Page 258 of This Woman Forever

“My mum fed me a salad.” A fucking salad. “I’m not hungry.”

Give me strength. And then it occurs to me. “What have you told them?”

“Everything,” she says, simple and easy. “Except for your four-day absence.”

“Okay,” I whisper, feeling heavier on the bed. Everything. “Go and get something to eat.”

“I’m not hun?—”

“Don’t make me tell you again, lady,” I snap, done. She will not use my inability to walk to her advantage. “Piss bag or not, I’ll march you down to that fucking restaurant myself and shove some food down your throat.”

She recoils, injured, and I feel utterly shit about it. Fuck. They know everything. All of my horrid secrets and fuckups. “I’ll get you something too,” she says quietly.

“I’m not hungry,” I reply, hearing the door close behind her. I drop my eyes and stare at the wood, just as it opens again. Nurse has a bag of fluid in her hands. She chitchats happily, while I lie back, letting her change the bag and inject something into the canula on the back of my hand, sending freezing cold liquid up my arm.

“Twins,” she says, washing her hands at the sink. “How exciting. You better hurry up and recover.”

“I will as soon as they let me out of bed.”

She chuckles. “Slowly but surely. You’ll fall flat on your face if you stand up too soon.”

“Right,” I say, watching her leave. I shouldn’t have snapped at Ava. I sigh and close my eyes, feeling like I’m running the gauntlet of flashbacks and memories. In my body, out of my body, struggling to straighten everything out, figure out what’s real and what was dreamt. Her parents are here. I squint in my darkness, pulling something from the back of my mind. Elizabeth. I heard her. Yes, she was trying to get Ava to eat. She settled for a salad. It’s something, and I’m grateful. Did I hear the big man? I breathe in when it comes to me. John on the floor. He was hurt. They were remanded. Both of them. Both? My brain begins to ache, and then the floodgates open again, another mishmash of recollections hitting me. I hear my dad.

I still, willing that particular memory forward. Were they here?

And I deflate.

Why would they be?

A light knock on the door sounds, and I snap my eyes open. Did I imagine hearing Dad? Did it happen? I get frustrated with myself, not knowing what’s real, what’s not, what was a dream, a memory, a flashback. All I know right now is Ava is real, she’s pregnant, I’m really fucking broken, my in-laws are here, and they know everything.

The door opens, and a head appears around it.

Who it is sends me into an instant spin. “Sarah?” I gasp, trying to sit up, cursing and giving up, falling back to my back on a hiss. “You can’t be here.” I’m ambushed by every shitty thing she’s done to us, panic overtaking me. She tried to break us up. She tried to chase Ava away. She whipped me, told Ava’s ex I’m an alcoholic, fed him shit on me.

Ava will lose her mind. I’ve put her through enough since I came round, offloaded the past I tried to bury, and now Sarah’s here? No. “Please, you have to go.”

“Ava knows I’m here,” she says, slipping in and closing the door.

“What?” I can’t imagine that’s true. Why would I believe her? She’s lied persistently and callously since I met Ava. I reach for my aching head, feeling information overload.

“She’s outside.” She stands at the end of my bed, pulling her bag onto her shoulder. I catch sight of a bandage on her wrist. And another memory comes to me.

“You tried?—”

She shifts uncomfortably, rearranging her sleeves to cover the evidence. “How do you feel?”

“Terrible.”

She nods, not asking to take a seat, and I don’t offer her one either. I’m uncomfortable. Why is she here? “Jesse?—”

“I can’t forgive you, Sarah,” I say, making her step back. “I can feel sorry for you, but I can’t forgive you for trying to ruin the best thing that’s happened to me since Rosie.”

Her eyes drop, shame emanating from her feeble form. “I didn’t want you to be happy without me.”

It’s a horrible punch in the gut. Horrible. “Why?”

“Because I’m in love with you,” she whispers, finally saying it out loud. “I’ve been in love with you since we were seventeen, Jesse. I stayed with Carmichael so I could stay with you. Got pregnant to keep my place in his life. Your life. I whipped people and imagined it was you. Punishment for not loving me back.”

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