“Mum asked you to wait until she was here to bathe, yet you got this one” – he jabbed his thumb at Elliot – “in that room half-naked with you in no time. His word is law until you’re better.”
Horrified, I looked at Elliot.
“You told my parents about what happened in the bathroom?”
“I was scared.” He locked his hands behind his head and avoided everyone’s eyes but mine. “Once I started talkin’, everythin’ that happened spilled out. I couldn’t stop meself.”
I lifted my hands to my face and groaned. “You’re unbelievable, Elliot.”
“Sorry.”
He was sorry, I could hear it in his voice. He actually sounded embarrassed.
“My leg hurts.” I blinked sleepily. “And I’m so poxy tired. I hate the morphine.”
“Go to sleep,” Mum prompted.
“I will when you all go home,” I challenged. “Sitting here while I’m sleeping is stupid. I’ll be out until morning now that I’ve got morphine in my system.”
My parents shared a look. They didn’t want to leave me.
“Just come here earlier tomorrow,” I reasoned. “I hate when you’re all stuck here with me all day doing nothing.”
Dad acquiesced. “Fine, we’ll leave and be back in the morning.”
“I’ll do your washing,” Mum said. “Elliot, go get me her dirty clothes from the bathroom, please.”
My parents stood up, and both of them hugged and kissed me and told me that they loved me. Elliot put my dirty clothes into one of the smaller bags Mum had packed for this kind of situation. Dad took the bag from him, then my parents left the room.
“You go with them.”
“I’ll leave when you’re asleep.”
“Elliot.”
“Noah.”
“You can’t just sit here with me all the time.” I scowled. “You have a life.”
He shook his head. “Work was my life, and now that I’m on leave I’m not doin’ anythin’ else. I want to be here with ye.”
Arguing with him was hard when he was being so sweet and selfless. Staying mad at him was something I had never been very good at anyway. I didn’t hold grudges; I’d always believed that a person should never go to bed angry. My situation was unique, but I was glad to find that my principles hadn’t changed – no matter how much everything else did.
“Don’t you want to go to the pub with AJ, Stitch, Tank and Pretty?”
“Stitch, Tank and Pretty are married with babies. They don’t know what a pub is now.”
I sucked in a breath of shock and joy.
“They’re not!” I squealed. “They’re all married, and they have babies? Oh my God!”
Elliot smiled at my obvious delight.
“Ye’ll see them all once you’re better. I’ve spoken to them and they all send ye their best wishes.”
I knew they did. I’d had a beautiful flower wreath sent to me from the station – Mum had taken it home once the flowers started to die. I couldn’t believe Elliot’s friends were married and had children, and it made me curious about something.
“Elliot?”
“What?”
“Why aren’t you in a relationship?”
He shifted. “Pretty hard findin’ a woman to deal with me when it’s never goin’ to be a secret that I love another woman.”
My breath caught in my throat. Part of me was elated that he was still in love with me – even though he’d not actually said I was that woman, I knew he was talking about me. The other part of me was heartbroken for him, even though I was hurt over our break-up too.
“You’ve been all alone since I left?”
He stared at me for a moment. “I don’t want to hurt ye, Noah.”
“I know,” I said. “You’d never intentionally hurt me.”
Elliot had changed from how I remembered him – all the things I’d learned since waking up proved that – but I knew his heart, and I was sure that hadn’t changed.
“I also won’t lie to you,” he continued.
I swallowed. “You haven’t been all alone . . . have you? Do you have someone new that you’re seeing regularly?”
When Elliot shook his head, I was so relieved that I couldn’t contain it; my shoulders sagged as I lost my stiff posture. The panic that had been quietly building faded until I could breathe again.
“It’s okay.” I attempted to smile. “I got married; I have no right to harbour any jealousy about you being with someone else.”
Christ, just the thought of it made me want to vomit.
“It’s not like that,” he sighed, and leaned in. “I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone other than you. I slept around a lot during an angry phase not long after ye got married, and I had sex with women I met in pubs or clubs over the last few years. But it was just sex, just something to make me not feel so empty.”
Pain sliced through me.
“I wish everything had happened differently.”
“Me too, sasanach,” he said, smiling sadly. “Me too.”
“I love you, Elliot,” I said. “I do, but we need to put a pin in us until I can process all I’ve learned today. Okay?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “We’ll go at your pace.”
“Will you hug me?” I asked. “Today was . . . a lot.”
Without another word he leaned into me, allowing me to press my face against his neck. I inhaled and felt him tense ever so slightly. He placed his hand on my back and began to stroke up and down, relaxing me even more.
“I’m scared,” I whispered. “I’m scared because I don’t know how life will be for us.”
“That feeling you’re experiencing is how I felt when I thought of us being married back before we broke up. I was so sure we’d crumble like my parents; I was terrified of the unknown.”
I wrapped my arms around him.
“How did we get here?” I mumbled. “I mean, I know how we got here, but how did it all happen like that? I never thought we’d break.”
“I know, gorgeous.
