“Don’t leave me, sunshine, please,” I whispered again and again, more pleading each time, like prayers to a god I didn’t believe in.
Then—sirens. Blue and red flooded the road above. The rain dulled the sounds, shouts echoed around me, blurred and distant.
Then I heard a knocking sound—like knuckles on a door. My chest squeezed. My lungs constricted. Darkness closed in onmy vision—I couldn’t breathe. Voices rushed around me, but I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.
And suddenly—I wasn’t here.
I was ten. Rain against the window in my childhood bedroom. A knock at the door. Muffled voices as I made my way to the stairs and appeared down. Police uniforms lit by flashing lights. Red and blue’s filled the hallway. My father’s crumpling body as a police officer held him in a comforting way. The words that ripped my world apart:drink driver. Killed instantly.We’re sorry for your loss.My mother gone.
The memory punched through me. My chest locked. My throat closed. The two scenes bled together—the rain, the sirens, the helplessness.
“Sir, are you coming in the ambulance with your girlfriend?” a paramedic asked. My vision cleared. Matilda was strapped to a stretcher, already being loaded into the ambulance. I had no memory of them taking her from my arms.
“Do you need help, sir?” another paramedic asked, gesturing to the gash on my head. Only then did I notice my fingers covered in blood when I touched it.
I shook my head slightly, shock still coursing through me, freezing me in place.
Girlfriend. The word should have lit me up. It should have been my anchor. I wanted to shout yes—God, yes. I wanted to climb in beside her, hold her hand, never let her go.
But my legs wouldn’t move. They just wouldn’t fucking move. My body betrayed me. I stood rooted to the road, frozen. If I got in that ambulance, if I watched her fade under those same lights—I didn’t think I’d survive it.
The doors slammed shut. The siren wailed. Time passed by me, like I was a ghost watching the world move on without me.
And just like that, she was gone.
I stood there in the rain, blood running from the cuts on my face, washing from my hands onto the road beneath me. The storm swallowed me whole.
The love I’d just found was slipping away, and I’d let her go.
I just let her go—and I will never forgive myself.
Forty Four
Matilda
Agentle beeping kept trying to drag me out of my dream—or was it a nightmare? Flashes of Henry smiling, laughing with me in the car filled my mind, but then came flashes of smashed glass, the sound of screeching tires, and crunching metal consuming my happy dreams.
“Please wake up, sunshine.” The words played like a mantra in my dreamlike state. Then the beep, beep, beep started again. Is that rain? The tapping of what sounds like rain on a tin can keeps drumming away. I can hear people talk, is that Henry? Why is he crying?Please wake up sunshine, don’t leave me.
I want to call to him but I can’t speak. I can’t move. Through the haze, I heard a different voice.
“Matilda, sweetie, can you hear me?”
Bright lights burned as I tried to open my eyes to the sound of my mum’s voice. My throat was so dry—God, why couldn’t I swallow?
“Water,” I managed in a husky whisper, and a second later, a straw touched my lips. It hurt to swallow, but the coldness of the water was like heaven.
“What happened?” I croaked after a beat. My eyes finally adjusted. Plain white walls. White ceiling. I was on a bed, a papery-looking curtain surrounding my cubicle. A hospital?!
My mind spiraled as memories tumbled back—the car, Henry, the rain, the other vehicle swerving into our lane—and then everything going very, very dark. My gaze dropped to the cast wrapped around my left arm, and as my breath quickened, a sudden burning ache flared in my ribs. I must have winced, because my mother, father, and sister were instantly at my bedside, telling me not to move.
“Slowly, sweetheart. You were in a bad car accident,” Mum said softly, brushing my hair back behind my ear.
“Henry?!” I barked, realising for the first time through the fog in my head that he wasn’t there. Panic surged. Was he in another bed? Was he badly injured? Was he—no. I couldn’t finish that thought. He had to be okay.
I turned to Rachel, and she looked furious. Mum and Dad, on the other hand, looked… sad. What the hell was going on?
“He’s not here, darling,” Mum said in that overly gentle voice you use when you’re trying to soothe a child.
