BloodGifted (41 page)

It covered the bruises perfectly and blended in with my own skin. Hopefully
, no one would look too closely to notice. I brushed my hair back into a ponytail, leaving a few tendrils to frame my face and zipped up my dress. It was a short-sleeved, knee-length white cotton shift.

Alec must have rung for takeaway as there
was a full English breakfast—although it was lunchtime—of scrambled eggs, two mini sausages, baked beans, and a hash brown, waiting for me. His espresso machine provided the coffee. It was delicious and I ate it all. There was a grim task ahead and I needed my strength.

C
hapter 49

Goodbye

LAURA

Alec drove me to
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He parked in the section reserved for the medical staff. I didn’t get out of the car straight away. Summoning up the courage to walk into the hospital was harder than I thought it would be.

Alec took my hand. ‘Hey, I’m here. You’re not alone.’

‘I’m the one who has to tell him.’
Even though I’m tempted to send him a break-up text message,
I thought, but that would have been cowardly.

‘Shall we go
in?’

‘Yeah.’

He knew which ward Matt was in—fourth floor, room near the nurse’s desk. My stomach churned the closer we got. He held my hand and squeezed reassuringly.

We stopped just outside Matt’s room. The double-doors stood wide open and voices came drifting o
ut. I recognized some of them—Matt’s mum, Evelyn, and one of his sisters.

‘I’m coming in with you,’ Alec said.

‘No! You can’t.’ I let go of Alec’s hand. Last thing I wanted was curious or questioning looks. Taking a steadying breath, I walked in.

There were three other unoccupied beds in the room. A blue curtain had been partially draw
n around the one Matt occupied—the side facing the corridor. At the foot of the bed, a dark haired young woman with a clipboard in her hand looked up as I stepped into view.

She came directly to me but glanced over my shoulder. ‘Dr Munro?’ she enquired.

‘Yes,’ he replied.

Somehow I
knew Alec wouldn’t stay outside. I didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved.

She
turned back to me. ‘Miss Laura Dantonville?’

I nodded.

‘I’m Dr Claudia Cardacci.’ She extended her hand to us in turn. Her large, brown eyes examined Alec. ‘I spoke to you on the phone the other day. Can I please have a word?’ She indicated for us to move away from the door, to a quiet corner near the end of the corridor. Several chairs and a coffee table had been set up for visitors use.

‘Is something the matter?’ I asked.

‘Maybe you’d like to sit down?’

Whenever anyone said those words, it never meant anything good. And I
was restless enough as it was—nervous energy was making me fidgety. I wanted this morning to be over. ‘No, I’d rather stand thanks.’

‘All right,’ she st
arted cautiously. ‘Our recent tests reveal he may have suffered slight brain damage.’

I felt my stomach plummet. Alec’s hand snaked around my waist.

‘It’s called an RML—’

‘Retrograde Memory Loss,’ Alec finished for her.

She nodded.

‘Wha
t does that mean? Some kind of—amnesia?’ I looked from her to Alec and back again.

‘In a way,’ she continued, ‘although
it doesn’t affect all memory, only a part. His injury caused a small blood clot to form on the brain, which we’ve removed, but it’s resulted in his inability to recall some events. We don’t fully understand yet how it works, but it seems he doesn’t remember the last six months.’

This was a clanger.

Dr Cardacci lightly touched my arm. ‘Mrs Sommers told me you and Matthew have been together for about four months?’

I nodded.

‘I’m sorry, but he’ll have no memory of your relationship. You’ll be a stranger to him.’ She looked at me sympathetically. ‘I thought you should know before you walked in there.’

My mind went numb and I had no idea how to react.

‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’ She went over to the small sink and filled a polystyrene cup with tap water.

Alec sat me down
and placed the cup into my hand. ‘Laura, drink this, honey.’ He was crouched on the ground in front of me, looking anxious, his hands over mine.

‘Look, I’m fine.
It’s just the shock…’

‘You went white,’ Alec said.

‘I really am so sorry. I tried to tell you as best as I could,’ Doctor Cardacci said.

‘Thanks
for telling us. She’ll be all right,’ he assured her, but his eyes didn’t waver from my face and his hands remained over mine.

I briefly glanced up
at Dr Cardacci. Her eyes darted between Alec and myself and a knowing look appeared in them.

Just then, I didn’t care. Matt ha
d amnesia. Amnesia! The word swirled round in my brain trying to sink in.
He wouldn’t know me
! In that surreal moment I realised the man I feared to hurt wouldn’t know me from a bar of soap! I should’ve been relieved, yet I felt a certain sadness. Matt and I had known and loved each other for nearly four months and now unexpectedly and suddenly it was over. Finished. I was having difficulty processing it.

‘Will his memory ever return?’

‘Probably not,’ Alec replied. ‘In rare cases it does, in others…’ he shook his head and shrugged.

If Matt’s memory never returned, I reasoned, he wouldn’t
miss what he couldn’t remember and he wouldn’t suffer the pain of our breakup. With that understanding, I finally allowed myself to feel a sense of relief, although I had good reason to leave him.

Alec rose,
sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. I leant into him, past caring who saw.

‘I’d better get back,’ Dr Cardacci said and she walked back down the corridor to Matt’s room.

I forgot she was there.

‘Can’t hurt him now,’ I said.

‘Laura, he doesn’t deserve such consideration. He didn’t exactly confide in you when he got those white oak bullets, did he?’

No, he didn’t.
Matt was ready to kill those I loved without a word to me.

I bit my lip, wondering what to do next. Should I still go in? Would seeing me somehow jog his memory
so I could ask him about those bullets and give him the benefit of the doubt? Maybe they were for a police training exercise? Highly unlikely, my common sense said. Or should I leave the way I came, not go in and leave him in blissful ignorance? But then Dave would have mentioned me. After all, he was found unconscious in my apartment. And his mum knows me. She’d mention something.

I released a deep breath as I weighed up my options.

‘Still want to go in there?’

‘I don’t know what to do
and how did she know we were coming?’ I said before gulping down the rest of the water.

‘I phoned ahead
to see if there was any news on the test results. But they were still conducting them.’ He paused. ‘You have a choice here. One is to walk into that elevator and not look back. The second is to go in there, face him, and have closure. Decision’s yours.’

I let out a sigh. ‘Flight or fight, huh?’

Alec nodded.

I glanced at the door, heard the now laughing voices coming from within and made up my mind. ‘Second option
, I think. If I don’t show it’ll look suss. Matt may not know me, but his friends and family are bound to ask.’

I gingerly rose from the chair and steeled myself to enter that room. Alec stood next to me, his arm still supportively around my shoulders.

‘Okay?’ he whispered into my ear.

‘I suppose.’

We started for the door. Alec released me just as we walked in, but he remained close by my side. The blue curtain had been drawn back.

Matt’s mum, Evelyn
, saw us first. She smiled and got up from Matt’s side.

‘Laura, I’m sorry we didn’t come to see you. We were told you were hurt. You still look so pale,’ she said as she came and gave me an affectionate hug.

‘No, don’t be. Matt needed you.’

I turned my attention to him. Strips of ga
uze and tape bound his head and he was smiling at Dr Cardacci. The dimple in his right cheek danced as he spoke to her.

‘Matt, look who’s here. It’s Laura,’ Evelyn happily announced. ‘And…’ she stopped when she spied Alec.

‘This is Dr Munro. He treated Matt at the scene,’ Dr Cardacci said.

Evelyn’s eyes widened and a
huge smile spread across her face. She went to him and took hold of his hand. ‘Thank you for saving my son’s life.’ Her voice broke and she tried blinking away tears.

‘No need to thank me Mrs Sommers,’ Alec replied.

A weepy smile curled her lips. Her daughter, Clare, moved up behind her. ‘Our whole family thanks you.’

‘Me too, D
oc,’ Matt said as he extended a hand to Alec, who gripped it in return.

‘Maybe M
um and I’ll go for a coffee, so you can talk,’ Clare suggested.

‘G
ood idea,’ Evelyn said. ‘Laura, you stay and talk with Matt and jog his memory.’ She looked hopefully at me, eyes glistening. Before I could reply, she had ushered me to his side.

Clare touched my arm. ‘Good luck,’ she mouthed and together they left the room.

Matt regarded me blankly. There was no sign of recognition; no welcoming warmth in those icy blue depths. I was torn between giving him a hug or standing motionless by his bedside to wait. I decided on the latter.

‘Hi Laura.
I’ve been told you’re my girl.’ His expression belied his words. There was no smile, no dimple. He scrutinised me head to toe like I was a suspect in a police line-up. This wasn’t the Matt Sommers I had known for several months. The man lying in that hospital bed looking up at me was a stranger.

‘You really don’t remember?’ I asked.

‘Just said so. Pity. I couldn’t help Dave, who’s on this. You talk to him yet?’

‘Yeah
.’

‘It happened in your flat, I’m told,’ he said in a way that demanded a response. Why couldn’t he stop being the detective, just for once?

‘Uh huh. You drove me home after a family event. I was knocked out the second the door opened.’

‘D
idn’t see anything at all?’

‘I’ve already gone through all this with Dave. I didn’t come here to be interrogated but to see how you were.’

Alec touched my arm.

‘A
s you can see,’ he waved absently to his bandaged head, ‘not all okay, but getting there. They want to keep me here for few days. I don’t mind.’ He smiled up at Dr Cardacci then looked back to me. ‘How badly were you hurt?’ he asked, almost as an after thought as he glanced at my bandaged arm. Alec had insisted I keep up the pretence as long as we were coming here.

‘Not as bad as you. I’m okay.’

‘They told me you lost a lot of blood so it was bad. Could be the same guy who’s been—’

‘Matt stop it, please. I don’t want to talk about it.’

I looked away from him and focused on the Get Well cards sitting on the table by his bed. ‘Nice collection of cards.’

He cracked a smile. ‘
Sometimes you’ve got to get yourself half killed to find out who your friends are.’

There was an awkward silence after that. Neither of us knew what to say. Alec hadn’t
said a word since greeting Matt and Dr Cardacci stood silently watching the three of us. The old cliché, slicing the atmosphere with a knife, was never more apt.

‘Did I
give you that ring?’ Matt said, his voice as blank as his stare.

I followed the
path of his eyes down to my hand. ‘No. It’s a family heirloom. Got it on my birthday, last Friday. You were there.’

‘Sorry, don’t remember. Didn’t think
it’d be something I’d give you.’

‘
How long do they want to keep you here?’ I asked in an attempt to change the subject.

‘Few days, not sure.’

It was enough chit-chat. I wanted to get this done and mentally framed my breakup speech. I turned to Alec. ‘Could you please give us a few minutes alone?’

He hesitated before replying, ‘Are you sure?’

I nodded.

’
I’ll be just be outside.’ His fingers briefly touched mine before he turned and walked out.

I glanced at Dr Cardacci. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘I’ll come back later,’ she said and made a move as though to leave.

‘No, I’d like you to stay,’ Matt said and grabbed her hand.

I noticed she didn’t pull away, but looked at
me half apologetically, half—what? She held his hand and glanced down at him, almost… protectively!

Well, well
. She’s attracted to him!
And the way he looked at her completed the picture for me. I should have felt jealous. Only a few days ago he looked at me like that. Now…

I clasped my hands behind my back, afraid he’d see how much they shook.

‘Matt, I… I need to speak to you, privately.’

‘She stays.’

I looked at her. She blanched. This was a side to him I’d never seen before—inconsiderate and callous. Had he been hiding it these last four months?

I took a deep breath and thought of Alec waiting for me out in the corrido
r. ‘Matt... Alec—Dr Munro—and I met a few days ago. We… um…’ My hands began to sweat. This had to be one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. Matt’s gaze bored into mine, his mouth a tight line.
Perhaps if I don’t look at him, I can do this,
I thought. The word
coward
followed hard after.