Page 88 of My Heart to Find

CHAPTER FORTY

Cara

“IWAS USELESS,” I SAY, staring at my forefinger with the pulse-oximeter on. “Absolutely useless.”

I wish the bed would swallow me up as more and more shame fills me.

I’m in hospital—and how ridiculous is that? I didn’t get hurt. But the police insisted I got checked out. They said I seemed woozy, asked Jana if I’d banged my head. And she’d been trying to explain about the brain inflammation, and then as soon as they’d heard that, they’d bundled me straight in the ambulance with Marnie and Phia.

How embarrassing is that? I’m not even hurt, yet I’m here.

“You were great,” Damien says. He’s sitting at my bedside, having just spoken to my mum on the phone, reassuring her that I’m all right. Because I guess it would’ve been quite a shock getting a phone call from the police like that.

“But I wasn’t great, not at all. I froze completely. I couldn’t do anything.” I feel sick just thinking about it. How utterly useless I was. How utterly useless I am at everything—because of the Lyme? Or maybe that’s just me. Because some people freeze up in situations like that anyway. Maybe I’d have reacted the same if I wasn’t ill.

“You got Phia out,” he says. “And you didn’t freak out when she grabbed your arm. Or when you brushed against the doorway. Or when we were sitting on the pavement. You did so well.”

I can’t help but feel like he’s just saying those things.

A lone tear runs down my face—then I feel another and another. Oh, God, I’m going to ugly-cry in front of him. I gulp quickly.

“It’s okay,” he says. “It is—we’re all okay. We found Marnie and Phia. I mean, how amazing is this going to be for the podcast?”

I let out a laugh. “We’re still doing that?”

“How can we not?” he says, running a hand through his hair. “This is just too good an opportunity to miss. Four people in their twenties solve a crime the police say didn’t existandsave a missing woman? Everyone’s going to want to know our story.”

Our story.

I like the way that sounds, and I realize suddenly that this is going to be something that cements us together. Not just me and Damien, but Trevor and Jana too. And Marnie and Phia. The six of us share this now.

I think of Marnie, the glimpses of her I saw in the ambulance when I wasn’t panicking. She came around, was mumbling something incoherent at some point. I asked what was wrong with her, but the paramedics hadn’t replied. They might not have even heard me. I suppose I was on the sidelines, in the back of the van on the fold-up chairs with Phia squeezing my hand and shaking. But I saw the bruises on Marnie’s neck. Bruises that looked like strangle-marks.

Phia had a black eye, but I only really became aware of it in the ambulance. I asked her if she was all right, and she’d just nodded. Said Mr. Richards hadn’t done anything to her yet.

Yet.That one word had made me feel even sicker as I looked over at Marnie.

“And you’ll get better soon,” Damien says. “You’ll be able to start treatment again. I saw you got more on the GoFundMe.”

I did? I stare at him blankly. “But what if I don’t actually get better? What if I’m just always like this?”

He leans back in his chair and his jacket rustles. “We’ll face that if it comes to it,” he says. “But, Cara, even if you don’t, it’s not going to change the amazing person that you are. I fell in love with you in Mallorca. And I’ve fallen even more in love with you just in the last week, here. It’s you I love. Your illness doesn’t stop that.”

Love? He loves me? I stare at him. My throat feels too thick, and my tongue too big for my mouth. And I should say it back—is that what he’s expecting? The moment where we both profess our love for each other.

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