What Remains (22 page)

“I—I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Tell me from the beginning. Why is Indie here?”

“Her mum brought her.”

Rupert had figured that much but swallowed his impatience. Jodi looked shell-shocked, and no good would come from pushing him to explain himself faster. “When?”

“Seven, maybe? Her mum said it was nearly her bedtime.”

“What else did she say?”

“That she’d be back in a few days.”

“That’s it?”

“I think so.”

Jodi’s gaze faltered. For a moment, Rupert thought Jodi might faint, or worse. He slipped Jodi’s good arm over his shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you up. What are you doing out here anyway?”

“I couldn’t sleep, Rupe. I was so scared I’d break her.”

Rupe
. Rupert wanted to cry. It had been so long since Jodi had last called him that. “I can’t believe Jen left her here without telling me. I’m so sorry.”

“Jen? Is that her mum?”

“Yes. She called me earlier, asking me to have Indie here for a few days, but I told her no. This is her way of getting even.”

Jodi took slow, shuffling steps across the hall into the main bedroom, leaning on Rupert for support, a telling sign of how tired he was, until he reached the bed and sank down on it. “I didn’t know her. I opened the door, and she just started yelling. She wouldn’t let me speak, and she was gone before I could tell her I didn’t have a fucking clue who she was.”

Rupert was livid. It was so Jen to show up and dump Indie like a stray cat without a thought for anyone but herself. Lord knew, she’d done it before, to him, to Jodi, but that was before Jodi had survived an accident that could’ve killed him, only to live a life trapped behind a shadow on an MRI scan. Before Jodi had become a man barely able to take care of himself, let alone a child. Rupert had long ago lost the will to bear Jen much ill feeling, but fuck, in that moment he
hated
her.

Movement on the bed brought him back to the present. Jodi had scooted across the bed and wrapped his arms around his knees, making himself as small as possible, his gaze apprehensive, perhaps, even afraid.

Rupert touched his arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know her.”

“What?”

“I’m
sorry
, okay?” Jodi’s voice rose. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember her, or Indie, or you. I’m sorry I can’t remember anything that matters. I just— I’m trying. I’m trying all the time, then people tell me stuff that doesn’t make any sense, and I don’t know what to do. Then Indie came, and I didn’t know what to do. I made her toast and milk and put her to bed. She made me sit with her, and she was talking to me like I was her best friend, and I didn’t know what to do. I never know what to do. I’m sorry, Rupert. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Jodi broke off with a racking sob that obliterated what was left of Rupert’s shattered heart. He took Jodi in his arms before he truly knew what he was doing, crushing Jodi against him, holding him as tight as he dared, like he could draw the hurt out of him with a simple embrace. “It’s all right, boyo. It’s all right. You’re okay.”

“I’m not, though, am I?” Jodi raised his head. His face was wet, and his eyes more lost than Rupert had ever seen them. “Your daughter knows me better than I know myself, and I can barely remember her name. What’s okay about that?”

Rupert sat back on the bed so Jodi could relax against him—or escape if he needed to. “It’ll get better. It
is
getting better.”

Jodi said nothing, but he made no move to disentangle himself. If anything, he pressed closer, like he was trying to hide away in Rupert’s chest. Rupert hugged him tighter. Seeing Jodi so distraught was gut-wrenching, but he couldn’t deny it felt amazing to hold him. To feel him, touch him, breathe him in, and revel briefly in the fact that Jodi had chosen to be so close. He shut his eyes. Perhaps if neither of them spoke, the world would stop turning and they could stay this way forever.

“Indie showed me the dress she wants to wear to our wedding.”

“What?” Rupert’s eyes flew open.

Jodi stared back at him. For the first time since the accident, he didn’t look bewildered.

“She told me I was your boyfriend, that I had been since she was tiny, and she wants us to get married.”

Words failed Rupert. He’d always known Indie would give him away, if Jodi even believed her, which was doubtful. He hadn’t believed anyone else. “I—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Jodi—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jodi’s voice was low, but the anger in his tone left nowhere to hide. “All this time I thought I was going fucking mad and you
knew
. Everyone knew, didn’t they?”

“Knew what?”

“Don’t give me that shit.” Jodi scrambled from the bed, lurching to his feet. Rupert stood too and moved to steady him, but Jodi blocked his reaching hands. “Why didn’t you tell me? Some bloke stopped me in the street and called you my boyfriend, then I come home and a child I can’t even fucking remember does the same. Can’t you see how messed up that is? Why didn’t
you
tell me?”

Rupert took a deep breath as he absorbed Jodi’s fury. He’d waited so long to finally tell Jodi the truth, part of him had made a tired, warped kind of peace with the fact he probably never would. That all he and Jodi had shared would remain confined to a past Jodi would never remember. “Indie told you whatever she told you because she was the only one I didn’t ask not to.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What does? Oh
God
.” The enormity of what was about to happen nearly sent Rupert to his knees. “Jodi, please, you have to understand. You’d been awake for ages, but you hadn’t spoken . . . I didn’t know what to do.”

Jodi stared, his gaze a potent mixture of rage and confusion. “I know all this. I know I was a walking zombie for months. It doesn’t explain why you never told me something so fucking important.”

Rupert should’ve found hope in the fact that Jodi felt what Indie had told him was important, but his mind was in bits. What if Jodi believed it and rejected Rupert anyway? Rejected him once and for all? Living in limbo had left Rupert a broken man, but with no end in sight it had been too easy to imagine another world, a world where Jodi had woken up remembering how much they loved each other.

How much I still love him.
“I tried to tell you when you first woke up, but you didn’t understand. Then the doctors tried to tell you too, and you got really ill—you deteriorated, you didn’t speak for days. It was like you couldn’t bear it, like it horrified you so much you’d rather be dead—” Rupert faltered. “You came back, but you didn’t remember being awake, and you didn’t remember me at all.”

“I still don’t remember you.”

Rupert tore his gaze from the floor. “I know, and I’ve come to accept you probably never will.”

“I should, though, shouldn’t I?” Jodi took an unsteady step forward. “I should remember you because I was in love with you.”

Was
. Rupert swallowed the bile in his throat. “Is that what Indie told you? That you were in love with me?”

“No. She told me I was your boyfriend. I’d already worked the rest out for myself.”

“Eh?” Rupert felt dizzy. “I don’t understand.”

Jodi snorted. “Not nice, is it? To feel so much about something that doesn’t make any sense?”

Rupert sank backward onto the bed. “You had your voice back. You could speak up for yourself, tell the doctors what hurt so they could help you get better. Tell Sophie you needed her. It seemed like you’d been trapped behind that fucking scar on your brain for so long, I couldn’t be the reason you lost yourself again.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make. You should’ve told me who you were to me. All that time I thought you were some creepy flatmate who stared at me a lot. Scared the shit out of me when I found myself gawping at you too.”

Rupert blinked. “What?”

For a moment it seemed Jodi might leave the room, but he didn’t. He sat down beside Rupert, close enough that their legs almost brushed. “I wish I could remember how it felt to be in love with you, but I can’t, because I don’t know you.”

“I get it,” Rupert said. “The doctors kept warning us not to put ideas in your head, that we couldn’t lead you to the memories that meant the most to us—to me. I’m so sorry, Jodi. I just didn’t know what to do.”

Jodi sighed. “I’m tired, but to be honest with you, I’m fucking relieved. I thought I had a glitch in my noggin that was making me gay or some shit, like the accident had twisted my dick and pointed it in the wrong direction. To know it’s real—that it’s tangible. Fuck. It makes more sense than anything I’ve ever known.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Rupert felt like he’d been dropped into a vortex that took his wildest dreams and stretched them around a muted reality that didn’t quite fit. “If it’s any comfort, as far as I knew up until the accident, you still liked girls too.”

“So I’m not gay? Jesus Christ. I’ve only just caught up.”

Rupert laughed a laugh that wasn’t as hollow as he expected. “You’re not anything, boyo. You’re
you
, like everyone else.”

Jodi rolled over in bed and collided with a warm, comforting mass. He reached out, finding soft cotton and then skin, smooth skin that felt like nothing he’d ever touched before. He opened his eyes, and the last time he’d been awake, whenever that had been, came flooding back to him. The day that had seemed to go on and on, and the night that felt never-ending until Rupert had finally come home.

The rest of the previous day was a little blurred. The session with Ken, the dazed Tube ride. The never-ending wait for Rupert to return. And then the knock at the door that had accelerated the slow journey his damaged brain was taking to the conclusion that, by now, felt almost inevitable.

Couldn’t say he cared for Rupert’s ex much, but the girl? Indie? Despite the bombshells she’d unwittingly chucked Jodi’s way, he’d found himself spellbound by her. Indie was bright, fierce, and beautiful. Jodi couldn’t remember loving her any more than he remembered loving Rupert, but he’d adored her from the moment she’d pulled on his beard and told him he looked like a troll.

“Don’t let Daddy grow a beard. It turns orange when it gets too long and scratches my face.”

“
How would I stop him?”

“
He listens to you. That’s what boyfriends do.”

Jodi stared at Rupert. In his hazel eyes, there was a lot of Indie, but beyond the beautiful little girl, he saw Rupert, really saw him, perhaps for the first time since he’d set eyes on him after the accident. Rupert seemed nervous, and tired, like he hadn’t slept a wink in days. Jodi tried to speak, to tell him something, anything, to let him know he was okay—that they were both okay, together—but nothing intelligible came out.

“Shh.” Rupert touched Jodi’s face briefly, like a whisper. “You’re exhausted. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk later.”

Jodi was powerless to protest. His mind was alive with a million questions, but his body was weak, and he could barely summon the energy to close his eyes.

But he did close them, and the next time he woke, he was alone, and the spot where Rupert had been lying was cold.

He shivered and sat up slowly, testing his equilibrium for the dizziness that sometimes plagued him first thing in the morning. Not that he knew whether it was morning. With the blinds closed and the bedside lamp on, he had no idea what time it was. Or where Rupert was.

Anxiety lanced Jodi’s heart. In recent weeks, he’d grown used to the comfort of Rupert’s presence, and his absence now was terrifying. What if it had all been a dream? What if he’d imagined the resolution to the turmoil he still felt deep in his belly? What if it never went away?
What if, what if, what if
.

Fuck this shit.

Jodi stood just as the bedroom door opened. Indie danced in and scampered onto the bed.

“Mum and Daddy are arguing outside because Daddy made her come back for me. Can we watch your old Bucky O’Hare videos?”

Okay. So the part about Rupert’s bitch of an ex and his mesmerising daughter showing up on the doorstep definitely wasn’t a dream. Jodi blew out a breath and sat down again. “I don’t know where they are.”

Indie hopped off the bed and opened a drawer. “You keep them in here, silly, with your
South Park
DVDs, but you don’t let me watch them. Daddy says they’re rude.”

“Yeah? He’s probably right.”

“Probably. You always say he is.” Indie retrieved a battered VHS case and jammed it in the dusty machine Jodi had assumed was broken. “Where’s the video remote?”

“Um . . .” Jodi glanced around. He hadn’t used the TV at the end of the bed since he came home from hospital. “Are you sure you’ve got time? Isn’t your mum here to pick you up?”

“That’s what they’re arguing about. She wants me to stay until Saturday. Dad says he has to work, but that doesn’t matter, does it? You can babysit me.”

“Haven’t you got school?”

“It’s half-term.”

Jodi had no answer to that. He stayed put on the bed, not trusting himself to get up and walk around just yet. Indie crawled in front of him, brandishing a battered remote control and a sparkly pink hairbrush.