Page 41 of The Heir Apparent
She held up her hand. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. Chino tumbled back down the stairs, and triumphantly dropped the ball on my foot, ready for round two. “Everything’s upside down and I’m not coping. I didn’t really mean what I said.”
“It’s true, though. I failed you and Louis. And Kris. I just ran out of here and left you all.”
Chino howled with frustration as Amira and I looked at each other, leaving the ball untouched at our feet. I remembered our last year at Astley, when I had been sick with grief, moving through the dark tunnel of each day, only to succumb to my hot tears when we finally turned the lights off in our suite. Amira would reach across the void between our twin beds and take my hand.
“Well, you’re here now,” she said. “At least for a little while?”
“Yes, I’ve decided to stay,” I said. “For now.”
We sank onto the couch, the lush Hermès blanket finally put to use as we unfurled it over our knees. Chino settled himself between us and put his heavy head in my lap. I tried not to think of the little life I had created for myself in Tasmania, the one that was waiting for me as I slipped into the existence my brother left behind. I was sitting on his couch, stroking his dog, sleeping in his bed, contemplating the possibility that I might take his place in the line. At the worst moment of our lives, Louis had lied for me.
I had a year to decide if this was how I could finally make it up to him.
PART TWO
CHAPTER TWELVE
2 December 2022
A month before the helicopter landed, I was on shift at the hospital when I got a text from Ben.
Ur flatmate is in emergency, it read.
I looked at the screen with an almost reptilian detachment. The worst had happened. Again. As it always would. Distantly, I thought of the horrors that usually awaited me in the emergency department. Car accidents that annihilated the soft human body. Cardiac arrest in the young. Feet losing purchase on the highest rung of the ladder. A drowned woman, dripping and waterlogged on a gurney. I didn’t realise I was running down the hall until I was already in motion. At the nurses’ station, I checked the patient list with shaking hands and found him there:J. Jennings.
When I ripped back the curtain of his cubicle, he was sitting on the bed with his hand balanced on the steel tray beside him. Ben looked over his glasses at me and scowled.
“That was quick, Dr. Villiers,” he said.
I ignored him and went to Jack’s side, trying to pretend I wasn’t breathing quite so hard.
“What happened?” I rasped. My heart was cantering in my chest, even as I saw him whole and alive on the bed before me. There was a rose petal of blood on his t-shirt.
“Hey, I’m fine,” he said, smiling at me. Briefly, he put his good hand on the small of my back. “We were splitting trellises with the table saw and the wood kicked up and I got a splinter.”
I bent over the wound. The splinter was a monster. He’d clenched his hand the moment the wood pierced his skin, shattering it into fragments that would need to be plucked out individually. When I looked up, he was giving me his best Don’t Be Mad at Me smile.
“I told you to wear gloves when you use that thing,” I said.
“I know.”
“Do you know how dangerous table saws are? Johnny Cash’s brother was killed by one and that’s why his music is so sad.” He tried not to laugh at that, which only incensed me further. “You absolutely shouldn’t be standing at the end of it. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you that.”
“Dr. Villiers,” Ben said in a low voice, “can you please not berate my patient?”
The overhead paging system crackled, and a voice called for Ben to check in at the nurses’ station immediately. We eyed each other while Jack, sensing the mood, pretended to inspect his hand.
“You go,” I said to Ben. “I can handle this.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got three patients already. I’ll take care of Mr. Jennings.”
“All discharged. I’ll do this.”
Ben looked between us. The nurses’ station called his name again. “Can I talk to you for a moment in the hallway, Dr. Villiers?”
After he closed the curtain, he took his time scribbling notes on his chart before finally passing it over. I stood there, glowering at him.
“You know I don’t let doctors treat their friends—it’s unprofessional,” he said in the imperious voice that used to thrill me. “How do I know you’re going to make the best possible decisions when you’re this attached to the patient?”
