Jem’s nightmare was different this time. The fire hadn’t changed; the smoke still choked and blinded her, and the air was hot enough to burn her throat, but Rosie wasn’t there to pull her out of the window, and when Jem collapsed on the balcony there were screams echoing from the room she’d just escaped.
She awoke feeling sick and utterly lost. The unfamiliar surroundings, the clothes she was wearing: none of it made any sense until she saw Rosie sparked out on the camp bed beside her hospital bed and everything slotted back into place.
“God,” she whispered. The dream continued to claw at her, forcing her to go to Rosie’s side, to kneel and double-check Rosie was really there, safe and sound and still breathing. “You’re okay,” Jem whispered, feeling the soft puff of Rosie’s breath on her palm. “You’ll be okay, I promise.”
She tiptoed to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Then she cupped her hands beneath the tap, letting them fill. The water was stale, but its chill eased the dryness in her mouth and settled her stomach. She sat on the closed toilet lid and pulled up her knees, wrapping her arms around them to try to hold them still. Her chin juddered when she lowered it, knocking against her shaking legs and making her bite her tongue. The tang of blood mingled with the chemical taste of the water. She wiped her lips with a handful of toilet paper and stayed where she was, waiting for the shivering to stop.
Rosie still hadn’t stirred when Jem went back into the room. Curled on her side beneath a pile of blankets, she looked content, as if she was satisfied she’d done everything asked of her and she was finally letting herself rest. Jem returned to her bed, but she couldn’t settle, and the sight of Rosie peacefully blowing spit bubbles whilst scrunching her nose just made everything worse. Moving slowly so she wouldn’t start coughing, Jem hooked her oxygen tubing onto a portable cylinder and wheeled it out into the corridor, closing the door behind her. One of the nurses stopped her by the linen cupboard and told her there was a chap at the desk attempting to blag his way past the ward sister.
“Is it my dad?” she asked. He’d spoken to her last night, but he hadn’t mentioned a visit.
“No, a younger bloke in an ambulance uniform. Looks like something was sick all over his shoulder before he came out.”
That narrowed things down slightly, and Jem relaxed, ruling out Baxter as her potential visitor. “It’ll be Kev, my manager. He’s got more kids than sense.”
Kev waylaid her halfway to the nurses’ station, hugging her and then stepping back to appraise her. “I expected worse,” he said. “Bob and Dougie were in bits when they got to station the other night.”
“I can imagine.” Taking his arm, she led him into the day room, where she muted the telly and dropped onto the sofa. “They popped in for a few minutes this morning. Bob ate most of my grapes, once he’d stopped blubbing.”
Kev hefted a gift bag. “The group had a quick whip-round. Everyone sends their best.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Everyone?”
“Baxter and Caitlin were on mandatory training,” he said, easily catching her drift. “And you’re not to worry about the morphine business. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
“That’s apt, given how much he’d love to hang me out to dry.” She coughed against the stress clamping around her ribs. With everything else that had happened, the threat of the disciplinary had understandably slipped her mind. “I was supposed to have a meeting with a rep about it on Monday. My doc’s promised to discharge me tomorrow, so I might be able to come in for it. Maybe I can resume on light duties or—”
“Jem.” Kev put a hand on her arm. “Take a breath.”
She took several. “Am I going to get sacked, Kev?” she asked quietly.
“I very much doubt that, love, no matter how hard Baxter might push. Besides which, his timing is terrible.” Kev fished in his pockets and pulled out a handful of newspaper clippings. “The fire has been quite the story. The MEN ran it on the front cover. So did the Guardian, the Indie, and the Tameside Chron. One of the Daily Mail hacks turned up on station, but Dougie told him to piss off. We’ve had a couple of requests for an interview, but I asked the media department to handle them.”
“I don’t want any fuss,” she said, glad for once to have been isolated in the hospital. “I just want to get home and get back to work.”
“Better not rush things, then. How’s Officer Rosie?”
Jem smiled. She never had told him Rosie’s surname. “She’s fast asleep. Well, I hope she is, or she’ll be wondering where I am.”
“I might have a word with her sarge, see if we can get you on opposing shifts. You don’t half get into trouble when you’re together.” He chuckled, obviously meaning nothing by it, but the unease that had lingered since her nightmare ramped right back up. He walked her to her room, and she stood on the threshold, watching Rosie blink blearily at her.
“What did I miss?” Rosie asked.
“Nothing,” Jem said, but the kneejerk denial seemed to stick in her throat, and she knew now what she had to do. She smiled to soften the bluntness of her tone, though she felt like curling into Rosie’s arms and sobbing her heart out. “Go back to sleep.”
* * *
Rosie slapped the parking ticket onto her windscreen and collected her rucksack from the back seat. At Jem’s insistence, she had gone home for the night, but although she felt better for having had a bath, a meal cooked from scratch, and eight hours in her own bed, she had spent half the evening texting Jem and the other half of it wondering how Jem was getting on. She stumbled on the kerb that marked the car park boundary, flummoxed by a relationship that had sneaked under her defences and blossomed into something that was making her trip over her own feet. It had never been like this with Steph, who clicked her fingers to see how fast Rosie would come running and left her with a bitter taste in her mouth. In all honesty, it had never been like this with anyone.
Re-shouldering the bag, Rosie took an exaggerated step onto the pavement and walked toward the hospital entrance. With outpatient appointments and elective surgeries on hold for the weekend, the main corridors were quiet, allowing her to steer well clear of the night shift workers dead set on getting home and willing to take out anyone who got in their way.
She found Jem sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and she’d cobbled together an outfit comprising a pair of overlong pyjama bottoms and a pink scrubs top. Someone had already stripped her bedding, and a wad of gauze had replaced the cannula on her wrist. She smiled at Rosie, but she seemed tired and distracted, her reddened eyes meeting but unable to hold Rosie’s gaze.
“Everything okay?” Rosie asked.
“Fine,” Jem said. “Harriet’s just gone to get my prescription. She shouldn’t be long.”
“No worries. We’re not in a rush, are we?” Rosie dropped the rucksack on the bed and began to unpack it. Not wanting to bother her dad, Jem had given Rosie a house key and sent her on a mission to retrieve clean clothes. “I think I found everything. And I binned a piece of cheddar that had gone a very strange shade of green.”
Jem collected the clothes in one hand and hitched up her trousers with the other. “Thanks. I’ll go and get changed. They’ll have someone else in this room before the bed goes cold.”
Rosie nodded, although she wasn’t sure that was true. Harriet had wanted to keep Jem in the hospital over the weekend, and she’d only relented when Jem had agreed to let Rosie stay with her.
Rosie waited until the bathroom door clicked shut, and then sagged into the closest chair. She had fairly bounced out of bed that morning, eager to get Jem home and spoil her rotten. She had assumed Jem would share her enthusiasm, never considering Jem might be trying to come to terms with everything that had happened over the last few days.
“You’re a bloody idiot,” she muttered, lowering her head into her hands. She looked up again when Harriet walked in, but she couldn’t muster anything beyond a perfunctory greeting. “Hey, Doc. Jem’s just getting dressed.”
Harriet sat on the adjacent chair and gave her a bag full of medicines and a slip of paper with two phone numbers on it. “My mobile and home number. If there’s a problem, call me. Whatever time, I don’t mind. Jem’s not daft, but she doesn’t like being in here, either, so she’ll try to get by even when she shouldn’t.”
Rosie slid the paper into her wallet, glad of the security it offered, although less comfortable with the role of minder. “She seems quiet this morning,” she said.
“I noticed. It’s not uncommon after a trauma like this. You may find yourself struggling as well. Don’t be too proud to ask for counselling if you need it.”
“I won’t.” She might have said more, had Jem not come back into the room. Swaddled in an oversized fleece, Jem hid her hands in its sleeves and folded her arms, though the hospital was stifling.
“Ready for the off?” Harriet asked.
“Yes,” Jem said. She seemed far less certain now that she had permission to leave. “Thanks, Harriet.” For a moment, she hesitated. Then she hugged her tightly, hiding her face against Harriet’s chest.
“My pleasure.” Harriet kissed the top of her head. “You’re both to stay out of mischief for a while, is that understood?”
“Loud and clear,” Rosie said.
“We’ll try,” Jem added.
Leaving Harriet at the nurses’ station, they walked toward the main entrance, dodging porters wheeling elderly patients from one ward to the next, and domestic staff making the most of the Sunday morning lull. With Jem clearly not in the mood for small talk, Rosie cast the odd surreptitious glance at her, mindful that this was the farthest she had walked since her admission, and keenly attuned to signs that she was starting to struggle.
“I’m fine, Rosie,” Jem said, catching one of Rosie’s split-second appraisals.
Rosie raised her hands in surrender and said nothing.
The ride to Jem’s house passed in a similar fashion, with Jem staring at her breath fogging on the passenger window, and Rosie doing her damnedest to concentrate on the roads. She wanted to ask what was wrong, to offer help or a shoulder to cry on, but she no longer shared Harriet’s conviction that the fire lay behind Jem’s sudden reticence, and she was scared she wouldn’t like the answer if she asked. It seemed to take forever and no time at all before she was turning onto Jem’s street, creeping through the double-parked cars, and pulling into the driveway. Jem unfastened her seat belt as Rosie switched off the engine. She leaned forward, her hands clasped in front of her, her hair concealing her face, and Rosie waited, braced as if for a punch.
“I don’t want you to come in,” Jem said, the words dropping like a stone into the silence.
“Jem—” Rosie lowered her hands from the wheel, leaving damp prints on the plastic. She’d seen this coming, but she still didn’t feel prepared, still didn’t know what to say, and every option she came up with—reminding Jem of her promise to Harriet, playing on her physical vulnerability—seemed more underhand than the last. In the end, there was only one question she really wanted the answer to.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
Jem shook her head, splashing tears onto her knees. “No, no, no,” she said quickly, almost chanting the denial. “It’s me. I don’t want this. Any of this, and I should have told you, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry.” She grabbed her hospital bag, shoved the car door hard against the wind, and scrambled out onto the driveway. Rain soaked her within seconds, but Rosie could see that she was still crying. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and let the wind slam the door for her.
“Jem? Hang on a minute. Jem?” Rosie grappled for her seat belt, fumbling with its latch and getting the strap tangled as she shoved it out of the way. Jem was on the front step, turning a key, pushing the door with her foot, and she’d gone inside before Rosie could get out of the car. Even from a distance, Rosie heard the jangle of the security chain as it slid into place.
“Fucking hell,” she whispered. She sat back in the car, hoping for a reprieve that wasn’t going to come. A minute ticked by, then another. She waited until her hands had stopped shaking. Then she started the engine and drove away.
* * *
Crouched behind the front door, Jem listened to the car turn in a slow circle on the gravel. Its tyres hit the pothole Ferg had been promising to fill for the last four months, the front tyre bouncing through and then the rear. The engine idled at the gate, as if Rosie was giving her the opportunity to come out again and make this right, but the car didn’t pause for long. Jem heard the rev of acceleration, and within seconds, there was nothing but the sound of the clock ticking in the living room and the fast, irregular wheeze of her breathing.
“It’s for the best,” she whispered. “It’s for the best. You’ll be safe now.”
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she and Rosie had never stood a chance. They had barely taken the first steps in their relationship, and she had almost got Rosie killed. Her luck hadn’t been this extreme with anyone else, but then she had never met anyone quite like Rosie, who had barged into her life, shaken everything up, and given her a glimpse of what she could have. Before Rosie, she hadn’t realised how lonely she had been or how happy it was possible to be, and none of her previous breakups had ever felt like this. They had been difficult and miserable and occasionally downright bizarre, but they had never felt so cruel.
She flipped the cap off her inhaler and took two puffs. The medicine worked quickly, allowing her to stagger upstairs to the bathroom, where she knelt by the toilet and vomited what little she had eaten for her breakfast.
She groaned, coughing bile and phlegm into the bowl. Her stomach and chest ached, and she felt dizzy enough to lean her forehead against the toilet seat. Closing her eyes, she pulled a towel from the radiator and used it to cushion her head as she curled onto the floor.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there. Long enough to wake with goose-pimpled arms and chattering teeth. She could practically see Rosie standing in front of her, full of righteous indignation and warnings of pneumonia. It would have been worth the scolding just to have her there, but Jem couldn’t undo the damage she had wrought, and she left her mobile where it was, burning a metaphorical hole in her coat pocket.
She flushed the toilet and dragged herself up, clinging to the towel rail until she was certain she wouldn’t faint. Then she returned to the front door to collect her bag of meds. A quick check of the living room clock told her she was overdue a dose of steroids, so she counted the pills as she walked to the kitchen: seven to start off with, reducing on a daily basis. She would be back at work before she got to five. Back to normal, doing her job and keeping her head down, trying not to bump into Rosie, not to call her or text her or think about her or—
She stopped short in the kitchen doorway, her hand poised to switch on the light. The sun played its part perfectly, though, choosing that instant to shine on the large bunch of flowers in the middle of the table. Rosie obviously hadn’t been able to find a vase, so she’d co-opted an orange B&Q bucket, no doubt tickled by the serendipity. Beside the flowers, she’d arranged boxes of microwave popcorn and a selection of DVDs. Venturing beyond the threshold, Jem found a veg rack full of fresh produce and a fridge newly stocked with essentials. A rolled pork loin beside the lasagne on the bottom shelf suggested a roast had been on the evening’s menu.
“Shit.”
She filled a glass with water, swallowing the tablets one by one in an effort to keep them down. Her mobile buzzed, and she knocked the glass against her lips, spilling water on her chin. It took her three attempts to enter her passcode, but the message was from her dad, not Rosie.
Hallo, sweetheart. Home safe and sound?
Her bottom lip began to tremble. She wanted to tell him everything, to sit by his knee and explain why she’d done what she’d done and how broken it had made her feel. He would only try to fix it, though. He was her dad, after all. He wouldn’t want to admit this was something beyond repair.
Home safe, she typed. All well.
It was a long time before she hit send.