Page 20 of Always Beth
‘Don’t say things like that.’ I choke.
‘James, just forget it, let’s go home.’
She shakes herself from me and storms towards the exit. As we weave in and out of oncoming patients, the tension between us increases. I’m practically sprinting across the car park to catch up with her. ‘Will you slow the fuck down?’
‘I don’t have the time for that. I don’t have time for anything anymore, especially not your denial. I need you to get your shit together.’ She presses hard against my chest, and I don’t know what’s more brutal, her touch or her words. My mind begins to race, my thoughts hurtling towards the now seemingly inevitable.
‘God, you can’t even say anything!’
I stumble back as the lightest of shoves to my chest catches me off guard.
‘Let’s go home,’ I mutter, pulling the car keys from my pocket.
‘No. I’m going home. You make your own way.’ Snatching the keys from my hand, she slams the car door and pulls away. As she disappears from view, I wander backwards from the empty parking space wondering how everything escalated so quickly.
‘Can you move!’ The cry is swiftly followed by the blast of a horn.
‘Calm the fuck down.’ I slam my hand on the bonnet and our eyes connect through the windscreen. Great, of all the times for her to show up, it’s now.
Beth
Why’s he here?
In a two-hundred-mile radius, I know exactly two people, one delivers my mail, the other is leaning his muscular body against my bonnet. He looks as bewildered as I am and after the last time I saw him, I feel like pushing on the accelerator, but as annoying as he is, I quite like looking at him. A lot.
‘Why are you here?’ He motions for me to wind down the window.
‘None of your business,’ I mouth through the glass. Although I would very much like it to be his business.
‘Just wind the window down, stop being so stubborn.’
My jaw aches from how hard I’m grinding my teeth, trying to hold it together. I stare at him as I hold the open button and as the barrier between us disappears, relief seems to wash across his face.
‘What do you want?’ I say abruptly.
Rolling his lips, he squints as he runs his hands through his hair, and I’m suddenly mesmerised by his awkwardness.I can take advantage of this. ‘Well. I don’t have all day.’
‘I, erm, couldn’t get a ride back to the village, that’s if you’re going that way. It’s no trouble if you’re not.’
‘I’m not.’
His brows arch in surprise and he chuckles quietly to himself. ‘Okay, Beth, I get it.’ Tapping the car twice, he steps away and begins to walk.
Shit.That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, I see him become more deflated with every step. I slam the car into reverse and sound the horn erratically. In the side mirror I see him jump to the side and the expression on his face is not dissimilar to when I threw his boxers at him in the lake.
‘You could have run me over!’ he thunders.
I wince as I nod towards accident and emergency. ‘At least we’re in the right place.’
‘Are you deliberately torturing me or are you miraculously now going my way? Because if you’re not, I don’t have time for it.’
‘I’m going home. Would you like a lift?’
‘Yes.’ He storms around the car and pulls repeatedly on the handle before I remember I have the locks on. When I finally let him in, he tugs the seat belt over and over, before hitting the dash sharply. ‘Fuck!’
‘Bad day?’
‘Bad fucking day,’ he mutters.
