Chapter 34
By the time my shift finished, I barely stopped to say goodbye to Jean on the front desk before I was flying out of the clinic to my car. Emotion clawed its way up my throat as I drove—a tad recklessly—through the city.
How I had got through all my patients that afternoon was a mystery.
I loved him.
I loved George. No. No. It wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. He’d messed me up with his kindness and his dick. That was all.
Hot tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I swiped at them, letting out a frustrated grunt. I never cried before I met him. Nothing had ever affected me enough to warrant that kind of emotional display.
Since he waltzed into my life, I’d become a blubbering mess.
I swung into mum’s driveway and jumped out of the car.
My fist had barely pounded on the front door when mum opened, her smile dropping instantly.
‘What is it, darling?’ She stepped aside, letting me in. Roxy bounded up to me, jumping up, placing her paws on my chest. Giving her a quick pat, I pushed her away. She plopped back to the floor with a huff.
Every muscle in my body felt tense, ready for an attack. Only I didn’t know when it would strike. My breaths come out in short pants. I was dying. It’s the only explanation. I waved my hands in the air, shaking them out. ‘I-I don’t know, but s-something’s wrong.’
Mum shut the door and immediately scanned me from head to toe. ‘Do you need to go to the hospital?’
I shook my head. ‘N-not that kind of wrong, but then again, I don’t know because maybe there is something fundamentally screwed up in my head.
’ I placed a hand on my chest, my heart thrashing like a kick drum under it.
Mum held out her hands as if to hug me, but stopped halfway.
Looking unsure why her daughter had just come into her house looking like a raving lunatic.
I slipped off my coat, letting it drop to the floor. Shaking out my limbs. My extremities going numb. ‘Oh, God, why do I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin.’
‘Sweetie, let’s take some deep breaths.’ She placed a warm hand on my shoulder. I slipped out of her hold, furiously shaking my head.
‘Can’t.’ I flapped my hands again. ‘T-that’s the point.’
Herding me like a lost sheep down the hallway, we entered the kitchen.
Dried flowers on the table, an open notebook with mum’s illegible scrawl on the paper splayed out. The familiar scent of lavender should have been comforting, but right now, it felt suffocating. Bringing up every memory I’d worked hard to keep shoved down in that deep, dark place in my soul.
‘Is this a panic attack? I think I’m having one—’ Air wasn’t getting into my lungs. It felt trapped and no amount of clawing at the skin on my chest was easing the passage.
Mum cast a wild look round the room. She looked as lost as I did. Roxy, sensing the urgency of the situation, sat quietly at my feet. ‘Sweetie, you’ll be okay. Just take some deep breaths.’
I rolled my eyes, bringing a trembling hand to my chest. ‘Didn’t… think of… that.’
‘Sit down, I’ll make some tea—’
‘No tea!’ The words ripped from my throat.
Mum flung her arms in the air, all her patience evaporating.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rosie Grange, sit your bum on that chair and stop flailing your arms about.
’ Stunned by the firmness in her tone that I hadn’t heard since I was a little kid, my mouth snapped shut.
Fingers still trembling, I collapsed into one of the wooden chairs at the dining room table.
Giving a satisfied nod, she folded her arms over her chest. ‘Right, we’re going to sort this out, but you need to stop acting like a cartoon character about to shoot off into orbit. ’
She went to a cabinet in the corner, reached up and plucked out two glasses and a bottle of dark brown liquid.
Taking a seat next to me at the table, I watched in silence as she uncorked the bottle of whiskey and poured a generous helping into a glass, pushing it towards me. I took a fortifying sip, letting the liquid coat my throat and praying that it also calmed the anxiety taking root in my body.
‘Better?’ She arched a brow.
My ability to draw in a full breath was slowly returning, but the panic still sat at the end of my fingers like an electrical current. I stared at the whiskey in my glass, shaking my head. ‘No.’
Mum took my answer with a curt nod, screwing the lid back on the whiskey.
‘I’m going to go out on a limb and say this outburst is because of a rather handsome man I met a few weeks ago.’
I lifted the drink to my lips and took another long sip, nodding.
Without preamble, she said, ‘You love him.’
I slammed the glass down, splashing some over the side. Mum didn’t even flinch, taking a casual sip of her own as she surveyed me with a knowing expression on her face. ‘Why does everyone keep saying that?’
‘Everyone?’ she queried.
‘You,’ I spluttered. ‘Alistair.’ I was playing fast and loose with the term everyone. Two was more than enough to have the gremlin in my stomach start dancing a jig.
She peered at me over the rim of her glass. Slowly, she placed it down, not looking at me as she spoke. ‘Are you saying it’s not true?’
All the energy in my body evaporated. I propped my elbows on the table, letting my head fall into my waiting palms.
‘I—’ I started, but gave up when the words wouldn’t come. ‘It’s not true.’ My voice cracked on the last word. It couldn’t be true.
Pain, raw and unfiltered, slashed across Mum’s face. Eyes the same colour as mine held my gaze. ‘I knew this would happen. Honestly, I’m surprised it took you this long to work it out.’
My head lifted slowly. ‘You knew?’ How could she have known when I didn’t? I wasn’t ready to say the word yet. That dreaded four-letter word that churned over and over in my head.
Her lips stretched in a grim smile. ‘Darling, from the first moment that boy stepped into this house, I knew he was in love with you.’ She held up a hand to stop me from interrupting. ‘And I could also see that you were falling for him, too.’
The whiskey in my glass stared back at me, not giving me the answers I desperately wanted. ‘I don’t want this.’ I tried to imbibe my voice with conviction. Even to my own ears, it rang hollow. ‘I’ve never wanted this.’
‘Is he not someone worth loving?’ Mum tilted her head, features pinched like she was waiting for me to get it.
Waiting for that penny to drop. But I wasn’t the one who didn’t understand.
It’s the rest of the fucking world who didn’t get that falling in love wasn’t meant for me.
Not when I’d seen what it did to people.
What it did to the person sitting opposite me.
‘He’s—’
How could I explain George in a single sentence?
In one conversation, even. Everything he was couldn’t possibly be summed up in a single word or phrase.
He was all-consuming—all-encompassing. He shone a bright light into the dark corners of my heart.
Even when confronted with all the monsters lurking inside of me, from trauma and baggage I couldn’t undo, he hadn’t turned away in disgust.
‘Your past doesn't threaten me, sweetheart. It doesn't make me jealous. It makes me want to sit on the floor and ask you every detail so I can know all the pieces that created this incredible person standing in front of me.’
My eyelids stung as I recalled the love pouring out of his eyes as he’d said that.
‘I’m in love with a man who is covered in fucking green flags,’ I rasped.
‘Okay,’ Mum drew out the word like she was failing to see an issue. ‘And the problem is?’
I floundered again. ‘He’s… perfect.’
‘Again, not really seeing the problem, sweetie.’
Tears finally broke free, cascading down my cheeks. ‘I’m not.’
Two words dropped like a bomb into the small kitchen.
Soft evening sunlight filtered in through the windows, casting an orange glow on the floor.
Roxy had found a spot in the direct path of the sun and was stretched out on the tiled floor.
Basking in it. I watched her for a moment, too afraid to meet Mum’s gaze.
But I felt it burn the side of my cheek.
‘Rosie.’ The sadness that coated her voice stabbed me right through the chest. ‘What are you so afraid of?’
When my head lifted and our eyes connected. Her face crumpled when she read the answer etched on my face. The truth I’d always been too scared to voice.
Her head bobbed a few times, understanding dawning. She took another drink, gently setting the glass down and clasping her hands tightly. Throat bobbing as she swallowed.
‘Are you so afraid of becoming me, that you are willing to chase away something real?’ she said in a voice so soft it was barely audible.
There it was. The fear that I’d never spoken out loud but felt gnawing in my gut since I was a child.
People say there's an inevitability to becoming like your parents you never escape. Mannerisms, you pick up without noticing where they originate. A tone of voice or taste of food. Innocuous things that don’t matter.
Some people cope with trauma by burrowing so far into themselves they can no longer see the good.
So they lean on crutches to help them assuage the guilt of existing.
Drinking. Drugs. Sex. Gambling. The obvious vices you expect people who have suffered to cling to—not my mother.
Her life had been a series of events that had scarred her for a lifetime.
From an absent father, to an abusive mother who would break the skin on her back with a belt every time she did something my grandmother perceived as wrong.
She’d suffered and survived her childhood.
A feat that would have broken most, but she bore it, using dark humour and sarcasm as her defence against the world.
At eighteen, she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, one I’d promised myself at eight years old, I would never, ever make.
She’d fallen in love.