The One Addicted (52 page)

“What’s up Abby?”
    
“Ok. Lu and I met a few days ago and she was worried – she’d been feeling a bit freaked out about being watched, you know?”
“No, Abs I don’t – what are saying?”
“I don’t know whether I should tell you – maybe we should wait until Lu wakes up and then she can discuss it with you. It might be nothing… this was a bad idea. I think I’ll wait…”
“Abby! - For fucks sake - your killing me here. What is the problem? If you have information that could shed light on what’s happened tonight, spill it now - we’ll deal with any repercussions later.” I soften my voice as I assess her pale face. “Please, Abs.”
“For weeks she’s felt like she’s being watched – at first she thought it was all in her head, then she started noticing a car, a dark car, parked outside her house. She’s felt she was watched at your house on a few occasions, and at the party at the Ashton – it was all starting to stress her out and she mentioned it to me yesterday for the first time. She said she thought things had gone missing and that maybe someone had been in the house? You don’t think this is something to do with it, do you? Oh God. I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything yesterday.”

My skin blisters with goosebumps as her words wash over me. What the hell had Lu been hiding from me? Is this what she’d been trying to tell me? I shake off my own concerns and out on my best brave face,
 
slipping an arm around Lu’s best friend in thanks for her breaking the girl-code and give her cheek a kiss as we walk back to the others. “Thanks for telling me Abs – I’ll look into this. It’s probably nothing to worry about but I’m glad you told me.”

“Do you think?”

“I don’t know but I’ll get to the bottom of it. I promise.”
With a weak smile she nods. “Oh and there’s something else…”
More, really?
“Right?”
“That same day Lu told me she was pre…”
 

Suddenly, the commotion to our right, drowns out any words Abby is trying to communicate, as Mac returns with the surgeon, interrupting any further discussions.
 
All current conversations are forgotten.
    
“Right, are we all here? I have a surgery that can’t wait, so I’ll get right to it if that’s OK.” We all nod in rapt silence. “Ok. Ms Myers suffered a dislocated wrist and a difficult fractured scaphoid, which we have re-set in surgery - it will heal nicely - now it has been put back into place. She has minor cuts and bruises, which have been stitched where necessary, in particular to her temple, where we had one of our plastic surgeon team sort her wound - it should heal with minimal scarring. When she was admitted, she was initially unconscious, due to a nasty bang to the skull, we will monitor her for the after effects of that and she has a nasty concussion, but I am not concerned about swelling to the brain… now.”
    
“Thank God for that.” Nina’s interruption says what everyone else is thinking.
    
“However, on admittance her blood pressure was dangerously low and all her observations in A&E led us to a possible internal bleed. We reacted quickly and in Theatre we finally localised the bleeding and its culprit. We resolved things and her blood pressure returned to a more manageable level.”
    
“What caused the internal bleeding?” Mac Myers asks Dr. Haines, concern etched across his face.
    
“Mr. Myers, perhaps we can discuss this is private.” The doctor’s eyes dart back and forth between the intimate group of family and friends gathered around her, desperate for information.
    
“No, no, you can say what you have to say in front of everyone here. We are
all
Lucia’s family.”
    
“In that case, this will be hard to hear for all involved, but I am sorry for your loss.”
    
Abby’s sharp in take of breath is enough to set panic amongst us all, but the Doctor continues. In fact I hear my own curse under my breath.
    
“Ms. Myers was around 7.5 weeks pregnant and I’m afraid she suffered a miscarriage during the crash.”
    
It’s as though everything has gone into slow motion as I hear the last parts of her spiel. “…I’m afraid she suffered a miscarriage. Ms. Myers was around 7.5 weeks pregnant… I’m afraid she suffered a miscarriage.”
    
She was pregnant? She was pregnant. Pregnant. Carrying our baby.
    
NO! Why hadn’t she told me? Seven weeks?
    
She must have conceived the first time we slept together; the morning after pill must have never worked. But that was only five weeks ago, she must have been ovulating - talk about destiny! Oh, Jesus. I’m not sure how I feel right now - in shock? Empty. Angry and utterly devastated for a loss I didn’t really have or know anything about!
“Will she be able to have more children, Doctor?” Mac asks quietly and I hold my breath.
“Like I say, she’ll make a full recovery – just give her time. I’ve arranged for a bereavement counsellor to visit her whilst she’s in the hospital and she’ll have regular check-ups with her gynaecologist.”
That was something at least. The thought of having to tell her, that her choice had been taken away, when she came to - as well as the fact that she’d lost our baby was unthinkable.
 

I can hear the Surgeon saying her goodbyes in the background and her hand on my arm and mutter of, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I’m too floored to speak.

“Oh, Seb lad - come here.” Nina’s perfumed embrace is supportive and unexpected. “She’ll be OK now. We’ll get her through this. I’ve a serious case of déjà vu here - just so sad about the circumstances.”

“She lost our baby.”
 

“I know, son, but you can’t think about that now. She’s alive - and that is the most important thing. Did you know she was pregnant?
I
certainly didn’t. I wonder if
she
even did with her periods?”
I look up everything hazy and suddenly remember Finn – in all the rush I’d never given one thought to him. I’m appalled at myself.
I think I remember Lu saying he was with Niall?

“Where’s Finn?”
    
“He’s fine, son, don’t worry he came back from Niall’s and I asked Suzie & Gino to come over to ours and look after him. Suzie wanted to come to the hospital with us and leave Gino with Finn but with what’s happened I’m so glad she didn’t – she would have been so upset and it wouldn’t be good for the bab...”

She stops herself just in time and looks up at me sadly, her green Lucia eyes so warm and comforting and I nod in understanding. Suzie was five months’ pregnant herself
 
- this would have been hard on her to deal with.

“Look, I’m going to take a minute to process all this if that’s ok - you and Mac go and see her first and then I’ll go sit with her.”

“You sure - Nathan, you’ll look after him?”

“No probs, Mrs. M. Abby and I will be here. I promise.”

“I know you will.”

I pull myself together as Abs and Na hug me in quick succession before I excuse myself for some much-needed fresh air. I’m claustrophobic from the web of emotions wrapped tightly around my mind and clawing at my heart.
 

Lucia was pregnant, no had been pregnant with
my
baby, and some bastard had taken it all away from us in the blink of an eye. When I found out who’d done this, they would fucking pay.

*****

Counting to three, I look down at my feet and try to maintain my breathing. My nerves are shot to pieces. I knew she was OK - over the worst of it - Nina had told me as much and Abby and Nathan. They’d all been providing me with regular updates, along with the medical team as I handled the Police and obtained as much information in relation to the accident as I could. I told myself it was for Lu - for her insurance purposes but the reality is, now that I’ve got that evidence I wanted the facts just as much if not more for my own needs - there was no fucking way I was going to let this one go.

The Police had informed me that witnesses had reported a dark saloon driving carelessly alongside Lucia at the time of the accident, causing the car coming down the hill in the opposite direction to swerve to avoid the saloon, and head straight for Lu’s car - she was forced into a wall to avoid the third party.

My jaw hurt, from clenching down on my teeth in anger. What the fuck had this person been on and why her? Something I’d immediately asked the officers and been scared shitless by their answers. In their opinion this had been sabotage. It had been a deliberate attack - nothing random and most certainly planned. Which meant our unborn child had been murdered.
 

Take a breath mate and put your hatred for this arsehole to one side - this has to be about your woman now - she needs you and you’re no good to her if you can’t give her everything. She deserves everything.

With a tentative push, I enter the hospital room and feel myself going back in time to that day four years ago; like I’ve walked through a portal into 2011 - it even smelled the same.
God, I feel sick.
Just like last time, she lies unmoving within the bed, her frame petite within the setting - apparatus recording her readings and tubes running from her arms. She’s fine though - I convince myself. Broken, but still alive. My rusty prayers had been answered.
 

Her head wrapped in a bandage, a cast covers her wrist and her eyes are both blackened like a panda - Oh, baby. What have they done to you? As if I’d spoken the words aloud, she opens them and smiles weakly. “Seb, you’re here. I’ve been asking for you.”

“I’m here, darling. Gave us all a bit of a shock didn’t you?” I’m aware that my attempts to lighten the mood fail miserably when my voice breaks. “Don’t ever leave me like that again, Lu - I almost didn’t survive!”

We kiss passionately and she winces, causing me to jump back apologetic. “What did I do?”

“Just pulled the cover too tight - I’m fine, honestly. The drugs are goood - I feel so out of it.”

“That’s probably for the best. You’ve only just had surgery. When did you wake up?”

“Not long - when my mum was in? I don’t know - no one’s really telling me anything and I keep drifting in and out - dreaming…” Her eyes close once again and I smile. Bless she always fights sleep, whether she’s been drugged or not.

Stroking her arm gently,
 
I take a seat next to her, noticing the flowers around the room - she’d only been there hours and the room was full of roses, lilies and peonies - her favourite. My popular girl.

Her next words floor me and my mouth dries.

“The baby?”

Her hands immediately fly to her abdomen and the look that crosses her face rips my insides apart. God, I wish I could take the pain away for her.

“Seb?”

She looks at me, dazed and confused. We’d never talked about the pregnancy.
Why didn’t you tell me, baby?
Now this made everything so much harder - we had this huge divide between us and I can’t seem to get close to her. I look up at her eyes, filled with unshed tears - she already knew the answer - my words weren’t going to make this any better, but at least it was coming from me and not some stranger in a white coat.

I shake my head, finding it hard to meet her beautiful green eyes and her sharp intake of breath and racking moan is my undoing. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

I grasp her hand and take it to my mouth, pressing my lips in a never-ending kiss, my eyes closed with the intensity of my emotions. How long we stay like that I don’t know; me hunched over the bed, holding her hand, united in our grief.
Stay with me, baby - don’t climb back inside yourself, I'm here for you - you don’t need to go through this alone.

I’m about to leave, sure that for now, she needs the time to be alone with her thoughts when I feel her hand touch my head and hold it there; the gesture is enough for me. The relief that she wants to connect with me is overwhelming and l look up, tears in my own eyes to see her beautiful face, focused entirely on me. Her next words undo me. “I’m so sorry.”

I kiss her then - her cheeks, her forehead, her lips - my love for her spilling out - my heart breaking at her selflessness. “You have nothing - nothing - to be sorry for, darling. You matter - you come first.”