I shrug my shoulders.
Tom grasps them. ‘Don’t do that. It matters. You matter.’
I’m pissed off enough to rally and even though it hurts to confront it, I manage a small mocking laugh. ‘No. I don’t. I heard you.’ My voice cracks as I hear the words again in my head. ‘Y-you … t-told…’ I’m back at school being laughed at, with my ‘Mike’ schoolbag. A nobody with nothing. I lift my chin and hold his gaze. I won’t be that person again. ‘You told your dad I was nobody.’
‘I did.’ He doesn’t flinch and a tiny part of me admires his honesty even though it hurts.
I swallow back the tears and stare steadily at him.
His face softens. ‘But I didn’t mean it. I said it to get my father off the subject. I don’t want my parents to be any part of us.’
‘Because you’re embarrassed by me.’ I sound petulant but I can’t help it. It’s no more than I expected. I’m Chlamydia Smith after all. He still doesn’t even know my real name – why give him any more reason to walk away?
‘No, never.’ Tom grabs my hands. ‘You’re everything, Lydia.’
I shake my head, slumping back into the hard pillows. How can I believe him? Much as I want to, I know I’m clutching at proverbial straws. ‘Stockholm Syndrome, remember?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I was trying to protect—’
‘Please don’t, Tom.’ I turn my head away. I’m too weary to fight back. ‘Let’s just leave it.’
Tom stands up, his mouth a grim line fixed above his set jaw, and he walks out of the room.
Stealth tears leak out of my eyes, but I leave them to run down my face. It’s no more than I expected.
A nurse comes in to check my drip and introduces herself as she takes my temperature and pulse before checking the felt pen boundary line that has been drawn on my swollen leg.
‘What’s that for and who did it?’ I ask.
She gives me a cautious smile. ‘It’s to measure how far the infection has spread and I’m pleased to say it’s not moved. Dr Shadwell did it when you first came in. You were a bit out of it.’
I frown, trying to pull a memory out of my woolly brain, but there’s nothing there. My last memory is of Tom picking me up and carrying me into Trafalgar Square. I remember Nelson’s Column towering over me against the backdrop of the grey sky and then … nothing.
‘I hear you’re on some reality TV show. They were trying to film in A and E but Doctor Shadwell soon put them right.’
‘Oh no,’ I say, praying that they didn’t manage to get any footage. I must have looked so pathetic and useless, relying on a man to carry me over the bloody finish line.
‘But so romantic. Your man there got quite heated, pushing them away and then insisting you have a private room. He’s quite a hottie.’
‘He’s…’ I’m about to deny it but in the face of her appreciative grin, the words stall.
‘Do you want anything to eat? You missed dinner but I can get you a sandwich or something.’
I realise I haven’t eaten all day, so I nod, but I’m not that hungry.
‘I’ll see what I can find. It might take me a while but bear with…’
It doesn’t sound promising and I wish I had my rucksack and my digestive biscuits. See? This is why I always carry food.
She disappears and in the corridor I hear her talking to someone about finding me some food. Whoever it is offers to go for her and she thanks them. I guess she has plenty of other stuff to do.
A minute later, Mark appears in the doorway, a sheepish expression on his face.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
‘Thought I’d come and check on you.’
‘It’s all right. I’ve no plans to sue,’ I say. The acute discomfort in his body language suggests he’d rather be out on a mountain in freezing rain than here.
‘Good, that’s good. I … em … I’ve got something to show you.’
‘Pardon?’ All sorts of things whizz through my mind. I have absolutely no idea what on earth it could be.
He takes out his phone. ‘Some of the footage.’ He hands it over as if it’s a live bomb. ‘I think you should see it.’
A tide of red has risen up his skin from the neck of his black Henley T-shirt to the tips of his ears.
I take the phone and watch. It’s Tom staggering over the crossing with me in his arms, his face in a tight grimace of determination. God, this is every bit as embarrassing as I thought it was going to be. I hate my vulnerability being on show for everyone to see. I close my eyes but I can’t regret it. Tom will have his money and that’s worth my discomfiture.
‘You need to watch,’ Mark urges.
In the next moment, I see myself fainting but it’s not me the camera pans in on, it’s Tom’s face, contorting with anguish as he cradles me before lowering me to the floor. It’s when he phones someone that he turns and I watch as he breaks down. He’s sobbing. It’s as if my heart has been grabbed and squeezed hard and all the breath whooshes out of me. It’s almost painful to watch. But there’s more. I watch as Tom gathers himself and then hovers over me the whole time I’m out cold and then when he’s getting out of the ambulance with me. If actions speak louder than words, then I’ve seen all I need.
I look up at Mark, an ember of hope burning bright.
‘Why are you showing me this?’
