Splintered Memory (23 page)

Claire scowled at the mention of her name.

“All I’m saying is that it’s weird that she recognised it, and then became a victim of it. When she came out of hospital we didn’t adjust. We treated her the same way as always. We talked to her the same way, and teased her the same way, but she wasn’t the same and most of the time she looked awkward or uncomfortable. She tried to fake it, and with Rach, Ben, Nick, and Bex, I think it worked. But I know her better than they do,” he said; “and I think I know Matt almost as well as he knows himself.”

“Okay,
” Claire said; “so things were tough.”

“
No,” Rich said irritably. “They were way beyond tough. Charlie couldn’t look at Matt, and she didn’t go near him. God, you of all people know what they were like together Claire. It used to drive us both nuts. They couldn’t help but exchange glances. If he wasn’t looking at her, then she’d be looking at him. You remember how they moved together, and how touchy feely they were with each other right?”

“Yeah of course
,” Claire said.

“How about the way that he used to stand behind her, wrap his arm around her waist and pull her tightly to him so that he could kiss her neck
?” Rich asked, and Claire nodded and smiled reminiscently.

“I think I’ve seen him do that to her at least a million times, but not once after the accident. Ev
en the way that they’d always sit together changed. You know how he’d normally always sit and bend one of his legs, so that whichever knee was nearest to her was upright in the air so that she could lean against it and wrap her arm around it?” He asked, and Claire nodded again.

“Well after the accident they didn’t sit like that. Everything changed. She wouldn’t go near him,
” Rich said; “and when he did gravitate towards her you could feel the tension in the air.”

“I didn’t know
,” Claire said guilty.

“No, you didn’t. If you had Claire, you of all people would have found it as strange to watch as I did. What was worse was that Matt couldn’t talk about it. Not even to me. He just worked and spent time with Charlie. But the more time he spent with her, the more distant he became with the rest of us. We were losing both of them,
” Rich said; “and it really freaked Bex out.”

“How did it affect her
?” Claire asked barely containing the impulse to roll her eyes. It was typical Bex to want to make a melodrama out of something that had no affect whatsoever on her life.

“Come on
,” Rich said urging her to see reason. “We’ve all grown up around this perfect relationship. We’ve set it as the benchmark. The only thing the two of them ever argued about before the accident was you. Seeing their relationship falling apart wasn’t particularly nice to be around. What was worse was that it made you question everything about yourself, and your relationships as well. What if it happened to me? Would people be able to stay around me, still recognise parts of myself that I couldn’t? What if it happened to Bex? How would I cope? Would I be able to stay with her?”

“Would you have left Bex
?” Claire asked sounding a little shocked that Rich had contemplated doing this if he and Bex had been in Matt and Charlie’s position.

“Yeah, I think I would
,” Rich said honestly; “and I told Matt the same thing. Six months is a long time to be with someone who can’t remember anything about you, or a life you shared together. Matt was becoming a shadow of himself, but do you know what’s awful? Do you know what keeps me awake at night feeling endlessly guilty?”

Claire shook her head.

“I chose Matt over Charlie. I picked sides. I could see that being with her was killing him. The situation was eating away at him, at his soul, and it seemed to me that we’d already lost Charlie. She wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t the Charlie that we’d all known. So I told him that I’d leave her if I was in his shoes, but knowing that it’s probably what I said to him that led him to go home and end things with her keeps me awake at night. The idea that I’m the kind of person that abandons friends when they need me the most,” he said sounding choked; “makes it kind of hard to sleep.”

“I know
all about abandoning friends,” Claire said; “and I know all about being kept awake by it.”

“Matt’s never told me what happened at the end before Charlie left, but I honestly thought them being apart would help him. But how wrong was I
?” He asked rhetorically. “After she went Matt completely fell apart. I hadn’t realised, but his whole life had been about Charlie. I don’t think he actually knew how to get a long in a world where she wasn’t a part of it. He started drinking heavily, and he started prescribing himself pills to take. He stayed out most nights, and he slept with woman after woman. You wouldn’t have recognised him. I didn’t. His life was a shambles, and like her or not Emily stepped in and saved him.”

“Saved him? What literally
speaking, like from an overdose or something?” Claire asked.

“No,
” Rich said; “but I don’t doubt that it would’ve come to that. I think he hit a point where that’s what he wanted, but Emily got involved before it came to that. Thank God. She also stuck by him when he treated her like shit, and she protected his medical career by all accounts. She got him into rehab, and she got him clean. I know what you’re thinking by the way, why didn’t I help? But he wouldn’t let me Claire. Nick and Ben came up to stay to try and help as well, but he refused to see us. He just stayed indoors getting high, or hiding at the hospital getting high.”

Claire was shocked
. She’d had no idea how bad things had gotten after the accident, and she couldn’t believe what had happened once Charlie had left.

“He’s okay now
,” Rich said regaining Claire’s attention; “but it’s thanks to Emily. They also seem happy together. He’s back on form, and everyone’s friendships with him are mended. Their relationship looks pretty solid as well from what I’ve seen, and she looks after him. She’s given us the old Matt back, and he’s happy again, and I can’t ask for anything more than that.”

“Does she make him happy the way that Charlie made him happy
?” Claire asked even though she was afraid of hearing the answer.

Rich
smiled and then said truthfully; “I can’t answer that. The only person who’d know the answer to that is Matt, and I doubt he’d ever tell us. But as I say they seem happy together, and I’m just grateful to Emily for getting Matt through everything in one piece.”

“Okay
grateful yes and I can see why you like her. It sounds like we’ve all got a lot to be grateful to her for, Charlie included. None of us would’ve wanted to see any harm come to Matt, and Charlie would’ve been beside herself. But Charlie’s better now, she’s back. She’s Charlie again. Surely they’ve earned the right at another shot at happiness together?” Claire asked.

“Okay so she remembers what they had, but do you really believe that they can go back to that? Both of them are carrying scars from everything that’s happened, and Matt’s are pretty brutal. I’m not sure that they can go back, or what the fallout or potential damage would be if they tried
to. If you want my opinion, we say nothing to him and you tell Charlie not to say anything to him either. If you tell her that Matt’s happy,” Rich said; “I know she’ll accept that.”

“I’m not here on Charlie’s orders
,” Claire said looking disgruntled. “She’s already made the decision not to tell him. She made that decision when she got her dad to drive her away from Birmingham.”

“Then leave it alone
,” Rich said.

“I can’t. He should know. Surely he’s got the right to choose who he wants to be with
,” Claire said. “If he decides that he wants to stay with Emily then that’s his right, but maybe he’ll…”

“Choose Charlie?” Rich finished for her.

Claire nodded and asked; “does he hold her round the waist and kiss her neck?”

Rich looked up at Claire
, and he knew that if Matt knew the truth he’d choose a life with Charlie every time. Yet he worried that he couldn’t watch Matt go through all of what he’d just been through again, if a second chance with Charlie did not turn out to be all that he’d hoped for.

“Yeah,
” Rich lied; “he does.”

Claire looked shocked for a couple of seconds
and then asked; “so he’s really moved on then?”

Rich nod
ded, and Claire got up off the stool.

She had
n’t told Rich that she’d come to Birmingham to see Emily, and seeing his reaction and hearing his version of events she decided that it was best not to. She’d watch Matt and Emily for herself at his and Bex’s wedding, and then she’d decide whether or not to tell Matt the truth. Yet whilst she was here, it couldn’t hurt to put the fear of god into Saint Emily she thought.

“Right,
” she said; “well I’m going to head back down South then. I won’t say a word to Matt, and Charlie doesn’t need to know that I was here either.”

“No one needs to know
,” Rich replied.

Claire kissed Rich on the cheek and said
; “I’ll see you in a couple of months at your wedding then. Take care.”

“
You too,” Rich said.

***

Claire was sat at the Starbucks in the Palisades shopping centre waiting for Emily to show up. This was an easy place to meet, as it was in the centre of town and directly above the train station where she needed to get her train back down to London.

She saw Emily approach her table and she
eyed her warily. She had to admit that she had forgotten how pretty she was. She was thin and blonde with a pretty face, and Claire remembered disliking her on those qualities alone when they’d first been introduced. She hated anyone who shared any of her own characteristics.

“Hello
,” Emily said coolly. “Do you want another coffee?”

“Let me get them
. What are you having?” Claire asked standing up and smiling at Emily. She was pleased to see that by wearing her ultra high heels she was taller than Emily, whom she’d correctly remembered as being roughly the same height as Charlie.

“
A cappuccino please,” Emily said sitting down and then cursing herself for not having worn high heels.

Claire returned with the coffee
s and sat down. Yet just as Emily was about to say something to her, she decided to speak first. She wanted to take control of this conversation from the outset.

“I’m sorry about the call the other night. I was completely out of order. I was just a little shocked when I learnt from a friend at home that you’d moved in with Matt
,” Claire said.

She saw that s
he’d thrown Emily instantly, and she resisted the urge to smile. “It was just really weird for me,” Claire continued; “as Charlie’s best friend that is, to hear about him living with someone else. But I know that’s not really a very good excuse for demanding that you meet me.”

“That’s okay
,” Emily said cautiously. “I suppose I can understand the reaction.”

Claire
smiled sweetly.

“If
you’ve realised that you over reacted, why did you still want to meet me?” Emily asked shrewdly.

Claire re
spected this straight approach and said; “it’s a bit difficult to explain actually, and to be honest I’ve been changing my mind ever since I arranged to meet you about whether or not I should’ve cancelled.”

Emily
continued to watch her suspiciously, but she didn’t say anything.

“When I found out
that you were living with Matt,” Claire said; “I happened to be privy to some other information that only I and four other people know.”

Emily
remained silent.

“Charlie has her memory back
,” Claire said matter of factly. She was also pleased to see shock show instantly in Emily’s face, and then be replaced just as quickly by a look of anxiety.

“Who are the four people
?” Emily asked quickly.

“Matt
’s not one of them,” Claire said; “and Charlie doesn’t want him to be added to the list of people who know.”

She knew tha
t her answer had answered the question that Emily had really wanted to ask her, as well as the one that she would’ve wanted to ask her next. “No one that knows,” she continued; “including me, is going to tell him or anyone that might tell him.”

“So why have you told me? I might tell him
,” Emily said.

Claire laughed maliciously
and said derisively; “yes, you’re likely to tell him.”

“And what do you mean by that
?” Emily asked defensively.

“Are you looking for him to leave you
?” Claire asked coldly.

“He wouldn’t
,” Emily said.

“Okay
,” Claire said in an unconvincing tone.

“Why have you told me? Do you expect me to feel bad, have a problem with my conscience and go home and tell him
?” Emily asked.

“No. I’ve told you because I think you deserved the right to know as part of
the full explanation of why I called you. I didn’t want you to think that I was a crazy person,” Claire said.