Page 42 of Forever is Now

And all I could concentrate on was getting my baby back.

I woke, pretty panicked. I might’ve been screaming, because my mum was opening my door, all concerned, asking if I was okay. And I had this huge ache in my arms. Like, something was missing. My baby.

You have to understand that I hadn’t been sleeping at all. How could I? I’d had more death threats, and some journalists had got hold of my new phone number—did I tell you I’d had to change it so many times? And I was just having to have my phone turned off pretty much all the time, but I was always anxious I was missing calls. Important calls. Like from the lawyers, solicitors, police.

I still had my laptop on though—like, all the time. I don’t know why I did it, but I’d set up Google alerts for my name and Ruari’s name. And Mia’s too. And I was, like, addicted to reading all the toxic things people were writing about me. It was horrific. And it made me feel so much worse, but I just couldn’t stop. My eyes would be so blurry and I’d be exhausted, scrolling through page after page of hideous comments about me. Calling me all sorts of names. But doing that was better than sleeping—lying there, trying to get to sleep in the dark room, because that’s when the reality of it all would come crashing down. That Ruari was no longer mine. That he’d never been mine again. He was hers. My thoughts would just feel like knives. They’d stab, stab, stab me. I wouldn’t be able to breathe. It was that bad—it would keep me awake. It was like torture. Thinking of them, together.

I kept imagining them in bed. They’d obviously slept together, whereas Ruari and I never had. It made me wonder if he was no longer ace, if that was even possible. If maybe he’d just pretended he was to try and reassure me. If he’d been giving up sex the whole time we were together.

She could give him what I couldn’t, and I really, really hated her for it. I felt so threatened by it, all those nights when all I could do was think about her and him andthem, but at times, I also didn’t hate her—like at the same time as hating her, and it was just so, so confusing. So, I was confused. I was sleep-deprived. Like, seriously. I couldn’t function. I was losing weight.

Mum got me some sleeping pills. Just over-the-counter ones. I didn’t want to take them because I didn’t want to be trapped in nightmares. Nightmares, where I was convinced I’d see them together. Maybe kissing, or actually doing it. And I didn’t want that.

But Mum persuaded me otherwise. She said you didn’t dream if you slept because you’d taken pills. That the medication interfered with something in your brain, stopped your dreams, nightmares.

I was reluctant, but I agreed. I was desperate.

And so that’s when I took them. That’s when I slept, finally.

And that’s when I had that dream—me, having Ruari’s baby, and Mia taking it away from me. Stealing it.

When I woke up, I was disorientated. Very disorientated.

But I was thinking that the baby she was pregnant with was actuallymybaby, and somehow just knowing that their daughter had my name confirmed it—even though this was about the unborn baby, not Summer. I know it sounds ridiculous now. I know that.

I didn’t make the journey up there, to Bristol, straight away though.

I walked around like there was cotton wool in my head, for days. No, cotton wool’s not right—something warmer, fuzzier. You know that feeling when you skid on carpet, and it’s like a friction burn but not quite painful? But warm? Yeah, well I felt like that, on my skin. Only it was the inside of my skin. Like, everywhere.

I wanted to turn myself inside out, so I could scratch myself raw.

I wanted to bleed and feel something, let it all out. Just stop it all.

But I couldn’t.

And I... well, I wasn’t well. Really wasn’t well. No one could be, not in my situation.

I didn’t know what to do, other than to take more sleeping pills, because I thought that would mean I’d be back in that dream, where Mia was running away with my baby, and I could chase after her there. If we were in the same place. If I just dreamed again.

But when I took the sleeping pills the next night, I didn’t dream. There was nothing. I woke feeling numb.

I remember looking at the TV the next morning. There was some program on but there was a pregnant woman in it. I saw that as a sign. It was almost like the character was saying ‘Go and see Mia. Get your baby back.’

I deserved a baby. I deserved just a bit of their happiness. Because it wasn’t fair that Mia had taken Ruari from me.

And I guess, well, I also wanted to see Ruari again. So that’s what I did. I went to Bristol. I’d had their address for a while. It was written in the back of my notebook.

I didn’t go on my own though. Ashley came. It was weird, how that worked out. So, I don’t know if we’ve covered this—I can’t remember—but as soon as Ruari had been found, Ashley was, like, in contact with me all the time. Wanting updates. When I was back in Devon, he was suddenly round at my mum’s house every day. And James too sometimes. I mean, Hana was as well. And Julia—this was before she did the bad thing.

Ashley had gone to see Ruari once, but he didn’t remember him either. But Ash arrived at mine just as I was trying to find Mum’s car keys. [Summer laughs] I mean, I couldn’t even drive so I don’t know why I thought that I was going to literally drive to Bristol. To Ruari and Mia’s.

I guess I was a bit frantic, because Ashley was asking if I was okay. And I said something like, “I’m going to see Ruari.”

And then he thought that maybe if webothwent, it might prompt something. I think he said something like “Just immerse him in his old life and he has to remember, right?”

So, Ashley was driving me up there. He had this gray Polo. And I was feeling really... well, not great. My head was pounding. We had a couple hours, because the traffic was bad. There’d been snow and ice, and some accidents. Ashley suggested I got some sleep. Said it would be better if I was refreshed when I got there. I guess I must’ve looked really awful.

I had my pack of sleeping pills in my pocket. I remember being surprised, finding them there. But I took them—maybe too many, I don’t know. I don’t think I was being careful, but there I was, napping in his car, and I had this dream where I found Mia. She was in a hospital. Pretty similar to the one where Ruari had had more tests done, where I spoke to his doctors and found out that he’d recognized his dad.

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