The Sanatorium(93)

She clamps her hand over it, trying to stanch the flow of blood. “It’ll be okay, Will. It’ll be okay.”





75





Elin can’t equate the pale figure in the bed with the Will she knows. There’s no sparkle, none of his usual zest for life—the uncoiled energy always threatening to spring free. She’s not sure if her mind’s playing tricks on her, but his breathing sounds staccato, unsteady.

Inching forward, she reaches out a hand, laying it across his. It doesn’t move; he doesn’t register the weight of her fingers.

Her breath catches as she watches him. His head is tilted to the left, the dark blond of his hair limp against the pillow. His face is drained of color, the familiar lines between his features flattened, lain smooth. There’s purple bruising to his face, in addition to multiple small contusions.

A blanket is pulled high over his waist, covering the wound. It’s deep, but it had missed major organs and arteries.

Once they’d got him up to the room, Sara, a trained nurse, had dealt with it efficiently, thoroughly. She’d cleaned the wound, dressed it, administered basic painkillers and sedation, but he’ll need proper treatment soon—antibiotics and monitoring.

Elin freezes. His breathing’s changed again: a heavy rasp before settling back into the unsteady rhythm of before. The animalistic noise triggers something inside her—panic. This is my fault. I’m responsible.

Stepping back from the bed, she narrows her eyes, hopes to change the perspective, make the scene something different.

It works: time tips, folds back on itself. Not to Will, but to Sam.

She can picture him like this, laid out beside the rock pool. He looked the same as always: pale, skinny body, matted white hair, but there was something blank about him, as if something hungry had found its way inside him, scraped him clean.

She remembers feeling hot, then angry. In her childish selfishness, she’d expected more, an expression on his face—some kind of sign that he was sad to have gone, to have left her, but there was nothing. Only a void. It’s the same now, with Will.

Her shoulders start to heave.

“He’ll be okay.” Isaac grasps her hand. “We got him out in time.”

Only just, Elin thinks, images flickering through her head: the smeared blood on her hands, the floor. Calling Isaac, slippery fingers fumbling over her phone.

Details of what followed escape her. Fragmented pictures: Sara treating him on the filthy floor, staff moving around him—a continuous loop of bodies, shouted instructions.

“Elin, as soon as the medics get here, they’ll take him to the hospital. He’ll be fine.” Isaac tries to meet her gaze, but she looks away.

She can’t stop thinking it over, the same words on loop:

Will’s in that bed because of me. Because of what I did.

He’d wanted to go with her, protect her, and she’d failed him. “I did this to him, Isaac. I rushed into it. He warned me—”

“Elin, don’t.”

“No. It’s true. I pulled him into this. I’ve been a crap girlfriend. It’s not just this, I’ve been messing up ever since we got together. I’ve kept him at arm’s length, never let him get close . . .” Her voice catches. “What if something happens? He takes a turn for the worse? I’ve never told him how I feel, not properly.”

Elin stops, puts her fingers to her temple.

Something strange is in her head: a blizzard of emotion, feelings crisscrossing, misfiring.

Isaac’s looking at her, his face suffused with embarrassment, fear. Isaac, who’s never lost for words, is struggling. His own grief mirrors hers; it’s too much to handle. He, like her, is coming unstuck.

His mouth moves, starts to make words, but none come out, either that or she can’t hear them. There’s a strange distance; the world is receding to a pinpoint—a familiar, liquid blackness. A familiarity. The breath in her lungs is being replaced with something denser, heavier—a boulder rolling inside her chest.

“I can’t do this, Isaac, I can’t.” Her breaths are falling over themselves, stunted, half formed. She tries to focus on the picture on the wall: the abstract slashes of paint, but the lines won’t resolve.

“Elin? Have you got your inhaler?”

She closes her eyes. Darkness. She senses a burst of movement, a hand in her pockets, then close to her mouth. Blocky plastic against her lips, her teeth.

“Breathe in.” There’s a sudden rush of gas, cool, dry in her mouth.

It only takes seconds. Her chest starts to loosen, her breathing softening.

Head still swimming, she turns to Isaac. “Sorry, I—”

“It’s fine.” He takes her arm, propels her backward, onto the sofa. “I had no idea your asthma was this bad.”

Elin draws herself upright. For a few, fleeting moments, she considers lying, but she knows she can’t. Lies on top of more lies—it can’t carry on.

“Isaac, this . . . it isn’t asthma now, not entirely. I mean, I still have it, but it’s under control. What happened then was a panic attack. They’ve been worse this past year, since Mum, the case I told you about.” She gestures to the inhaler in his hand. “That, it helps, obviously, but in a way it’s a prop. A comfort blanket.”