Page 111 of No Safe Place

Two weeks later

Callum

He stabbed the button for the lift with his thumb and looked up and down the corridor. Tried not to look at the sign for the ninth floor, which was giving him heart palpitations.

Sunday should have been a busy day for visitors, but after it had been cloudy all week, the sun had finally broken through the clouds, and Callum supposed sick family members were coming second to barbecues and sunbathing.

The lift rattled, pinged and then the doors slid open.

A doctor shot a bemused look at the red parka in Callum’s arms. He had the same thick dark hair and posho in-bred features as Scott, and Callum hated him instantly.

Hospitals smelled like shit, and too many tones of beep followed him along the corridor to Lily’s room. He was walking quickly, and the pain in his stomach throbbed like a second pulse.

He knocked. Through the window he saw her flinch away from the sound, raising her arms above her chest.

‘Fuck,’ Lily groaned. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

He threw his parka onto the end of the bed and took the wing-back plastic armchair, easing himself into it with a hand on the spot where his dressings were.

Lily eased herself back onto the pillows and raised an eyebrow. ‘Milking that little scratch, a bit, aren’t we?’

He stuck his middle finger up.

They fell into silence, and Callum examined her face. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Charming.’ Lil had dark circles under her eyes, and her skin had a slightly yellow, sun-deprived tone. She looked small in the big bed.

Her hands were trembling where they lay on the blanket. He’d bought her favourite hand cream from the Boots downstairs, but it was unopened on the bedside cabinet.

He picked up one of her hands. ‘I’m worried about you.’

She didn’t answer.

Trauma , Maxwell kept saying. You don’t go through a trauma like this and bounce back in a few weeks.

Callum ran his free hand over his hair, finally growing back post-buzz cut. ‘Have they given you any meds for the panic attacks, Lil?’

He couldn’t see her expression. Her profile was a silhouette against the sun.

‘It’s not a step backwards, you know, if you do go back onto meds. While you process all this shit – while we process this shit. They might really help—’

‘It’s not that,’ she said, leaning back.

Suddenly she wasn’t blocking the light, and his vision was spotted with bright daubs of orange, rippling into blues and purples.

‘Cal – I’ve been thinking. I’ve not been able to do anything but think, in this shithole.’ She rubbed the dark bruise-coloured skin under her eyes. ‘And – I don’t really know how to say this—’

The brave face he was putting on, the steely optimism he’d summoned that morning in front of the mirror – both deserted him – replaced with a pressure on his chest, a crushing sensation. He gripped her hand tighter.

Tears were running down her cheeks, her nose. They both cried easily, now.

‘Lil—’

‘No, I have to – let me speak, Cal, please.’

The smile she gave him broke his heart. Pitying, both for him and for herself. She squeezed his hand back, and he was starting to lose the feeling in his fingers. He forced himself to stay silent.

‘We can’t do this, anymore,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not fair to either of us. When they discharge me, I’m going to go home. My parents have been in to see me, and they want me to move back to theirs. I’ll see my sisters again.’

His throat was thick, seized up with emotion, and the weight on his chest was making it hard to think clearly.

‘I love you. I’ll always love you, Callum, but – all of this?’ She lifted her arms, and his hand was suddenly empty. ‘Neither of us are going to be okay, for a long time. We need help, and I love you – I do love you, but—’

She was blurred, now – he was looking at her through tears.

‘I love you too.’ It was like someone else’s voice. He was in his body, trapped inside it, but also watching from afar.

Lily let out a grunt of pain as she twisted in the bed, reaching for him. She put her hands on his face and Callum closed his eyes. His cheeks were hot, and his tears ran over her fingers.

‘Cal, look at me,’ she whispered.

He couldn’t look at her, didn’t want to open his eyes, but he was in pain – and she was the person he wanted when he was in pain.

Lily’s face was close to his, and now she wasn’t against the hospital pillows and in the bright glare of the sun, she looked more like herself.

He shut his eyes again and counted the seconds of silence. Made himself get to nine.

‘I don’t know how to be okay without you,’ he said, finally.

She took her hands away, wiped his cheeks first, and then hers. Let out a little bubble of laughter. ‘Oh, and I do?’

Lily was having hourly panic attacks, wouldn’t be able to walk for weeks. After the years she’d spent looking after him – Callum wanted to be able to step up and hold them both together.

But he couldn’t look after himself yet.

They both knew this conversation was coming. But he was a coward, as usual, and had waited for her to pull the trigger.

He pressed his knuckles into closed eyes and growled.

‘What?’ Lily huffed, a hint of the old tease back in her voice.

‘I can’t believe—’ Callum said, with a sigh. ‘I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me, right after I’ve been stabbed.’

She let out a bark of laughter, the first properly joyful sound he’d heard for weeks, and then they were both laughing, crying – clutching the stitched seams of their healing wounds.