Page 63 of No Safe Place

Saturday | Early hours

Lily

She woke up drenched in sweat.

‘Scott,’ she said, weakly. He didn’t wake.

Lily tried to reach for him, but her arms felt weak. The nausea was back, her stomach rolling and pitching.

The sickness was made worse by imagining Callum alone on the ward, and David’s wife dealing with her grief, and the thought of Sam in the morgue.

‘Scott,’ she said again, and this time he woke with a start, sitting bolt upright. He turned the lamp on, and she winced away from the light, head pounding.

‘Shit,’ he breathed. ‘Let’s get you sitting up for a second. Let me look at you.’

He stood up from the bed and came round to her side. Smoothly, he slid one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees, and gently turned her, until her legs were off the bed.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

As he sat her up, her vision blurred.

‘Fuck—’ Scott said, catching her under the armpits as she pitched forward. ‘Babe?’

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I sat up too fast. Feel faint.’

‘Put your head between your knees.’ Scott put a large palm on her back, his voice business-like suddenly.

But as soon as she was in position, she experienced another wave of nausea. She couldn’t sit up, because Scott was rubbing slow, forceful circles on her back.

‘Scott—’ she said, needing him to stop, because he was making it worse.

But before she could say anything else, she was throwing up, all over the white rug.

He hadn’t dodged out of the way in time, and she was apologising and trying to stand all at once. She was burning up, and her throat was raw from the vomit. Her balance went. She dropped like a stone, hitting her head on one of her knees, and wailed.

‘Okay, okay—’ Scott lifted her head with one hand. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do.’

He lifted her, gently. Like a baby.

Carried her sideways through the bedroom door into the dark hallway, then laid her on the cold tiles in the bathroom. They felt good against her skin and the nausea subsided a little.

There were turning taps and then the sound of the bath filling.

‘You need to soak the rug,’ she said, weakly. ‘Or it’ll stain.’

He let out a low chuckle. ‘I always hated that rug. White is impractical.’

He kneeled in front of her, tipping his head sideways. From this angle she could see his vomit-spattered T-shirt.

‘Oh no,’ she whispered, putting out a hand to his chest. ‘Sorry.’

‘Stop apologising,’ he said, with a smile. ‘I’m a doctor, getting thrown up on is kind of my day job.’

Scott pressed a cold flannel to her head. He kept talking to her, the whole time, in a low soothing voice. Wiped her face and then sat her up. Gently lifted her shirt over her head. Eased her PJ shorts off. Even picked her up again to put her in the bath.

She felt better in the warm, scented water.

‘It might be shock,’ Scott said, stripping off himself and putting toothpaste on her toothbrush, so she could clean her teeth in the bath. ‘From what’s happened.’

Lily shook her head. ‘It’s not just today though, is it? I’ve been throwing up for a week. It must be a bug.’

‘The fainting worries me.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe we should get you a CT scan.’

‘ Almost fainting.’ Lily smiled at him, accepting her toothbrush. She held it in her hand, too weak to lift it.

The sickness had left her feeling exhausted, and she could feel a headache coming on, a dull pain at the base of her skull.

She let her head lean against the edge of the bath, and Scott sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor, at her eye level, examining her face with a worried expression.

It was his eyes. The guilt on his face.

And then she knew.