Breathe (29 page)

‘Great. Now you are going to get all worked up? Really? Can’t you handle anything?’

I didn’t answer her, I just let my body strive for air, without bothering to calm myself down. I didn’t care.

‘
Are you ok?’ I heard Julia say after awhile. She was far away. I couldn’t see her now, not because I was bending down, but because my sight started blurring.

‘
Alice, get over here. There is something wrong with her.’

That’s the last thing I heard before everything went black.

«We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.»
- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

I woke with the feeling of being moved.
Someone lifted me on to a bed. No, not a bed, a gurney. I tried to blink my eyes to see more clearly. A man was holding a rubber mask to my face. I lifted my hand to shove it away and get up. A hand was pushed down on my chest, forcing me to stay down.

‘
Easy, ma’am. You need to lie still.’

My head was throbbing, and I didn’t have the energy to try again.
But the rubber mask was annoying, and it smelled funny. I tried shoving it off again, but the hand who held it was firm.

‘
I’m fine,’ I tried to say through the mask. We were moving down the elevator and out to the reception area. Julia was standing there with a police officer. Then she saw me, and came rushing towards me. ‘I’m so sorry, Sara. You have to believe me. I’m so sorry.’

Her white shirt was covered in red, and it
took me a few seconds to realise it was blood. She was covered in blood. She took my hand and walked beside me to the entrance. The police officer was following us too. I couldn’t see Alice. I tried to remove the mask again.

‘
Please, ma’am. You need to lie still.’

Then we all heard some commotion outside the
entrance.

‘
Is there any way we can take another route?’ I heard Julia say.

‘
No, ma’am. We need to get to the vehicle.’

‘
Julia, you need to change,’ the strange woman from earlier said. Then there was a series of heavy flash as the door opened, and several photographers managed to get past some sort of security.

Julia backed up and was suddenly out of my seeing range
. Someone shoved the photographers away, and the gurney was outside. Alice came to my side, and held my hand as we moved.

‘
It’s ok. Don’t say anything. You are going to be ok.’ She was squeezing my hand, and didn’t let go as we walked through the masses. I heard the voices, but I didn’t understand the questions.

‘
Did you and Julia fight, Sara? Did she hurt you? Was this about Christopher? Are you Sara Nord? Did you follow Julia to her hotel?’

It seemed to take forever to reach the ambulance. I
was glad they kept the mask on now. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself on the beach.
This isn’t happening. Breath. It will all be over soon
.

‘
Her heart rate is up again,’ someone said. ‘Give her 2 mg of benzodiazepines.’

The sirens hit, and it made my head throb worse.
Alice was sitting by my head, and I saw tears running down her cheeks. I didn’t understand what was happening. I had passed out. I knew that. It wasn’t my first time, it was only because my brain didn’t get enough oxygen. I was fine now. I didn’t get why we had to rush to the hospital. I was fine. I tried removing the mask again. But then the sedative must have kicked in, cause it all went black again.

The hospital smelled like every other hospital. Disinfectant, probably iodoform which they used frequently when my mother had cancer. I never liked that smell, it was too clean, too unnatural. My head throbbed. Alice sat beside my gurney, other than her there was nobody else around. My mask was finally gone, but it was replaced by some tube stuck in my nose. We where in some kind of hallway, and Alice were busy texting on her phone. She looked up as I removed the tube.

‘
I don’t think you should do that.’

‘
Stupid hospital. Why am I here? I fainted right? No big deal. Can you help me get up?’

I tried to lift myself up, but my body felt like five hundred pounds.

‘Don’t move. A doctor will come in a minute.’

‘
I’m fine, Alice. Why did you call an ambulance?’

‘
I didn’t. Julia freaked out because of all the blood, so she called the reception. They called the ambulance.’

‘
Blood?’ I remembered Julia being covered in blood.

‘
You hit your head, sweetie. When you past out you hit the table on your way to the floor. You have a pretty nice cut on your forehead. They gave you seven stitches.’

My hand automatically reached for it, and I felt a bandage plastered on my upper right side. Alice got back to her phone. I could see she was reading some newspaper. I remembered the photographers then.

‘How bad is it?’ I asked in a whisper.

‘
Not very. They know it’s you, but not why you’re here or where you live. They think Julia tried to kill you,’ she laughed.

‘
That’s not funny,’ I muttered.

The doctor came, and insisted I did an x-ray. I tried to tell him I was fine, but he refused to listen.
Instead, he placed me in a room and insisted I’d stay the night. I might have a concussion. Alice came and told me Julia had called several times, on the verge of hysteria. She insisted we coordinate our story, and suggested that she would make a press release.

‘
We all know how that will sound,’ Alice smiled. Somehow she had been in a good mood since I woke, which was kind of annoying. She kept texting and stepping out to make phone calls.

The doctor making the late evening rounds was kind enough to release me after I promised to call them if I experience any nausea or dizziness. Alice took me to the basement where she had a car waiting. Apparently, there was a crowed waiting for me at the entrance.

The car was black, and had tinted glasses, and a driver emerged to open the back seat for us. I was surprised that Alice was coming, I knew she had a lot to do, but I figured maybe everything was put on hold because of Julia.

‘Alfred called,’ Alice said as the car drove of. The streets were dark, and I wondered what time it was.

‘
What did you tell him?’ I asked. ‘Is he relocating me again?’ I was starting to feel like I was in a witness protection program.

‘
No, I told him I’m handling it.’

‘
Are you? Handling it I mean? Can you make all this go away?’ I was so tired of all the drama. I knew most of it was my own fault, but seriously, did I deserve this coverage?

‘
I am. You’ll be fine’ she smiled, and I wanted to smack her. She was keeping something from me, I knew it. But I was thankful for having her.

‘
I’m glad you’re here,’ I said after a while. ‘When do you have to get back?’

She sighed and put her phone away.
‘Tonight. I’m heading back with the car as soon as we drop you off.’

It made me depressed. I didn’t want to go back to Newcastle and be on my own again. But where else would I go? Maybe back to London. By now it didn’t matter where I stayed. They would eventually find me anyway. Might as well get over with it. My father would love this. Maybe I should call him and ask if he would pose for a family photo, I thought grimly.

We hadn’t driven more than maybe an hour when the car slowed down to a stop. I looked outside the window, but it was all dark. We were far from any city. I turned to Alice, and she was smiling that annoying smile again.

‘
This is your stop,’ she said, as the driver opened my door.

I looked at her astonished.
‘Are you throwing me out? We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

‘
No, silly. There’s your ride. I need to get back to the city.’ She pointed to a similar car parked right beside us. A driver was stationed by the other door, ready to open it as I approached.

I turned to Alice again.
‘Are you sure?’

‘
Positive. I’ll call you later.’ Then she closed her door, and I was alone with the strange car and a large, Asian driver. He opened the door without a word, and I hesitated a second before getting in. I didn’t have much of a choice. As soon as I got inside, my heart stopped.

It was Christopher. In the car. For some reason he was really here. I wondered if I had hit my head a little too hard. Then I saw his eyes. He was angry
. I visibly shrunk. He was angry with me again, because I had caused a media frenzy, again.

‘
Are you ok?’ he asked, anger searing through his voice. I couldn’t believe Alice would do this to me. Did she really think I needed this today of all days. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to see him, but I couldn’t handle seeing him angry. It made me want to jump out of the moving car.

‘
I’m sorry,’ I said, ignoring his question. It wasn’t anything else I could say. I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just did.

‘You’re sorry? You’re sorry!’ He laughed bitterly, and I shrunk some more. I heard him mutter something to him self. Then he shook his head. ‘You’re saying sorry, after everything she did to you. Unbelievable. Tell me, did she make you fall, or did you really faint?’

He is blaming Julia. Not me. I wanted to laugh and sing and dance, instead I just leaned back and closed my eyes.
The relief washed over me. I was savouring the moment. He wasn’t angry with me. He was angry with her. But he shouldn’t blame her either, at least not for todays incident.

‘
I fainted. I had a panic attack, again. I was stupid,’ I confessed.

‘
Why were you having a panic attack? What did she say?’ He still needed to blame her.

‘
It doesn’t matter. What are you doing here?’ I still couldn’t believe he was here, with me. I had dreamt of this for months, but never believing it would actually happen.

‘
I had a fight with Julia. She…’ he grabbed my hand and it felt nice. ‘She refused to sign some papers. I was on the plane over here from Singapore when it happened. It was all over the news when I landed. They wrote that Julia had attacked you. She didn’t, did she?’

I shook my head, a painful motion.
‘Is that what they writing?’

‘
Yes, and they are blowing it up to extent. It’s mostly bullshit. You shouldn’t worry about it. How is your head?’

‘
Like the worst hangover ever. What are you doing here?’ I asked again.

He looked at me
worried. ‘I told you, I was going to make Julia sign some papers.’

‘
No, I mean what are you doing here, in this car?’

‘
I wanted to know if you were ok.’

‘
You could have called.’

‘
I know. I wanted to see you.’

‘
Why?’

‘
I needed to see you. I have been searching for you for months. I had Anna check if you had gone back to Norway, but she found no trace of you anywhere. Your lawyer refused to tell me were you where, he said I was “bad” for you, and that I needed to leave you alone.’

‘
Alfred said that?’ I wanted to be furious with Alfred, but I knew he was only looking out for me. Had he really been searching for me for months? I had hit my head. None of this made sense.

‘
You can’t really blame him, you have had a rough time since I came into your life. But I only wanted to make sure your were ok.’

So he was feeling guilty. That’s why he was here. I almost had my hopes up.

‘I called Julia as soon as I saw the news. She was actually crying, so she is upset by the whole thing. She gave me Alice number. God, Sara! I was so worried.’ He squeezed my hand, making my hope rise again. I pulled back and moved away from him. I couldn’t let myself get hurt anymore.

He looked hurt by my movement.
‘Am I too late? Have you moved on? Cause I won’t blame you if you have. I really made a mess out of things.’

‘
I don’t understand,’ I said, trying to comprehend his words, refusing to accept them.

‘
Is there any changes you will forgive me?’

‘
For what?’ I had nothing to forgive him from. I had fallen for him all by myself.

‘
For being a jerk when I thought you had sold me out. For not calling you when I realised my mistake. For causing a scene at the premiere night, and make you public news. The list goes on and on. Honestly, I can see why this Alfred wants me to stay away. If I had any willpower in me I would. I’m afraid I’m a little too selfish.’