I manage to leave the hospital before Finn catches up with me again. I discover Alek waiting outside, resting against a concrete pillar on the edge of human activity. Great. So my not responding to the ten texts he sent today wasn’t enough of a hint? He straightens when he notices me, and I know exactly what’s coming. He strides over and immediately draws me to him, melding his mouth and body with mine. I fight against the desire to allow the tingling energy to flood, and against Alek’s attempt to draw some from me.
Placing a hand on his chest, I step back. “What are you doing here?”
He strokes a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Making sure you’re safe. You didn’t answer my texts.”
“I had nothing to say.”
“I worry about you,” he says
“You’re weird,” I tell him as he slips his hand into mine, tugging me toward the car park.
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean sometimes you’re okay; but most of the time, you behave like an asshole.”
“Why do guys normally behave like assholes around girls they like?” he asks.
Evening encroaches and I’m tired after my long shift. Too tired for him. We cross the yellow-lit car park and locate his car. “Girls they like?”
Alek crosses his arms on top of the roof and studies me. “Of course I like you. I’m not used to getting close to people, so excuse me if I push you away sometimes.”
I climb into his car. I can’t have a relationship with someone who pushes me away, but Alek is probably the only person I can have a relationship with now. Besides, the spark still crackles along my arm from where he held my hand, the familiar warmth of my arousal beginning.
Gripping the steering wheel, Alek stares ahead. “Every time I’m near you, I want to fu…have sex with you.”
I choke back my disgust. He was about to say fuck, which is a further slap to my hurt feelings from the other night. “What?”
“Do you get turned on all the time when you’re with me?”
“Ordinarily, a girl would tell you that’s an impossibly-arrogant thing to ask.”
“But it’s true?”
Fighting the heat at the truth of his words, I scramble for a subject change. “I saw Lizzie.”
“She works at the hospital, of course you did. Answer the question.”
“I saw Lizzie in the morgue.”
“What were you doing in the morgue?”
“I wasn’t in, in. I was talking to Tom and she came out of the room.”
A muscle twitches in Alek’s cheek. “Talking to Tom? And did you speak to her?”
“She ignored me, but she definitely saw me.”
Alek turns the key in the ignition, and warm air blows into the car. “I’ll ask her what’s going on.”
“Do you know why she’d be there?”
“No,” he says quietly and his downturned mouth suggests he’s not happy. Oh, great, another puzzle piece.
Thankful the subject has moved on from our sexual relationship, I shift down in my seat. As we follow the busy roads back to the house, a sudden rainstorm hits the car windscreen. Even when Alek turns the wipers up full, the view is obliterated by the rain slamming the glass. Water sprays up as the car travels along the road, the streetlights flying by.
“Slow down!” I say.
“We’re fine, calm down.”
“Alek! Slow down!” The scars on my arm prickle as the noise of the wipers squeaking on the screen reconnects to my past. “Alek!”
He weaves through the traffic, the headlights of other cars dancing across the road. “It’s not like I could kill us,” he says with a laugh.
“Please!”
I choke back a sob and cover my head with my arms. Closing my eyes is a mistake because, instead of Alek, I picture Jamie driving, and my other senses are sharpened by my lack of vision. The splash of tyres, the thrum of the wiper blades and a car horn.
“Jamie!” I scream, surprised at myself.
Alek hits the brakes and the car skids slightly. An image of the tree splintering the window and branches spearing my best friend through the chest, of lying in the road unable to move, and the darkness that followed seize my mind. I lean forward, sucking in breath, but Alek keeps driving.
“Fuck, Rose, it’s just rain. I know how to drive.”
“Stop the car,” I say. He ignores me. “Stop the fucking car, Alek!”
Swearing under his breath, he manoeuvres the car into a side street and kills the engine. For a few moments, I focus on grounding myself, and once I’m sure my shaking legs will hold me, I climb out of the car.
The cold rain falls from the sky, pouring down my face as if someone is tipping buckets of water on me. I squint through the water; I have no idea where I am. Dusk joins the darkness of the rain clouds and I set off along the pavement, hoping to find a bus stop nearby.
Alek catches up to me. “Rose! Don’t be so fucking stupid! Okay, I’ll slow down.”