The girl you forgot, p.1
The Girl You Forgot, page 1
The Girl You Forgot
Giselle Green
To Andrew
May you always be a light to others in dark places, when all other lights go out.
(Paraphrased from J.R.R Tolkein: The Two Towers)
Contents
Prologue
1. Will
2. Ava
3. Ava
4. Will
5. Will
6. Ava
7. Ava
8. Ava
9. Will
10. Will
11. Ava
12. Will
13. Ava
14. Ava
15. Ava
16. Will
17. Will
18. Ava
19. Will
20. Ava
21. Will
22. Ava
23. Ava
24. Will
25. Will
26. Will
27. Ava
28. Ava
29. Ava
30. Ava
31. Will
32. Ava
33. Will
34. Ava
35. Ava
36. Will
37. Ava
38. Ava
39. Ava
40. Will
41. Ava
42. Will
43. Ava
44. Ava
45. Ava
46. Will
47. Ava
48. Will
49. Will
50. Ava
51. Will
52. Ava
53. Ava
54. Ava
55. Will
56. Ava
57. Will
58. Will
59. Ava
60. Will
61. Ava
62. Will
63. Will
64. Ava
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
More from Giselle Green
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
Prologue
‘Why are you doing this?’ Will was sitting on our bed in the dark, plucking the strings of his guitar, I remember that. I remember striding in and flinging the curtains open wide and how, outside, the snow was falling, gently and steadily, covering over all the joyful pansies I’d planted out, freezing over all the bright and colourful things…
And also… how he never looked up, just carried on ignoring me while all I could do was stand there, my heart going nineteen to the dozen, feeling so scared. How he scared me with his single-minded purposefulness, his ability to block everyone and everything else out, me included. And then, above even that, I was just so sad because by then I already knew I had lost Will.
I knew there was nothing I could say and nothing I could do to make him budge and change his mind because he was always so damn…
‘Why are you being so stubborn?’ I went right up to him and put my hands across the neck of his precious guitar so he couldn’t play any more and he couldn’t ignore me or how he was breaking my heart.
‘How could you tell me you’d prefer to die rather than… than face your own pain?’
He looked up at me then, eyes sunken in sorrow and something in his despair stopped me in my tracks.
‘Please,’ I choked. ‘Please, please… think again.’
He sucked in his lips. ‘There is no point, my love.’
I sat down on the bed beside him, clinging onto his hand.
‘How can you…?’ I gulped. ‘How can you call me my love when you won’t do this one thing for me? This… one, simple thing.’
Did I see a small, sad smile cross his lips at that?
‘Sometimes, living,’ he said, ‘is the most difficult choice any of us ever have to make.’
‘Yes!’ I shook at his hand, desperate for him to hear me. ‘Yes, it is, Will. For me too, don’t forget. Upon us all, a little rain. – sometimes a whole sky full of rain – must fall! And you… yes, you’ve had your share, I don’t deny it…’
‘You think?’
‘That doesn’t mean you get away with killing yourself over it! That doesn’t mean it’s right and fair. What about me, what about your…?’
If only I could’ve said your child.
‘I’m not killing myself.’
I looked at him, my heart breaking. ‘What else do you call refusing a life-saving operation, Will? What else do you call it when you have the chance, you have the choice and you won’t…?’
He shook his head, but I couldn’t let it go.
‘This is about…’ I took in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘This is all about the baby, isn’t it?’
Head bowed, he went back to strumming his guitar. Anything, rather than listen to me. And I wanted to take that guitar and chop it up into little pieces and set fire to it with a match.
‘You’re…’ I was almost choking; let him have it. ‘You’re seriously willing to let yourself just… die… simply because the baby you thought was yours isn’t? That’s insane, William!’
I tried another tack. ‘Do you really hate this child I’m carrying so much?’
That one hit its mark. I saw it instantly. He looked up at me, shocked.
‘I don’t hate the child, Ava. How could you say that? I hate…’ He did something then, and there was this loud, reverberating twang as one of his guitar strings went flying off with some great force. His hand stretched out, and when he put it up to his face, I saw that he was crying, brushing tears away. My heart swelled with hope, because maybe it meant that he wasn’t freezing me and my words out any more?
‘I hate… that I won’t…’ He stopped then, lost for words. Closed his eyes for a brief moment. By the white daylight coming in through the snow-veiled window, all the little lines of pain on his face spoke louder than anything else so far. I saw his pain. That maybe this child I was carrying would always be a reminder of another man’s fertility?
‘I’m sorry, but we can’t turn the clock back, even if we wish…’ I gulped, not quite able to say the words, because how could I feel any regret for the outcome of my mistake?
‘I know.’ He touched my knee softly then. ‘And I, too, am sorry.’
‘Will…’I paused for a second. ‘You can’t forgive me… is that it?’
‘I can’t forget, Ava.’
‘And that’s it?’ I moved back then. ‘That’s what makes life not worth living? I messed up one time and now you don’t trust me any more?’
‘Jeez,’ he came back in a pained voice. ‘It isn’t just one thing, is it? This is all happening… much too fast, can’t you see?’ I saw him gulp then, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of the deep scare he’d been masking. ‘I haven’t even had time to get over what’s gone on between you and me and now my back’s immediately up against the wall with this op! There’s been no chance to process any of it.’
He paused. ‘Even if they save my life – from what we’ve been told, I’ll remember nothing at all about the past few years. Have you ever considered – I might not be the same man at all, when I wake up? What about… my music? What if I don’t like the man I am, when I wake up?’ He looked at me pointedly. ‘What if you don’t?’
I shook my head then, denying that could ever happen, but he hadn’t finished.
‘I’m sorry for what I’m doing to my family and everyone else who knows and cares about me, but most of all to you, because I do love you, Ava. You need to know that. I wanted this baby so bad, and I only wish…’ he said, voice breaking. ‘I wish I’d never known.’
He gave a sad laugh. ‘If only we could wipe everything out, right? Just like…’ He indicated through the window, where a thin blanket of snow lay over the ground outside, the world a clean, white slate, waiting to be walked on.
‘God, Will.’ I leaned in then, without even thinking what I was saying. ‘You won’t remember anything after the op, if you have it, will you?’
His hands went back to lock behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling for such a long time, I didn’t know where he’d gone.
At last, his eyes had crinkled in pain. ‘That’s true, I wouldn’t. You would, though? You’d remember.’
I nodded. ‘But… if you have this operation, if you’ll only agree to give life another chance, I swear, Will, I’m the one person who’ll ever know it.’
When he turned to look back at me, I thought I saw something shift deep in those blue-green eyes of his.
‘You’d do that?’
‘I’d do anything, Will! Whatever it takes to keep you alive, only don’t… don’t throw your whole life away on a whim, just because of a mood that will surely pass in time.’
‘And time,’ he said softly, ‘is the one thing I’m about to run out of.’
‘Will, we are already out of it!’ He knew it as well as I did. He’d been resisting the steadily mounting pressure to have this operation for the past week.
My voice got caught in my throat as I realised the truth of that. We didn’t know how long he’d have, but without this operation – it really would all be over. Will put his guitar down and pulled me to him, holding me close for a few, long minutes while I sobbed in his arms.
After the longest time, he spoke again. ‘This is all happening too quickly. It feels as if my whole world’s being ripped out from under me without warning but… maybe you are right.’
When I looked up, shocked, he finally said the words I’d been longing to hear.
‘I’ll have the operation. Because afterwards, I won’t remember anyth ing about the baby not being mine, or about how I can’t…’ He swallowed. ‘And, if you don’t ever tell me…’
‘I wouldn’t, Will. I’d never breathe a word.’
His hand tightened in mine. ‘You swear?’
‘I swear! Do you really imagine I’d ever risk putting you back in the terrible state I’m seeing you in, right now? Not in a million years. Not for anything.’
He gave the tiniest nod and I sent up a prayer of thanks, then. We had a solution. All I had to do was promise him he’d never know the truth about this child…
I thought in that moment that disaster was averted, that everything was going to be okay. He’d live, and my child would be blessed with the best, most loving daddy in the world, and we would all go on and be just fine.
That’s what I thought.
I didn’t see it, then.
How our carefully constructed plans could be wiped away in an instant. But maybe I should have. When I went to the window in a joyous daze, afterwards, there’d been a fine rain pattering down on the patio outside, melting the top layer of snow, wiping it all away, but underneath, my pansies – my bright and beautiful pansies, planted out with all my dreams of the glorious summer to come – they all lay battered and broken.
1
Will
‘Don’t try and move yet, please.’
Someone’s injecting something into my arm; I can feel it going in. Move? I feel as if I’ve plummeted out of a deep dream, the pit of my stomach not where it should be. He’s withdrawn the needle. Now he’s shining a light in my eyes.
‘Hello? Can you tell me your name, please?’
I squint, trying to get away from the glare.
‘That’s better.’ The light clicks off. When I refocus my eyes I’m not where I expected to be, even though I can’t remember where that is, either. There’s an unpleasant wooziness in my head. A sense that I’m circling somewhere up high in the sky, waiting to find somewhere to land. I make to sit up a little, but the man is staying my arm.
‘Can you tell me your name?’ His eyes peer intently into mine.
‘Will. Tyler.’ My mouth is dry. My lips feel swollen, tasting faintly of blood.
‘Perfect,’ he says, pumping up one of those blood-pressure bands around my arm. ‘You were away for a good few minutes there, Will.’
Away – where? I wait for the feeling of fear to subside in my chest and he adds, ‘You’re in hospital, Will. D’you know why you’re here?’
I have no idea but I’ve got the sense that I should.
‘Did I…? I took a tumble off my motorbike?’ My eyes close again as I try to remember.
Bits and pieces, like coloured confetti thrown up into the air on a windy day, shoot through my mind. I’m on my bike. Travelling fast, yes, but not too fast, enjoying the ride. And I’m feeling good. Impatient to meet someone who I’ve been longing to see. The sky is blue and clear and there’s practically no traffic about. I don’t remember coming off my bike, and I have no idea how much damage I might have done, but I feel a shaky relief at recalling at least that much.
‘Try and stay awake for me, please.’ His hand is pressing gently but firmly on my arm. ‘Are you in any discomfort?’
Am I? I lift up my hands in front of me and look at them.
My mouth feels a little swollen but I am not in any real pain. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Then a thought occurs to me and I feel a shot of pure fear in my stomach. I can’t move my head.
I croak, ‘Is my neck broken?’
‘Your neck is fine.’
I can’t turn my head, I realise, because it’s bandaged and there seems to be some clear plastic tubing coming out of it, too.
‘Christ, what the…?’ I’m learning I can’t move my legs, either. Maybe I’ve done some real damage – I don’t even want to look – but I’m praying it’s only the bedsheet wrapped round me too tightly. Suddenly I’m feeling cramped, locked in and I can’t breathe and there’s a strange smell. I feel something placed over my face and now I’m breathing in deeply through an oxygen mask.
‘Take some slow breaths for me, that’s right. Try and stay calm.’ He’s letting the armband down. There’s a whoosh and the pressure on my arm eases off. ‘You’ve come out of an operation and you’re in Intensive Care. My name’s Andy and I’ll be taking yours obs every fifteen minutes for the next few hours. Right now, I need you to stay awake and talk to me. Can you do that for me?’
An operation? Why don’t I remember that?
Reluctantly, I blink my eyes open for him. I need to breathe and stay awake. I know this is important. After a few minutes, he takes off the mask.
‘Can you tell me your age, Will?’
That one’s easy.
‘Twenty-seven.’
He sucks in a breath through his teeth at that and so I reassure him by elaborating. ‘I’m twenty-seven. I celebrated my birthday last month, in Berlin.’
He’s frowning.
‘Have I been in an accident?’ I ask shakily. ‘I came off my bike?’ Perhaps they brought me here by ambulance? I don’t remember that but they must have done.
‘No, Will.’ He’s still looking into my eyes intently. ‘You didn’t come off your bike. You won’t remember this, but you walked in here under your own steam yesterday morning and checked yourself in for elective surgery.’
I blink.
‘I… yesterday?’ I didn’t. He’s wrong. What’s happened to me? ‘What surgery?’
‘You had a malignant tumour on your brain that we’ve been monitoring for a while,’ he says. ‘We needed to remove it.’
A wave of pure dread runs through me on hearing that, because I might be confused right now but I know for a fact that’s not true.
‘No, I was on my bike,’ I insist. ‘I was on my way to…’ My mind stretches out into the void of a reluctant memory. Like a dream that stubbornly refuses to come. I blink at him, unable to shake my head, feeling lost.
‘I appreciate it must be hard for you to take this in. You’ll be able to talk to your people, soon, check it all out for yourself, I promise you. But you knew going in that it would be like this, that you wouldn’t remember.’ The look of sympathy on his face is genuine enough. ‘Believe me, we’ve spoken about this, many times.’ Many times? ‘Right now, you’re going to need to trust me on this one.’
We have never spoken about this.
‘I have never seen you before in my life,’ I tell him. He seems like a nice enough bloke, but…
‘Will, I am so sorry, but you have. You last saw me yesterday when you booked in.’ He lays his hand gently on my arm. ‘Besides, you told me you think you’re twenty-seven years old.’ He glances over automatically as the instrumentation on the side of the bed starts to beep, checks the oxygen monitor attached to my finger, then looks back at me.
‘You’ll need more thorough and extensive assessments done but at first glance – it looks as if you might have lost seven years…’
What is he… what?
‘Are you saying I’ve been in a coma?’ Seven fricking…
‘No. You’ve just forgotten. The brain is a complex organ, Will. Even small adjustments to its network can result in significant changes and your tumour was close to the area responsible for storing your most recent memories.’
‘I cannot,’ I tell him, ‘have lost seven years.’ But he’s looking at his watch, writing something down in my notes. ‘Listen, I… I…’
