bed, intentionally leaving space between us. I hate that distance. It frightens me, and the worst part is, I’m the one who caused it. Now I don’t know how to fix it.
“Sit next to me.” I shift, making room for him.
“Are you sure?” he asks, doubtful.
I nod.
He moves closer and leans back. He stretches out, crosses his feet, and opens the book to read.
I lean back too, my head just touching his arm.
The smell of his body wash, mingling with the warm scent of his skin, fills my nostrils and becomes my worst obsession in an instant.
I want it on my T-shirts, on me, every day and every night.
He reads slowly, each word clear and distinct. His voice lulls me, drawing me towards oblivion.
“Where would we be without tomorrows? What we’d have instead are todays.
And if that was the case, with you, I’d hope for the longest day for today.
I’d fill today with you, doing everything I’ve ever loved.
I’d laugh, I’d talk, I’d listen and learn, I’d love, I’d love, I’d love.
I’d make every day today and spend them all with you, and I’d never worry about tomorrow, when I wouldn’t be with you.
And when that dreaded tomorrow comes for us, please know that I didn’t want to leave you, or be left behind, that every single moment spent with you were the best times in my life. 1”
I close my eyes and surrender to his words, to his breath. I savour this moment and, for once in my life, I let myself hope, praying it never ends, because it is the last we can share before tomorrow tears us apart.
I know I have to go. Now. While he sleeps. While he still dreams and hopes. While he still believes.
Because that’s how you do it when you’re trying to prevent someone from being truly hurt: you hurt them little by little, so the pain is diluted over time and becomes more bearable.
I look at him — his head resting against my shoulder, his hand splayed unconsciously over my chest. He sleeps the heavy sleep of someone who has finally collapsed, someone so exhausted he’s at last allowed himself to close his eyes, convinced that when he wakes, nothing will have changed.
I can’t, Doctor.
Give you hope, give myself hope.
I can’t give you what you want.
I can’t give you Jamie.
I press a kiss to his forehead and slide off the bed. I don’t look back. If I do, I won’t make it.
I leave the room and head to the bathroom, where my clothes are hanging up to dry.
They’re still a bit damp, but I drag them on anyway.
At the sink, I stop and look at myself in the mirror.
For the first time in many years, I see it again: that terrified little kid with nowhere safe to hide, curling in on himself so he doesn’t set anybody off, choking himself with his own hands before someone else gets the chance.
It’s all the Doctor’s fault. He doesn’t want the bullshit; he doesn’t want the Captain. That’s not enough for him.
He wants more.
He wants everything.
He wants me, the real me. And I know that if I keep letting him look at me, keep letting him dig around, he’ll find that corpse as well. And I can’t let him drag it up.
It took me years to turn into who I am now; I’m not throwing that away for anyone, not even him. He wouldn’t be happy with what he finds, and he wouldn’t be able to fix me. His magic hands won’t do a thing for me.
I park in front of their house and switch off the engine. Climbing out of the car, I walk up and knock on the door, then wait. A light flicks on in the stairwell, glowing through the glass, followed by quick, heavy footsteps.
“Jesus, Jamie. What the heck…?”
I don’t speak. I don’t move. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.
I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore.
“Riley!” Ian calls. “Riley!”
My sister appears at the top of the stairs, then hurries down to us.
“What happened?” she says.
“Will you hide me, please?” I beg her, on the edge of breaking. “Just for a little while. Can you keep me hidden?”
Her eyes fill with tears. I’ve seen her cry so many times — always because of me — that mine can’t help but spill over too.
She opens her arms, and I throw myself into them. We sink down onto the floor, me pressed tight against her while she strokes my hair.
“Shh… It’s okay, love. It’ll be all right.”
I shake my head.
“You’ll have it all, Jamie. One day you’ll have everything you ever dreamed of — and everything you deserve. I promise.”
“You can’t do anything more for me,” I whisper.
By now I’m sobbing.
Jamie Kennedy’s come back from the grave, and I don’t know if I can kill him again.
We sit on the floor in the entryway of their house. Riley rocks gently, cradling me in her arms. She says something, but I barely listen; I already know the drill. It’s the same words I used to believe in, but they don’t land the same way anymore.
Then another pair of arms — stronger, steadier— wraps around us both.
“We promise, Jamie,” Ian says. “Both of us.”
And then the first collapse.
It hits like the first tremor of an earthquake, the kind that strikes in the dead of night and leaves no time to reach safety. It’s powerful, unstoppable, and it shakes everything: your walls, your ceiling, your entire fucking world.
You cannot escape. You are frozen with fear, trapped as everything around you crumbles. All you can do is hope you survive and that, once buried in the rubble, someone will bother to dig you out.
But I don’t pray. I don’t believe. I have no faith in anything.
Never have.
I always knew something would shatter sooner or later, but I never imagined it would be this force.
I never pictured a disaster like this. I never thought I’d be rushing to my sister’s house at the crack of dawn, begging her to hide me again.
I never thought her husband would go along with it, hiding the two of us.
And I never thought that the thing chasing me, the thing I was so afraid of, would turn out to be my own heart, because I was sure I had buried it years ago, along with my father, with Jamie Kennedy, and with the rest of my whole fucked-up life.
1 How Not to Fall in Love, Cecelia Ahern