Page 65 of Beyond Repair
‘Goodie, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I –’
Goodie slashed her hand through the air in a dismissive gesture. ‘I was not damaged by this,’ she told her, and Katie frowned back at Goodie in confusion. ‘I am not like other people, Katie. I do not feel things the same way. My life has been very different from a very young age. It is not normal but this did not affect me. Nothing affects me. I’m a freak that way. But Sam, he is different: damaged, but not beyond repair. So now he suffers.’
‘Post-traumatic stress disorder,’ Katie said.
Goodie tilted her head to the side. ‘I knew you would know this, understand it. He is haunted by what happened. He once told me that he was going to shut down completely to block it out, and for a few years I think it worked … That was until he let himself feel something – something for you.’
Katie went through the symptoms of PTSD in her mind: flashbacks, hyper-vigilance, emotional numbness, nightmares. She closed her eyes, slowly letting it all fall into place. When she finally opened them, she felt more energised than she had been in days.
‘Thanks, Goodie,’ she said, and then, ignoring Goodie’s horrified face as she did it, she flew across the coffee table and engulfed her in a tight hug. Goodie gave her a few light taps on her back before pulling away and jumping out of hugging range as if Katie might pounce again at any moment. Katie gave her a shaky smile, tempted to force yet more physical affection on her, but managed to hold herself back. She dropped to give a confused Salem another ear scratch before straightening and heading for the front door.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she told Goodie, and Goodie’s lips tipped up in a barely-there smile whilst she inclined her head in agreement.
Once they were both outside and Katie had locked up, she put her hand on Goodie’s arm to stop her from disappearing into thin air, as she was wont to do.
‘You’re not a freak, Goodie.’ She held Goodie’s eyes and for the first time saw a hint of vulnerability enter them before they hardened.
‘You don’t know me, Katie,’ she whispered.
‘I know that you care enough about Sam to come to me. I know you cared enough about me to do what you did to Daniel, whatever you say about doing it for favours. You can feel, just like anyone else. You could live a different life if you wanted.’
Something flashed across Goodie’s expression so fast that Katie couldn’t quite catch it, but somehow she thought it might have been hope.
‘I am what I was made and nothing more. Your wildest imaginings would not come close to what I have done. Like I said … you don’t know me.’ Goodie yanked her arm from Katie’s grip and she was gone, Salem padding silently in her wake.
Chapter 32
The rest we can figure out as we go
‘Hello?’ Katie called, pushing the door to Sam’s flat open gingerly. After five minutes of knocking and doorbell-ringing, she’d decided to use the key Sam had given her a while back to get in. Maybe a little stalkeresque of her, but she wanted to find Sam any way she could, and if that meant breaking into his flat to scour it for information, then so be it.
As she walked into the dimly lit, Spartan space she was vaguely thinking how much of a hypocrite Sam was with the whole security thing when all his flat had was a poxy single-key lock and no alarm. She groped along the wall for the light switch. When she finally flicked it on and turned around, she nearly gave out her second scream of the night. Whatisit about these people? she thought. It’s freaky to be that silent.
Sam was sitting in the middle of his old, worn sofa; his head was down-bent, his elbows were resting on his legs and his hands were dangling down in the middle of his spread knees. In front of him was one of the cardboard boxes he hadn’t unpacked, with a glass of some type of brown spirit resting on top. His hair was so tousled that it looked like he’d been raking his hands through it for hours. She was struck again by how long it had grown, curling over the collar of his shirt and sticking up messily over his head. It was quite a difference from the buzz cut he always used to sport.
‘Bugger off, Rob,’ she heard him mutter to the floor.
‘Sam?’ she whispered, and watched as he raised his head slowly to focus on her with visible effort. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His cheeks were also more sunken than they had been, making his cheekbones look even more sharply cut.
He looked gorgeous, miserable, and totally lost.
‘What are you doing sitting in the dark?’ she asked as she walked over to sit beside him. Sam rubbed his eyes and blinked before refocusing on her.
‘Are you really here?’ he asked, and Katie frowned. Now that she was closer to him, she could smell the alcohol fug.
‘What are you on about, you twp bugger?’
He scrubbed his hands down his face and then reached up with a not-quite-steady hand to push one of her escaping curls out of her eyes.
‘Dream Katie doesn’t call me a twp bugger,’ he muttered, frowning down at her.
‘Well, Dream Katie might not, but Real Katie thinks you bloody well are. We’ve got some talking to do, boyo.’
‘Dream Katie’s not quite so shouty either,’ Sam told her, rubbing his temples.
‘Well, Dream Sam’s not big on sitting on his own in a dark room getting ridiculously steaming, but there we go.’
Sam looked at her and, despite his tentative smile, the pain and longing on his face was so stark that Katie simply moved across to him on instinct, wrapping her arms around his big frame and giving him a tight squeeze. His body was still for a moment, as if in shock, before both his arms came around her and he pressed her into his chest, breathing in the scent of her hair at the top of her head.
