Part 40

The A&E cubicle at St Thomas' Hospital was sweltering, yet Caroline felt as though she were turning into an icecube. A thermal shock settling into her marrow, colliding with the jagged edges of a mind trying to shut down on the edge of a mental shock as well.

The doctor checked the monitor, her face etched with professional concern. 'Caroline, your temperature is dangerously low and your pulse is still erratic. Given the head injury and the potential for internal bruising, I'm admitting you for tonight and possibly the next few days for close monitoring.'

'No,' Caroline whispered, her teeth chattering so hard the words were barely audible. 'I'm... I'm going home.'

'We can't discharge you into the night alone,' the doctor insisted, leaning in. 'Is there anyone we can call? A partner? Family?'

Caroline looked down at her hands. The nurse had scrubbed away the mud, but her skin felt raw, as if the stain of Rob's touch was permanent. A bitter, hollow ache rose in her chest. 'No..There's... there's n-nobody,' she stuttered, 'It's just me. There's only me.'

Noel, who had been standing in the corner, heard the loneliness in her words and stepped forward. 'Caro, the doctor is right. Look at you, haven't you been through enough?, you have to stay.'

Caroline looked at him, and the disappointment cut deeper than the pain in her ribs. He was choosing the hospital over her wishes, trying to keep her trapped in the very moment she was desperate to leave behind.

'You too?' she breathed, her eyes dull with a sudden, cold detachment. 'You really don't understand, do you?'

'What? What do you mean? I'm trying to do what's best for you, Caro!' Noel tried to change her mind and show her that he had her best interest in mind, that and the fact that taking her home with him was a no-go with Sara still being around and blowing up his phone for the last hour or so.

'Sure..yeah, it's fine, I'm fine,' she whispered, her voice devoid of any emotion. 'Go home, sorry for ruining New Year, Goodnight, Noel.'

The sound of Noel's footsteps faded into the rhythmic hum of the hospital, a receding heartbeat that left her in total silence. He was gone. He had walked out of the sterile glare of A&E and back into a world where the heating worked, the champagne was chilled, and Sara was waiting.

An hour later, the porter moved her. The elevator ride was a blur of fluorescent lights and the metallic scent of cleaning fluid. They wheeled her into a side room on a surgical ward, a small, rectangular box of a room.

The nurse, a tired woman with kind eyes, tucked the thermal blankets tighter around Caroline's shivering frame. 'The heating is a bit temperamental on this wing, love. I'll bring you a cup of tea when you're settled.'

But when the door clicked shut, the tea didn't come, and the warmth didn't settle. Caroline lay staring at the ceiling, the shadows of the St Thomas' Hospital architecture casting long, skeletal fingers across the walls. Outside the window, the London Eye turned slowly, its festive lights looking like mocking jewels against the black sky.

She thought of Noel entering his house, shaking off the cold, and perhaps scrubbing the literal and metaphorical "mud" of the night off his hands. He had chosen a clean conscience over a messy commitment. By leaving her here, he had convinced himself she was "safe," but all she felt was discarded, a broken object handed over to the state for repair.

Her ribs throbbed with every breath, a jagged reminder of the struggle, but the cold inside her bones was worse. It was the realization that in a city of millions, her emergency contact list was a blank page.

As the first weak rays of a grey New Year's morning began to touch the Palace of Westminster across the river, Caroline reached a cold, hard clarity. The bruises would fade and the ribs would knit back together, but the image of Noel walking away from her cubicle was scorched into her mind. He really had chosen the champagne and the quiet life. He had chosen the girl who didn't bleed on his coat. How stupid and blind could she have been? Fuck's sakes..you retarded, stupid cunt! Thinking he really felt something for you?! she scolded herself.

Noel sat on the edge of the bed in his darkened guest room, his head in his hands. The echoes of the night before vibrated in the small room like a physical ache. Noel pressed his palms into his eyes, but he couldn't block out the memory of Sara's face, twisted and unrecognizable, as she screamed those accusations at him.

'You're disgusting, Noel! Was she worth it? Was she worth trashing our life for?'

He had snapped. The guilt over leaving Caroline, the image of her pale, shivering form in that hospital bed, had him boiling over. When Sara had blocked the doorway, her voice hitting a glass-shattering register as she accused him of a cheap, tawdry affair, he had finally roared back.

'Then let's end it!' he had bellowed, 'If you think so little of me, then why not do yourself a favour and get a divorce, because if you won't then I will! You've already left, Sara, with all your little trips, you don't care where they take you, as long as it is far enough away from me..so please leave my kids here, and you get yourself on a flight to I don't care where, and you stay the fuck away, capice?'

The silence that had followed his outburst was worse than the screaming. Sara had stared at him, her mouth agape, before retreating to their bedroom and slamming the door with enough force to rattle the frames on the walls.

He had sacrificed his integrity to avoid a scene with Sara, only to end up in a war zone anyway. He had tried to be the "sensible" man, the man who kept his secrets and his safety, but instead, he was sitting alone in a guest room with the ruins of two lives on his hands.

He looked at his phone. No messages. No calls. Just the cold realization that while he was arguing over his marriage, Caroline was likely staring at a hospital ceiling, believing she truly had nobody in the world and right now she was right.

The drive to Liam's house was a blur of grey asphalt and flashes of the accident last night. He hadn't been able to face the hospital yet, not with the shame of feeling like a coward curdling in his stomach.

When he pulled up to the curb, the street was quiet, littered with the colorful remnants of party poppers and damp streamers from the night before. Liam opened the door wearing a dressing gown, his hair a mess, squinting against the dull morning light.

'Noel? Bloody hell, mate, it's eight in the morning,' Liam croaked, leaning against the doorframe. Then he saw the stormy look on Noel's face, 'trouble in paradise, is it? come on in then, but keep it down, everyone's still passed out from last night, you've missed a fookin' great party, Noely'

Noel walked past him into the hallway, the warmth of the house feeling invasive, undeserved. He stood in the center of Liam's kitchen, his hands trembling.

'I told her I wanted a divorce,' Noel said, his voice flat.

Liam paused with his hand on the kettle. He whistled low. 'Right. Well. We all knew it was a pressure cooker, Noel, what a way to start the New Year, congratulations, finally!!'

Noel looked up at his brother 'It's not just Sara, Liam,' Noel whispered, his voice cracking. 'There was an accident. Last night.'

Liam's expression shifted from hungover amusement to sharp concern. He set the kettle down. 'An accident? What? Who? Are the kids okay?'.

'The kids are fine,' Noel said, swallowling hard. 'It's Caroline. She..she crashed.' He felt the words get stuck in his throat again.

Liam froze, his brow furrowing in confusion. 'Caroline? As in our Caroline? Didn't you invite her over for dinner?' He stepped closer, searching Noel's face. 'Is she okay? Why? Where is she? What happened?'

Noel dropped his gaze to the floor, unable to look his brother in the eye. 'Sara came back,' Noel whispered, the words sounding like shards of glass. 'She wasn't supposed to be there, Liam. She was meant to be in Scotland, but she walked in right before dinner. She didn't even let Caroline speak, just started screaming, calling her every name under the sun.'

Liam's grip on the counter tightened until his knuckles turned white. 'And you let her? In your own house?'

'Caroline left..,' Noel continued, his voice trembling. 'She ran out into the night, and I..I didn't stop her. I was too busy trying to quiet Sara down. But Rob was out there, Liam. He must have followed her to my house. He chased her car all the way down the Embankment until she clipped the curb, and rolled it. I found her trapped in the wreckage while he just stood there watching.'

Liam stepped back, his face draining of all color. 'A rollover? Jesus, Noel. Is she alive? Where is she?'

'She's at St Thomas' Hospital. Broken ribs, a concussion..hypothermia ,she was so cold, Liam. I stayed for a bit, but then the phone wouldn't stop ringing. Sara was hysterical, threatening me, threatening to take the kids from me. I panicked. I left Caroline in the A&E cubicle because I couldn't face the explosion at home.'

The silence that followed was suffocating. Liam looked at his brother as if he were looking at a stranger. The "congratulations" from moments ago had turned into a foul taste in his mouth.

'You left her? Caro?' Liam's voice was dangerously low. 'After she was chased and run off the road, you dumped her in a hospital ward alone on New Year's morning? Just so you could go home and argue about a divorce?'

'I told Sara to get out!' Noel shouted, his desperation boiling over. 'I told her to take a flight to anywhere and leave me the kids. I've ended it, Liam! it's over!'

'No, you didn't,' Liam snapped, putting the cup of tea down a little more forceful than intended 'You chose your own comfort. You chose to deal with the crazy woman at home rather than the one who actually needed a friend, instead you left her thinking she's got no one. And that's the kicker, isn't it?' Liam snapped, his earlier brotherly warmth completely evaporated.

The fury that had surged through the kitchen seemed to drain out of Liam all at once, he pulled out a chair and sank into it, the screech of the wood against the tiles sounding shrill in the silence of the house.

He stared at the steaming mug of tea, 'A rollover, Noel?' he whispered, his voice hoarse and stripped of its earlier aggression. 'I'm trying to picture it. Caroline, who finally let her guard down enough to come to your house for dinner, ending up alone in a hospital bed because you were afraid of a scene with your wife.'

Noel started to reach out, to say something, but Liam held up a trembling hand without looking at him. 'Don't. Don't say another word about Sara or your marriage.'

Liam sat in the heavy silence, his head bowed, before he finally looked up at his brother. The anger was still there, but it had morphed into a piercing, clinical curiosity.

'Tell me something, Noel,' Liam said, his voice dangerously quiet. 'Between us..you never actually admitted anything, not to me anyway..but what exactly do you feel for Caroline? And does she know it too?'

Noel's breath hitched, a jagged sound that filled the small kitchen. He looked away, staring at a magnetic bottle opener on Liam's fridge as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

'I...' Noel started, his voice cracking. He cleared it and tried again, his eyes finally meeting his brother's. 'I don't know, Liam, it's not just some mid-life crisis or a distraction from Sara. It's... it's everything. When I'm with her, the noise just stops. For the first time in so many years, I feel like I am actually being seen, not just used as a wallet.'

Liam didn't blink. He just sat there, absorbing the confession with a grim sort of stillness.

'oh fuck it!, I love her, Liam..I love her so much it scares the life out of me,' Noel whispered, his hands trembling on the edge of the table. 'But I just can't seem to give in because I don't know what Caro's reaction is going to be.., does she love me too? Or not? The only thing I'm sure of is that I told Sara I wanted a divorce, Liam because I can't live a lie any longer. I've burnt the bridge. There's no going back.'

Liam stared his brother right in the eyes 'Then start walking,' and leaned forward towards his brother on the other side of the table 'Noel, the woman just rolled her car into a ditch because she was fleeing your house in a state of shock. If you're waiting for her to send you a Valentine's card before you decide to be brave, you've already lost her.'

The words hung in the air, vibrating with a force that finally cracked the shell of Noel's paralysis. 'Go..Get..Your..Girl!' Liam's voice wasn't a suggestion; it was an order, a final lifeline thrown to a drowning man.