It’s nearly six o’clock, and I’m sitting in bed, back leaning against the pillow, pillow upright against the headboard. I’ve had enough fun for one day, and my body’s craving for some rest.
I’m emotionally exhausted as well, I’ve been trying to hide my misery from the others since this morning; I might have fooled my mum and the nurses, but it doesn’t work with George. He knows me better than anyone.

‘What’s the matter, honey?’ he asks as he sits down in the armchair next to my bed.

He leans forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the bed, takes my hand, and presses it against his face. I softly brush my thumb over the delicate skin underneath his eye. He looks tired; I’m not surprised considering everything he’s been through in the last few weeks. He moves his head and buries his mouth into my palm; the warm feel of his lips and breath on my skin brings everything overflowing to me: Paul, this morning’s episode, me being stuck in here, away from Vicky,….and the baby, a subject unmentioned between us until now.

‘I lost our baby,’ I whisper, weak and painful, looking at him.

He looks away; his forehead distressfully puckers, and he gasps, all just for a moment.

‘The most important thing now is for you to get better. I don’t want you to think about anything else, ok?’ He doesn’t want to talk about it, I can see it, not now at least. I know he’s hurting, and I feel tears flooding my eyes.

‘Adi! Honey!’ he jumps off his seat in an instant and sits next to me on the bed. His hands slip underneath my arms and pull me towards him.

‘Don’t cry, my little girl, please,’ he says. I’m in his arms now, one of them is tightly holding my back while the other hand is playing with the hair at the back of my head. I rest my head on his shoulder. It feels safe and warm there, and the sobs are slowing down. The cosy moment doesn’t last long though. There is a knock in the door, and a nurse comes in carrying a big bunch of flowers.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she says when she notices us, all snuggled up, ‘this has come for you.’

George turns his head, still holding me, and asks her to leave them on the bed.

‘See, people are thinking about you,’ he whispers in my ear reassuringly.

I look at the bouquet: expensive flowers, perfectly wrapped up.  There aren’t many people I know that could afford that. One’s sitting next to me, and I know it’s not him. I’m trying to act naturally and pick up the card that has come with the flowers. My hands hesitate as they open it, and I wish George wasn’t there.

‘I’m sorry, I behaved like an idiot this morning. I have no excuse. I love you. Paul.’

George doesn’t ask whom the flowers are from, maybe he’s already guessed, but I feel I owe him an explanation. Maybe this is the right moment to tell him the truth. I’ve always told him everything, and it should make no difference now. But that means I’d have to start with the beginning. Tell him about Paul’s visits, late at night, after he’s gone home. All the gifts I’ve hidden underneath the bed. But most of all, that Paul wants me to leave him. Now, how can I possible tell him that? He’s got enough on his plate as it is.

‘They’re from some friends of Tina’s,’ the lie slips out, and I regret it instantly. Why did I do it? Where’s the problem, a man sending flowers to an ex-girlfriend, who’s also the mother of his child, and happens to be lying injured in a hospital bed. George wouldn’t find anything unusual in this, surely. I could’ve left the rest out. So, why did I have to lie about the flowers? The answer is quite simple, I think: because I feel guilty about all the other bits, and the flowers come with the package, it’s all or nothing. If I told him about them then I would have to come clean with the rest, there’s no way around it.

I look at George again, and I know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, not deliberately anyway. He is so so dear to me.

Everything is in a real mess, and no matter how you look at it, it’s all my fault. If – there are so many ‘ifs’ that I’m almost afraid to count them – I hadn't cheated on Paul with Mark; if, at least, hadn't tried so hard to hide Vicky from him. And then George, I was the one who made a move on him, wasn’t I?... even though I knew all along that I was still in love with the other one. And maybe if Anne had never found out about me and George…. Oh yeah, Anne, she came to see me the other week. She knew about the accident from Paul, apparently them two are still friends. She phoned up George and asked if she could see me. ‘She sounded very distressed, Adi, she feels responsible.’ So I said yes, don’t really know why, perhaps I felt sorry for her. ‘I’m so sorry, Adi,’ she cried next to my bed, ‘I’ve never meant for this to happen.’ And I believed her, I mean, no matter how much she dislikes me – she must do because I’m the one, according to her, who keeps George away from her – I don’t think she wanted me dead. ‘It’s not your fault, Anne, just the wrong time, wrong place, you know,’ I tried to reassure her, but she kept crying and feeling remorseful. There wasn’t much else I could do.

Even the crash itself wears an ‘if’, if I got out of that bloody carriage when I still had a chance to get away with only few bruises and cuts, and didn’t stay behind to hold the hand of the girl trapped under the seat next to mine, I wouldn’t be here right now, I would be at home with my daughter and my other baby would still be alive. But how could I have possibly left her there? She was crying and screaming and asking for her mum. She must’ve been only about fourteen. What would you have done if you were me? So I turned back and tried to forget about the smashed window opening a clear and quick way to safety, and took her hand and talked to her. ‘Everything’s gonna be alright sweetheart, everything will be alright, just hold in there.’  Another lie - it looks like I’m getting better and better at it these days – because few minutes later the carriage collapsed on top of us. There was a big bang at first as if something – part of the bridge the train smashed into I found out later – tumbled on top of the carriage, then the squeaky noise of the roof hustling down, then everything went blank. I can still hear it, the noise I mean, sometimes at night when there are no other sounds around, and I’m all on my own, and there’s nothing else better to do. My stomach crawls and my mind panics then, and I curl up and pull the duvet over my head, trying to keep it all away. It gets worst when I remember that I held the girl’s hand for nothing because she died I was told. I was the lucky one if you could call this luck.

At least tonight I’ve got other things to worry about. Someone’s gonna get hurt and by the looks of it that’s gonna be Paul. Well, he knows I’m quite good at making people suffer, he had a taste of it before, didn’t he?

My eyes are getting wet again and George decides he could not possibly leave me on my own tonight. He’s set up a routine he follows every day: he comes to see me in the morning for half an hour or so before going into work and then on the way home for an hour or two. I know he’d stay longer if he could, but he wants to spend some time with Vicky as well before she goes to bed. Tonight is an exception though, I need him here.

‘I’ll phone up Olga and tell her not to wait for me. I’ll see Vicky tomorrow morning,’ he says.

My mum hasn’t gone back home yet, she’s stayed to look after Vicky while I’m still in hospital. Unlike my dad, her English’s not too bad, one thing I’m happy about, so she and George manage to understand each other. She’s better at French, but that doesn’t help much ‘cos George’s knowledge of the language doesn’t go any further than Bonjour and Bonsoir. I’m so glad she stayed, with her here I know George and Vicky are well looked after. 

 ‘I’m going to get something to eat and a cup of tea from across the road and I’ll be right back. Do you want anything?’ George asks.

‘No thanks,’ I say, pulling a distress face. I’m not hungry, the nurse wanted to bring my dinner in earlier and I refused it.

However, when George comes back ten minutes later with his sandwiches, I change my mind.

‘Can I have a bit?’ I ask as he sits down on the bed next to me.

‘Of course you can,’ he says. ‘I bought two anyway, just in case,’ he smiles.

He rests his back against the headboard and gets the sandwiches out of the bag.

‘There you go,’ he hands one of them over to me and, before grabbing his, switches the TV on.
There isn’t much to watch, so we stick with the news channel. After we finished eating, we share the cup of tea he brought with the sandwiches. We don’t say much, just look at each other from time to time and smile between sips of hot drink. A nurse comes in, she’s just checking if I’d taken my tablets. Of course I have, George’s here, he wouldn’t let me forget about them. The pills, I really hated them in the beginning, but after a while you get used to them, they become part of your daily routine, you know, like brushing your teeth in the morning and before you go to bed. All you need to do is put them slowly on the tip of your tongue, keep the mouth well open so that they can’t touch and infest it the rest of the inside with their horrible taste, then quickly curl your tongue, push them at the back of your mouth and wash them down with a sip of water. And that’s it, job’s done, a moment later you can’t even remember you’d taken them.

The cup of tea is empty now and George gets up to throw the litter in the bin. When he comes back, he slides underneath the duvet and puts an arm around me. He kisses the top of my head and hugs me tighter.

‘Are you feeling a bit better now?’ he asks.

‘Uh-huh,’ I nod. I cuddled up to his chest and sigh: with him around, things always feel better.

Five minutes on and I can hear his breath becoming rhythmically deeper. I look up and smile: he’s asleep.
I must’ve dozed off myself ‘cos I get woken up by a timid knock in the door. I’m a very light sleeper these days. I look at George, he’s still in the dreamland, he must be indeed very tired.
Before I have a chance to say anything, the door opens and there is Paul. He doesn’t say a word, just stares at us for few seconds, then turns around and shuts the door behind him.
I’m sorry Paul, but that’s the way things are and they must stay like this.

‘Who was it, honey?’ George opens his eyes.

‘Just one of the nurses.’