Page 66 of Star Struck

Her eyes. She was watching him as though she stood a million miles away, afraid to reach out because of the distance. Her dress was still stained with his tears. This woman, who’d overcome her own fears, who was building herself a new present on a shaky history. A woman whose past scarred her inside and out and yet was brave enough to be content to forget. No compromise, just moving on.

‘No,’ he said aloud, startling himself. ‘No, Tyler. You go ahead, you tell them all about me. I’ve spent nineteen years denying myself everything I should have felt back then. I pushed it all down, the guilt, the fear, even the love; I wouldn’t let any of it out in case it hurt, but now? Now I’m sick of running scared.’ He tilted his chin towards the other man. ‘Sick of living in fear. I want it out in the open. Go ahead.’

‘Skye.’ Geth’s voice was slow, like something was taking effect. Jack cursed himself for having let himself take his eye off the man. ‘Come here a second. I want to tell you something.’

‘Geth . . .’ Jack started forward, but Skye touched his shoulder, her simple, easy gesture paralysing him.

‘It’s okay. I’m assuming I know the worst now?’

Her eyes were so wonderful. Why had he never noticed how lovely they were? Iceman, you’ve not just melted, you’ve puddled. ‘Yeah. That was it.’ He even managed a smile. ‘And I’ve always been kind to kittens.’

‘If I find that was a lie, I’ll be very upset.’ She crossed the roof, stopping just short of where Gethryn was standing. ‘What is it? What do you want, Geth? I’ll listen, whatever. Just . . . just stop this.’

Gethryn took half a step forward, towards her. ‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ he said. Another step. ‘I want this over.’

And before Jack could move, react, breathe, Gethryn had seized her around the waist, thrown himself backwards, and taken them both off the edge of the roof.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

He sat alone in the white room on a chair that squeaked. From somewhere he’d found an old biro which jutted from between his teeth as he sucked and bit on it to keep the cravings at bay, cravings which crept up his spine like insects and threatened his brain. A cup of very elderly coffee occupied his hands, occasional whispers of its smell making his stomach churn.

‘Mr Whitaker?’ The nurse put her head around the door.

Jack shot to his feet, the coffee sprawling out across the tiles, the biro falling from his lips. ‘Yes. What’s happening? How is . . . I mean, how is she?’ His stomach turned over again, but it wasn’t at the smell of the coffee now. Cold, hard dread burned a hole through his gut, aided and abetted by hot fury.

The nurse shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I just came to let you know that there’s not going to be any news for a while, you might as well go home.’ Her eyes flickered over the pooling coffee. ‘If there’s anything, we can call you.’

Jack embraced the fury. It ran through his blood now, overflowing and flooding every organ, rushing his brain like a tsunami. Nineteen years. Nineteen years of feeling nothing, of keeping it all shut away like a mad dog. I’m out of practice . . . ‘Look.’ He tried to keep the worst of the anger from his voice but he knew it was shining from his eyes by the way the nurse took a step back and held the door half-closed between them. ‘I’m staying here. I will not leave until there is something that you can tell me, all right? So, if I were you, I’d get back to that fucking Emergency Room and not leave it until you can tell me what the fuck is going on.’

His whole body was vibrating with it. The terror that had taken over his brain when he saw Skye fall hadn’t moved an inch, even though he knew she was alive, knew she was in good hands, knew all the right things were being done. It had simply changed form.

Jack went back to the squeaky chair and sat, elbows on knees, head in hands. He let himself sink just for a second into the sleep his body so desperately wanted, but the dreams were queuing up already; nineteen years of denial had built up a huge backlog of nightmares he was very afraid he was going to have to work his way through before he reached any sense of resolution. Like having to read the whole series to find out whodunit. Except, in this case, I know who. It was me.

A sad-eyed orderly came in and began sluicing a desultory mop over the coffee spill. Jack let his eyes follow the movement, its hypnotic rhythm easing more thoughts from his brain. Why did Skye touch him in a way that no-one else had? Did he have a huge case of white-knight syndrome, wanting to ride in and rescue her from her lack of a past and an uncertain future? He rocked the chair back on two legs, the plastic squealing and flexing like a heretic under torture by the Inquisition and remembered her quiet acceptance of him as he was. Remembered the touch of that velvet dress. The scent of her skin. The way she’d let him cry . . .

His mouth let out a sharp sound as a backwash from the anger hit and then a hand touched his knee and made him jump.

‘Skye?’

Another chair squealed in protest at a sitting body. ‘Hi, Jackie-boy. Looking like shit, if I might say so.’

Jack sank back. ‘What are you doing here, Liss?’ He didn’t want to admit that he’d thought Skye might have died and visited him as some kind of farewell. Even as a writer, that kind of imagination was frowned on.

Lissa sighed. ‘Here for Geth. You might hate him and wish him to hell but . . . he’s a good man, underneath it all. He’s confused, is all. And I’m . . . hey, I’m quite fond of him, y’know? He’s had a rough time.’ She gave another sigh and rubbed the back of a dirty hand over her cheek. ‘I want him to make it,’ she whispered.

‘Yeah.’

‘You waiting to hear about Skye?’

‘No, I’m hoping Elvis might stage a come back tour.’ His head sank lower until all he could see was a circle of tiled floor between his feet. ‘It’s the memories, Liss.’ He spoke to a cracked tile. ‘I can’t lose them. They’ve ruined my life, and I can’t lose them. How am I supposed to do anything, live a normal life with . . . with anyone, when I’ve got these things following me?’

He smelled a sudden billow of perfume as Lissa moved her chair closer. ‘Memories make us what we are, Jackie. Ask your Skye, poor little chick’s scared to death that she’s not real because her memory’s all mixed up. And here’s you, scared that you’re too real, too tied to what’s gone before.’ Another hand brushed his shoulder. ‘It gets easier, y’know. When you turn around and face it. I found that when I had to look at you knowing who you were, what you were, and then after when . . . when I lost the baby.’ She touched his cheek with a cool hand. ‘Learn to deal, Ice. That’s all I got. Learn to deal.’

Jack felt a slow uncoiling in his chest, as though an overwound spring was losing tension. He put a hand to his throat where the leather lace felt slimy against his slick skin. ‘I’m holding it all like it defines me.’ The quiet words weren’t for Lissa, who was staring at a poster about sexually transmitted diseases. ‘I’m letting it define me.’

Without looking at him, Lissa shrugged. ‘Life, huh?’

Yes. Life. We’re pitched into it, expected to know what to do, how to cope. How to manage those situations where everything spirals down. And sometimes we just can’t adapt fast enough, it sucks us down with it and the weight of what we’ve done keeps us there. But sometimes . . . he traced the curve of his throat, where the lace marked a line, echoed a scar . . . sometimes life spirals upwards. And maybe the trick is knowing which is which . . .

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