Always and Only You

Chapter Thirty-Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Present Day

For a long time, I swim around in a misty soup. I hear voices, see people, but the details are lost to the fog. And then even the memory that those things happened is swallowed up too, until there is nothing but a pearly haze without sense of time or space.

I don’t know how long I stay there – it could be days, it could be weeks – but eventually I can tell I’m in a room. I open my eyes and I see Anjali. I close them again. The next time my lids open, my mother is sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my hand.

I try to say something to her, but I don’t know what.

‘Shh …’ she says, stroking my hair, and then back into the fog I go.

It feels as if I open my eyes again almost immediately, but now it’s dark outside the long rectangular window. My eyelids feel heavy. In fact, every single part of me feels heavy. I move my hand and I hear a chair scrape. Someone hurries over to the bed I am lying on. It takes an effort to focus, but when I do, I see Gil.

Relief floods me. Did we survive the boating accident? Is that why I’m here? Did we almost drown before someone pulled us from the water?

But I can’t ask him any of these things as he covers my hand with his own. The thoughts and questions are inside my head, but I can’t seem to find the right words, any words, to express them. In the end, all I can manage is a weak smile. ‘Hey you …’ I say inside my head, and I move a finger underneath his hand, making contact the only way I can.

I have to concentrate to get my eyelids to stay open, and if I don’t pay attention they just slide closed again. Before I return to the mist, I want to see his face, so I put all my willpower behind it. I open my eyes and make them focus.

It takes a couple of seconds, but he gets steadily less blurry. I see him looking down at me with a patchwork of emotions – pain, fear, hope, relief. And something else I can’t name. Something warm and safe and …

It’s no good. The word eludes me. But it’s all I need for now.

I give in to the heaviness and the white blanket of unconsciousness claims me again.

For a long time, there’s nothing and then I’m sitting up in bed and a man is on the chair next to it. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he whispers. He leans over and kisses my forehead, then puts his arms around me. The hug feels nice, warm. But it also feels different. Not wrong, but as if I’m trying on an old pair of shoes I haven’t worn in a while.

He tells me how scared he’s been, how he’s so glad I’ve finally come back to him. That’s all he’s ever wanted. He loves me. He can’t bear the thought of life without me.

Oh, yes, I think, as a thought enters my mind and floats through it effortlessly. This is Simon. I’m going to marry him.

But then …?

Who was …?

It doesn’t matter.

The memory has gone again. All I can remember is here and now. Exhausted by my mental activity, I slide beneath the surface of consciousness again until my brain is rested enough to have another go at being awake.