Beyond Repair

Chapter 17 - Clara

I didn’t go far when I left him in that cold unfeeling room. I wanted to. All I wanted to do was run away. Get away from the pain. Even the smell of the hospital brought it all back to me. I hadn’t been with my parents when they had their accident. My father had died on impact, but my mother hadn’t. They took her to King’s College Hospital. I had been at school at the time and when my mother didn’t show up to collect me, I was made to stay behind with my English teacher.

The office must have been trying to contact my mum because the next thing I knew was that they were calling Mrs Williams out of the room. She was the one who told me what had happened and she was nice enough to take me to the hospital. At the time I hadn’t really thought about it, but looking back it was way beyond her job description to be dealing with all of that.

I ended up standing at the side of my mother’s lifeless body. Her head wrapped up like she was about to become an Egyptian mummy. Mrs Williams had told me to hold her hand to speak to her, but all I could do was stare at her. I was so afraid to touch her in case I hurt her in some way. It was like I needed to work myself up just to touch her familiar yet alien hand. I placed my hand on the bed and slowly I was inching it closer to her. Waiting for the moment when I would cause some sort of damage. My little finger just connected with hers and I felt the tensions flow out of me as I finally relaxed. She still felt the same. She was still my mother.

Then she moved and I was filled with hope instead of tension, but it was short lived. She wasn’t moving because she was trying to reach out to me. She was moving because she was starting to convulse and it seemed to get more and more violent. I felt two arms grip me and I was yanked backwards as medical staff swarmed past me. I ended up stood against the wall with Mrs Williams by my side. Watching on as the doctors and nurses tried to save my mother.

I shouldn’t have been in there. I shouldn’t have seen. Even at such a young age I knew I shouldn’t. Every part of me was conflicted. Not wanting to see, but not wanting to leave her alone. I had run then too. I was there frozen to the spot one minute and the next thing I knew I was bent over losing my stomach contents in the car park.

I had been a coward and ran away from my mother as she lay dying alone. It was one of my biggest regrets. I had I always convinced myself that I would never repeat. Except, I had. I repeated it the moment I ran out on Max. I hadn’t gone far. As soon as the cool air from outside had calmed my soul, I settled again.

I didn’t know how long I had stayed on the bench just outside the entrance to the clinic, but when I found the courage to return to Max, he was speaking with Gerry. I couldn’t interrupt, so I just sat there outside of his room trying to keep myself calm and not let the smell of disinfectant get to me again.

Thinking about it, Max and I weren’t that different. I may have a positive disposition versus his negative one, but we were both running from the trauma of the past.

I leant my head to the side trying to stretch my neck because it was starting to get stiff from all the tension building inside my body. I saw Gerry’s back strolling down the corridor and almost cursed him for being so casual despite everything that had happened. From the way Max and Gerry interacted I got the impression they were close, so why was he not as concerned as I was after everything that had happened?

A spark of hope appeared. Pulling my phone from my bag, I opened the camera app. Peering into the screen and trying to see how much of mess I looked after shedding tears over the memory of my mother. The last thing I wanted was for Max to think my tears were because of him. Not that I minded if he thought I cared about him because I did, but I didn’t want him feel bad on top of everything else he was going through.

I was lucky and had avoided being red and blotchy. Standing up and smoothing out my clothes before heading for his room. At least I knew it was safe to go in if Gerry had been and gone. The whole reason I had stayed outside was because I knew they would be discussing something that Max didn’t know I knew about. I hadn’t even decided if I was going to tell him I knew about the PTSD.

I plastered on my brightest smile, then thought twice. Remembering the reaction he had to me the first time we met and I used the same forced overly happy smile. There was no point pretending to be some bright ray of sunshine because I just wasn’t that person. I might have always tried to find the bright side but that didn’t make me carefree and bubbly. It just meant that I wasn’t a blubbering mess all the time. Instead I lost the smile all together.

Pushing the door open slowly, not entirely sure what I would find on the other side. I had learnt my lesson about barging into a room. “Hey…” It was lame and ridiculous, but I didn’t have any idea of what I was supposed to say to him.

“Hey.” He looked down at the sheet on his bed as though it was the most interesting thing in the world. His eyes came back up to mine and it nearly broke my heart. There was no denying the guilt and regret that laid within those mysterious eyes of his. “I’m sorry.”

There was no more caution left in me after seeing that look. I felt something inside me break and I knew then and there that I wouldn’t be able to fix it. That moment would forever be in my mind. For all his gruffness and negativity, the man had no trouble sneaking his way into my heart. I cared about him too deeply and it terrified me.

My body jerked itself forward even if my mind was telling it to run from all the possibilities of pain he could inflict. I had spent many years trying to keep people at a distance to avoid being crushed when I lost them. It was a coping mechanism and I knew that, but I had no control over it. Then in one moment, Max had managed to trigger me to ignore my flight reflex.

I perched myself on the bed beside him and laid my hand on his cheek, feeling the stubble beneath my thumb as I stroked it gently. “Don’t. Sorry is for when you have done something to hurt someone. You haven’t done anything, Max. No one can blame you for what happened today and I certainly won’t.” He looked at me again, but I knew he didn’t know what he was meant to say to me. I just leant my forehead against his and let out a sigh. “I wish you could see that people care about you. The you on the inside. The only person who thinks the PTSD or the wheelchair change who you are, is you. We all see you, just you.”

When I saw his hand move out the corner of my eye, I nearly pulled back. Wondering if I had gone too far, said too much. Before I had the chance his hand slipped behind my neck, the gliding of his fingertips against my skin leaving a burning trail of sensation. As he pulled me to him, it felt like time stood still.

His lips met mine with all the softness and feeling he was experiencing. He communicated more by the way he kissed me than he ever could with words. Full of tenderness. I knew it was my undoing. Between the emotional rollercoaster of the day and the realisation that I really cared about Max, the kiss just pushed me over the edge. Slow, sensual and seductive.

When he retreated, I just sat there. My head didn’t move a fraction as I felt my lips tingling and the need to continue raging through me like never before. He cleared his throat and just like that the spell was broken. I opened my eyes and the man who had kissed me had vanished in the blink of an eye. His walls were back up, even if he had managed to destroy my defences.