I left out the part about him wanting me to go to him when my family – and Elliot – filled me in about the blank spaces in my memory. I was surprised to find that I could still remember his phone number and home address. I hoped I would never need to use either.
“Good,” Elliot said. “We’re going to focus on getting you better. No more talkin’ of the past for the time bein’, or the future for that matter. We’re only goin’ to be takin’ things as they come. Day by day.”
“Day by day,” I echoed. “Together.”
Elliot leaned in and kissed me in front of my parents, claiming his right to do so with pride.
“Together.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
NOAH
“Noah, can you stop fidgeting for two minutes?”
“No, Mum,” I answered, as I used my crutches to hop over to the window so I could peer outside at the world I’d been caged away from. “I can’t. I’ve been in this hospital for six weeks. Six weeks of being stuck in a bed, six weeks of nurses coming in and out to check on me, six weeks of you, Dad, Elliot and sometimes AJ, sitting and staring at me. In twenty minutes, I’ll be discharged and free. I cannot sit still; I don’t even want to!”
I felt good. So fucking good.
A month ago, I had decided that I would do what my family, Elliot and Doctor Abara wanted. I would take things day by day and focus on getting better. Of course, there were times when I slipped and wanted to speak about the things I’d been told about – like mine and Elliot’s break-up, and how quickly I moved on with Anderson – but each time I was shut down by Elliot or my parents. And I didn’t fight with them – I may have got snippy once or twice, but I let it go and remembered my goal.
I wanted to go home.
I hadn’t established where that home would be yet, but my parents had taken it upon themselves to ready my old bedroom for my impending arrival. A massive part of me wanted to return to the flat I’d once shared with Elliot, the flat where he still lived, but I was nervous about it, so going home with my parents was the right call. I didn’t say it out loud, but I felt some worry about going back to the way things were with Elliot, because things would never really be as they once were – and that was something I had to get used to. Elliot was a gentleman about the whole living situation, and he wanted me to file for divorce from Anderson and tell him that I had no interest in continuing my marriage with him. Those were his conditions before we could be properly intimate again.
His conditions didn’t extend to kisses and light, innocent touches though – he said was he was only a man, not a saint, which thoroughly amused me.
My time in the hospital had been an experience, one I wanted to put behind me. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about leaving the safety that these walls had provided me over the last few weeks. It was in here that I’d regained control of a life that had got away from me; it was here where Elliot and I had reconnected and I’d found out I had managed to fall even more in love with him. It was here that I re-established my bond and trust with my parents. I had learned to walk again, through hard hours of physical therapy; and in many ways, I had become a new person.
So leaving the hospital had me a little on edge.
My headaches had been more annoying than really painful since I’d collapsed in front of Elliot after he helped me shower, but I was always paranoid that one would suddenly strike me down and that I’d be rendered useless again. Knowing I was going home and away from the nurses and doctors was daunting, but I reminded myself not to think negatively. I had to think of things as they came and stop getting ahead of myself.
It had helped me get this far, and I hoped it would help me get a lot further too.
“Elliot is sad he isn’t here, isn’t he?”
I looked at my mother.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I’m glad he’s gone back to work; he was here so much they may as well have given him a bed.”
Mum chuckled. “How have his first few days been back on watch?”
“As good as can be,” I answered. “A couple of small fires, a minor car accident, and I think he said they had to help get a cat out of a tree yesterday.”
“No!” Mum laughed.
I smiled. “He says he misses me.”
“Of course he does.” Mum rolled her eyes. “And you miss him.”
“Of course I do,” I mimicked her, chuckling. “But he finishes his second night shift at nine a.m. and then he’s off for four days. He says he’s spending them with me.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mum said, winking. “You’re both acting like you did when you first began to date, always wanting to be around one another.”
I felt myself blush. “I love him.”
“I know you do,” she said warmly. “Which is why I made an appointment on Monday morning with a solicitor . . . so you can start the divorce process.”
I felt terrible whenever I thought about Anderson, I truly did, but I had to do what was best for me – and that meant cutting off all ties with him.
“Good.” I exhaled. “I’m ready for that.”
“When will you speak to him?”
“I’ll phone him on Sunday and meet him somewhere in town.” I gnawed on my lip. “I don’t want to do it publicly, but I’m also not going to his home. I lived in that place, and I just feel weird about going there.”
“I don’t blame you.”
We both looked up when Doctor
