Page 67 of Star Struck

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When I woke up, I thought I’d gone back in time. Above my head arched a drip unit, the bag swelling down into a tube I could feel somewhere in the back of my hand. Underneath me was a hard bed, my head and chest hurt and I could feel the various stings and weights of needles and bandages around my body.

When I turned my head, Felix was sitting in a chair beside me, feet up on the bed, doing a crossword. He was shirtless, wearing a neck-brace and one arm in a removable plastic cast. When I said ‘hi,’ he jumped, whipped his feet off the bed, winced, and dropped the pen.

‘Fuck, you scared me!’

Despite the various medical interventions surrounding him, he looked good, although, to be fair, he would have had to go some to have looked worse than the last time I saw him. His hair was spiked, he was clean-shaven, and he smelled of some delicious cologne. Although there were bruises along his side, they were losing their immediate puffiness and flaring into black and red.

‘How long have I been here?’

‘Look, I’m just sitting duty. Jack’s the guy you need to talk to, hang on a sec.’ Fumbling one-handed, Felix drew a mobile phone out of his grey joggers pocket and pushed a single button. It seemed to be answered almost immediately. ‘Hey. She’s awake.’ He listened for a minute. ‘No. Nothing. That’s your job, Whitaker. Two minutes.’ He hung up.

‘That’s not your phone.’ My voice sounded hoarse, crackly with disuse. My throat was dry and ached slightly and my mouth was all sticky.

‘No.’ Felix leaned forward as close as he could get with the brace and the cast. ‘It’s Jared’s.’

I blinked. ‘We’re still in America?’

‘Well, darling, this sure as hell isn’t the NHS, is it?’ Felix waved a hand to indicate the gleaming room with the impeccably tasteful wall art and the enormous plasma-screen TV in the corner. He flipped open the phone again. ‘Not unless you’ve been unconscious through several changes of government. Although I do think you should congratulate me for my farsightedness in taking out the medical insurance — have to admit I thought it might be me having to use it, but, hey, there you go.’ He waggled his eyebrows.

‘I didn’t think you were allowed to phone in hospitals,’ I croaked.

‘Yeah, ’cos it’s going to interfere with your pacemaker,’ Felix said, dialling.

‘I’ve got a pacemaker!’ The croak changed to squeak and my voice broke like a fourteen-year-old boy’s.

‘Joke. Now, shut up, this is serious. Hey, Jared. It’s me. She’s awake, I’m free. Come pick me up?’ He flipped the phone shut and got to his feet. ‘Right. Catch you later, lover.’

‘Fe.’ I managed to motion with one hand to stop him leaving. ‘How’s Gethryn?’

He avoided my eye. ‘Jack’s on his way over. You need to talk to him.’

‘I need to talk to you.’

Felix looked at me sideways. ‘It was true, you know. Everything I said about Mike and Faith. They were laughing at you.’ He sighed and his mouth twisted. ‘I hardly knew my own sister sometimes,’ he whispered. ‘So determined to hurt, to get what she wanted.’ A sudden smile and a lightening in his eyes. ‘But I guess that’s actors for you, isn’t it?’

‘From what you said I deserved it. No excuses, and it’s too late now to be sorry. If I was one tenth as bad as you said I’m not surprised that they got together; the only thing I’m surprised about is that you and Faith ever wanted to know me.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Felix shuffled his feet. ‘It wasn’t really your fault, Skye. Your parents weren’t . . . even when I first knew you they never really cared much about you. We always wondered about your dad, I mean he had one heck of a temper but . . . you never said anything. They were another one of those things that you made up stories about — they doted on you, adored you, brought you flash presents — we never saw the evidence, of course. And maybe there was some kind of other reason that your grandma left you the house? And then they flew over to see you in hospital, what? Once? You nearly died and they didn’t even stay long enough to drive you home. You’d had to make yourself into someone that could cope with that kind of neglect.’

I looked up at the metal ceiling grill where the recessed lights reminded me of Gethryn’s eyes, fixing me, holding me tight as we plunged towards the ground. I gave a little shake to stop myself thinking about the landing and felt a few, weak tears spill towards the bedcover. ‘It was never that bad,’ my voice sounded weak. ‘They loved me in their own way, as best they could, they were just wrapped up in each other. I . . . I wanted it to be different, and I thought if I wanted it hard enough, then maybe . . .’

Felix steepled his fingers underneath his chin and gave me a level look. ‘I’m sorry for what I said, Skye. I mean, yes, you were pretty horrible but . . . you could be very sweet, too. You and I always got on, well, yeah, you could tell some pretty tall tales sometimes but I took them for what they were — a scared little girl trying to make herself look bigger so that no-one would realise how frightened you were inside. And I didn’t just bring you over here to get you to win the part for me. Okay, maybe that was a part of it, in the back of my mind but . . . only in the very back, where I keep all those other things I’m ashamed of.’

‘Like your Mamma Mia CD and your David Tennant life-sized cut-out?’

A grin. ‘Hush. I’m not ashamed of those. Just reticent about them.’ He took a sudden step closer to the bed and I could see the twinkle back in those hazel eyes again. ‘And, while we’re here—’ his voice dropped — ‘the accident . . . it wasn’t entirely your fault. Oh yes, you fought, Skye, punched me right in the gonads that night but . . . Mike was driving like a lunatic, and, come on . . . letting Faith, well, handle him while he was driving? But Mike always thought he was in control of everything — there you were, fighting and trying to get to him; he should have stopped, pulled over, but he was too arrogant. Girl in the back raising hell? Girlfriend dealing out the hand jobs? Nah, Mike thought he could do sixty through all of that. And that was what killed them.’ Felix leaned in closer. ‘I much prefer the new, improved Skye and her new taste in men. You can never accuse Jack of arrogance, can you? I mean, the guy doesn’t have any idea just how tasty he is . . . oh, how I hope you’re going to put him right on that score. For the good of all of us, I mean.’

‘We’ve got so much to talk about now, haven’t we? Now you’ve started telling me the truth.’

Felix grinned. ‘Maybe you’re ready to hear it now. This last year-and-a-half it’s been like you were turning Mike into some kind of saint, some kind of perfect boyfriend, and I had to bite my tongue to stop blurting out the truth. He led you along, Skye. He could have told you it was over, but he kept picking you up and putting you down, messing with your head and all the while he was sleeping with your best friend, but since the accident you wanted . . . no, sorry, you needed to think of him as having been the love of your life. So I let you. And I’m sorry about that, really I am but . . .’

A shrug and he started to stare at the floor with a pink tinge rising up his neck to engulf his cheeks. A silent hand raised and squeezed mine which made both of us wince. ‘Ow. And then you saved my life. I’d just destroyed yours and you saved mine.’ A sound outside and his head whipped up to stare thankfully at the door. ‘Right then, lover, better be off. Despite these—’ he indicated the brace and the cast — ‘my darling Jared is raring to go.’ With a blown kiss he walked out of the room, limping slightly and giving me a full view of his back, which was covered in newer bruises than the ones on his side. He looked like he’d been beaten, and not in a pervy-sexy-game way.

As soon as he’d gone out, Jack came in. He was pale, there were shadows under his eyes and he had, if it were possible, lost weight. He looked like a gauntly beautiful zombie. He walked into the room, closed the door carefully behind him and held onto it, as though he needed its support. ‘Hey.’ Then he shut his eyes and breathed a long breath in and out.

My heart hurt. ‘Hey, Jack.’ I tried to move but was held in place by the needle in the back of my hand. ‘What happened? How’s Gethryn?’

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