Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
It took me a couple of goes to slot my key into the lock, but before I could turn it, the door flew open.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Sam’s eyes were furious in his white face.
‘It’s a long story,’ I mumbled, tentatively placing a hand to the back of my head. ‘I need to sit down and have a glass of water. And a shower.’
Sam glared at me for a second. Then, without saying anything, he turned and walked into the flat. I followed him, my knees unsteady and my head banging. He led the way to the kitchen, poured water from the tap and dropped an ice cube into it, then handed it to me.
Feeling like my legs couldn’t hold me up any more, I flopped down on one of the stools at the counter.
‘Do we have any paracetamol?’ I asked.
‘Bathroom cabinet.’ He still looked narky as hell, but his voice was gentler.
‘Sorry… would you mind?’
He turned, disappeared for a second and returned with two tablets in the palm of his hand. When he handed them to me, I could see he was shaking.
‘I called you, like, six times, Georgia.’
I nodded, but the movement made my head bang even worse, and I felt a bit sick.
‘My phone was nicked.’ I swallowed the pills with some water.
‘What, out of your bag?’
‘Out of my hand. Right on the high street outside the station. They took it and’ – remembering, I wanted to cry – ‘they pushed me over. People came and helped me, and I tried to call you, but I couldn’t remember your number.’
‘You couldn’t— Are you concussed or something?’ The anger was fading now, worry quickly replacing it.
‘I’m just… I was just shocked, I guess. It’s ages since I’ve had to remember it – it’s always just been in my phone.’
I was starting to cry in earnest now. Sam pulled a square of kitchen towel off the roll and handed it to me, putting his arm around me. I winced at his touch, feeling a sudden pain across my bare shoulders that I hadn’t noticed before.
‘What’s…?’ He jerked his arm away as if my skin felt as red hot to him as it did to me. ‘Jesus. Your back’s bleeding. Does it hurt?’
‘It does now.’ I was properly ugly crying, gulping out sobs. ‘It’s really sore.’
It was, but it wasn’t just the carpet-burn stinging that was making me sob.
Sam fetched cotton wool from the bathroom, boiled water and added salt before tenderly bathing the raw skin. His hands felt gentle on my back, even though the salty water stung.
‘It’s just a graze,’ he said eventually. ‘It’ll probably bruise too, but it’s nothing major. We’ve got some gauze somewhere – I can stick that over the worst bits so you don’t get blood on your clothes.’
‘Thanks.’ I blew my nose and gulped some water.
‘Jesus. Georgia,’ he went on. ‘I was so worried. I knew you wouldn’t have been at your mum’s that long, and then you weren’t answering your phone and I – I thought something terrible had happened.’
Something terrible like me being with another man? Or something terrible like…
‘Something did, I guess. But I’m okay.’
‘Are you sure? It’s just your back? You didn’t hit your head or anything?’
I put my hand up to feel it again. There was a lump on the back of my skull – tender and uncomfortable, but not bleeding. Tomorrow there’d be a bruise there too, but it would be invisible under my hair.
‘I mean… a bit. The women who helped wanted to take me to A&E, but I said I was okay.’
‘Are you sure? We could go there now?’
‘We’d be waiting ages. If there’s anything wrong with me, I’d probably die before I got seen.’
Sam laughed, a slightly manic edge to the sound. ‘Seriously, Georgia. Don’t even say that.’
‘I’ll be okay. Promise. I… The thing is, I’ve had a few drinks and think I should probably just go to bed.’
‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I can smell.’
‘Oh God. Sorry.’
‘That’s all right. I’m just glad you’re home and safe. But, Georgia…’
I reached out and took his hand. ‘What?’
‘That’s not like you. I know seeing your mum’s always a bit… how it is. But there’s something else bothering you, isn’t there?’
Of course there is, I wanted to shout. Ava. You and Ava. You and Ava and what Jamie and I are doing about you and Ava. ‘Not really.’
He turned my hand over and stroked my palm. There was another graze there where I’d tried to save myself from my fall.
‘Is it because of Ava?’
I answered his question with one of my own. ‘Did you see her today?’
‘No.’ His eyes were candid, but then he looked away. ‘We spoke on the phone, though.’
I felt a surge of the anger and fear that I thought had left me when Sam held my hand. ‘About what?’
‘Just stuff. Nothing… nothing I can tell you.’
‘Sam, why?’ My voice had risen, almost whining. ‘It’s just not fair. If there’s something going on, you need to tell me.’
‘I can’t.’ There was regret in his voice, I thought, but also obstinacy. ‘I… It’s nothing to do with you. It really isn’t.’
‘But I’m supposed to be your partner. We’re meant to share things.’
‘We are… we do. But there’re some things – one thing – I can’t share, and this is it.’
I pulled my hand away. ‘Fine, I’m going to have a shower and go to bed.’
‘Georgia, please. Trust me on this. There’s nothing you should worry about. Nothing going on between me and Ava. We’re just talking, that’s all.’
‘Just talking,’ I echoed bitterly. ‘Just meeting up when I’m not there and talking. About what? About me? About us?’
I framed quotes around the word so he’d know that the us I was referring to wasn’t him and me.
‘There is no us with me and Ava,’ he insisted. ‘We’re just… not even friends. But we’ve got a lot of history. There’s stuff to unpack. That’s all.’
‘And I just have to suck it up and not know what’s going on?’
‘There’s nothing going on.’
‘That’s not how it looks to me.’
I stood up, too quickly, so my head spun again and I had to steady myself on Sam’s shoulder. He stood up too and put his arms around me.
‘Next weekend,’ he said gently, ‘let’s do something nice together. Just you and me.’
I didn’t return his hug. ‘Next weekend I’m away. Remember? That work thing I’m going to with Jamie.’
Sam’s face fell, and I felt a flash of horrible triumph.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘The weekend after, then?’
‘Whatever.’
I turned and walked away towards the bathroom. I felt horrible – sick and sore, in my heart as well as my body. But I’d seen the way Sam looked when I mentioned the work weekend away with Jamie, and I knew how it had made him feel.
That was fine with me. He needed to know – to understand – how what he was doing was making me feel. If he was going to play games with me, I’d play them right back.
And I’d win.