Page 109 of The Last Kiss

There isn’t a single will inside of me to open my eyes. I like the dark. It’s nice here, numb. The sound of a whooshing noise fills my ears. Rhythmic and soothing, a bit like breathing.

“Jules, sweetie, I’m here.”

Who is that? Don’t they know I’m listening to the ocean on the sand. Not the Perpignan sea. No, not the sea with him, breaker of hearts, sandy orgasm giver.

No, this sea is the Atlantic, angry against rocks, punishing the earth for something it will probably never understand.

“When will she wake up?” The voice buzzes in again. There’s a flurry of words I don’t understand and then the blissful note of a voice I think I’d know anywhere, calling my name, Waterloo Station, Oxford Street, hell.

Oh fuck. I’m in hell, aren’t I?

“They said, they don’t know.”

“Don’t know what? If she will wake up at all, or just when?”

There’s a breeze near what I think was once my face. A low murmur that pulls me to the surface of the ocean. “Ma petite, I want to have a word with you. You’d better be ready.”

I try to blink. Nothing happens, just a never-ending void and the whoosh of the sea.

* * *

“She’s waking.”

It’s Liv, sat by the bed, her face a white and pink splodgy mess as though someone has tripped over while carrying an Eton mess.

“I thought I’d lost you.” Her hand squeezes mine. Putting her head down next to my waist she sobs, shoulders shaking. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Trying to lift my hand to comfort her I fail, because it’s weighed down with tubes and wires. Do not look at the tubes, Julia, do not. Too late. Ugh. I think I’m going to hurl.

Liv, almost on instinct, reaches for the sick bowl, although I’m distracted by the movement of a hulking shadow lurking in the corner of the room. It moves, slipping through the door before I can react.

I was so angry with him.

So angry.

Now, now… it seems so silly. As far-fetched as it all seemed, it also now seems entirely plausible. I already knew his mum was a half-cooked control freak… I should have listened. Should have not nearly bloody died.

Liv helps me up as I retch into the bowl, but nothing comes up. “What happened?”

She starts to cry, which never bodes well. “You had a massive heart attack, Jules. I don’t know how they restarted your heart.”

The tears run faster down her face, but strangely I’m detached like the words we are speaking aren’t about me at all. I can only think of one thing, one person; like my entire existence has zeroed down to the size of a pinhead.

“He’s cross with me, isn’t he?”

“Jules, he kept your heart pumping while the ambulance came. You’d be dead if it wasn’t for him.”

“No. But I mean he’s cross, annoyed that I overreacted.”

She shrugs… far too long in a French hospital. “He hasn’t spoken. Hardly at all, apart from to say he’ll go to get your stuff.”

Oh God.

I really am going home.

“How long have I been out?”

“A day.”