Page 51 of The Missus
Keira nodded.
‘Look, just hold on, we can get you back up to the doctor.’
***
Five minutes later, Keira was right back where she started. Dr Carmichael told her that she had to stay overnight. Keira didn’t argue this time. Alanna asked if she could stay too, and the doctor told her as long as she could cope with sleeping in a chair all night, she was welcome. Alanna set about getting herself comfy in that chair immediately. Keira didn’t argue with that either. She thought about it. But she didn’t.
***
In the morning, Keira woke up and looked over at Alanna. She was contorted into the chair, her head hanging almost out of it, her mouth wide open, slight drool. She’d had a dreadful night’s sleep, and she looked like shit. Looking at her, Keira caught up to what her lungs already knew. The panic, the fear, the anger she’d been feeling. Keira knew the pure horror of what it added up to.
She hoped it wasn’t true, so she googled it to be sure. Yep, there it was. A desire to look at her, to be around her all the time, slight panic when she walked into a room. Feelings had been caught—for a person who only pitied her. It was a double nightmare, horror on top of horror. Sympathy and attachment. They had combined themselves in one package—Alanna.
Twenty-One
Alanna’s spine felt like dogshit when she woke up in the chair. But that didn’t worry her. What worried her was that her relationship with Keira was done for. She had fucked up. She’d thought that keeping her knowledge a secret was the least damaging course of action. But she should have known that secrets come out. They always do. And Keira, as predicted, had not wanted Alanna to know what she knew.
That hurt. Because if Keira had wanted it, Alanna would have listened for hours. Not as a counsellor, but as someone who cared. She simply craved closeness with her, in any form it might take. Maybe this whole thing wasn’t just about looking for the opposite of her anally retentive ex after all. Maybe she wanted Keira not because she wasn’t Benjamin but because she wasKeira.
‘Morning,’ Keira said, already awake. ‘I feel gross. I want to be in my shower.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I mean, obviously, after you.’
‘How will we get home?’
‘The car’s downstairs. Ed dropped it off.’
‘Jesus, that was nice of him,’ Keira said, surprised.
‘I know. My mother was probably livid,’ Alanna smiled.
‘Did he leave the party right in the middle?’
‘I think he was glad for the get-out. Turns out he’s not nearly stuffy enough for my mum’s crowd.’
‘Right, well, can I have the keys?’
Alanna laughed. ‘You just spent a night in the hospital, you’re not driving. I’m driving.’
Keira gave her a sardonic look. ‘Technically, youalsospent a night in the hospital. Can you even drive?’
***
The answer to that was sort of. Alanna had had about twenty lessons, but when she began her counsellor training, she ran out of money to finish. But she had a provisional license, which meant she could drive as long as she had a qualified driver in the car.
But as she tried to start the engine in the multi-story car park, she stalled the fucking thing immediately. She chose not to look at Keira.
‘You OK?’ Keira asked.
‘Fine. Just a little rusty.’ Alanna started up the engine again and stalled again. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered to herself.
‘Come on, I’m fine. Just lemme drive,’ Keira said.
‘I can do it. I just need a second,’ Alanna said.
‘Take your time, then.’
Alanna stalled it for a third and fourth time, and she was ready to scream. All she wanted to do was transport Keira home and she couldn’t do it. The one-woman island was letting help roll off her like water off a duck’s back and she wasn’t even trying.
