I blink. “What?” I whisper.
“Nobody seems to know who this man is, but you’re obsessing over him, and it’s getting a little concerning. I think you need to talk to someone. You’ve been through so much. I’ll be right there by your side the entire time.”
“I’m not crazy,” I say, my voice trembling with rage. “I saw something horrific, yes, but I didn’t make him up, Gerard. Go and look for yourself; surely there are records of ticket sales. He was there. He visited me last night.”
“Lucy,” he says carefully.
“No. I don’t need to speak to a counselor. I know he is out there.”
He looks down at his hands, then towards the door. “I’m only trying to help.”
“If you want to help, please stop making me out to be crazy. I’m not.”
He nods. “I’m going to phone your mom, tell her you’re up for visitors today. I’ll be back soon.”
He kisses my head and leaves.
My chest remains heavy.
He is a real person.
He is.
Isn’t he?
***
FIVE DAYS LATER
“Lucy, you need to be resting. Your body is still trying to repair itself,” my mother says, flitting around my sofa, taking my empty cup of tea and replacing it with a new one.
I don’t want tea. I’ve had so much tea since I got home from the hospital. I had to have a procedure before I left, because my body didn’t do what it needed to and I was getting an infection. It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I came home a few days later, and it’s been hell ever since—everyone tiptoeing around me, Gerard not knowing how to speak to me and becoming distant. We are arguing more than we’ve ever argued.
It’s the same fight.
Heath. Hunter. Whoever he is.
They don’t believe me; they refuse to talk about it. Everyone just wants it all to go away and for me to get better. To forget it ever happened. But it did happen.
I can’t forget that. He’s tormenting my mind.
“I’m fine, Mom,” I say, my voice quiet. “I can’t sit here forever. I have to go back to work. Gerard has to go back to work. It’s been over a week since it all happened; you don’t need to be here every day.”
“Luc,” she says, stopping and giving me her stern face. “You just experienced something very traumatic, and because of it, you lost your baby. Don’t rush this.”
I flinch. My baby. A reminder of the painful experience that forever changed me. The very thought makes my chest clench, and I look away.
“When can I watch more of the news reports about it?” I say, still staring at a blank wall.
I can hear her audible sigh from across the room. They have tried to keep as much information from me as possible. They believe me watching the news after it happened made things worse, and the doctors told them it wouldn’t help with my recovery. I know they think it’ll only feed my obsession, or my PTSD, or whatever it is they think is wrong with me, and so they’ve been practically guarding me for the last few days, never leaving me alone long enough to attempt to turn on a television or open my laptop. When my mom ran out to the store this morning, I took the laptop sitting next to me and hid it in the drawers beside my bed.
They haven’t noticed. Yet.
“They don’t really know much more about what happened. There really isn’t much information.”
“You’re lying to me; you all can’t keep protecting me. I need to see it.”
She steps into my line of sight and crosses her arms. “You don’t need to see it. You want to see it, but you don’t need to. You’ve seen enough. You have made your statement, and you told the police what they needed to know. Now you need to recover.”
She’s wrong.
I need to know.
“I will watch them,” I say, standing. “Nothing you can say will stop that from happening.”
“Lucy!” she yells as I disappear down the hall.
I slide into the bedroom where Gerard is still sleeping. He’s been so good to me; I feel guilty that I haven’t given him what he deserves. I walk over to the bed and stare down at him. He’s so handsome, so perfect, but everything has changed. He hasn’t, but I have, and I don’t know who I am anymore. He deserves a lot; he’s a good man.
Am I still enough to give him what he deserves?
Do I even want to?
That thought terrifies me, and I walk away from the bed and into the bathroom to have a shower. It’s the only time I can be alone; it’s the only time when no one can bother me and ask questions and flutter around trying to make things better. I know they’re only trying to help, but it’s not working. Nothing is. I feel so empty, so desperate, so damned alone.
And the one person who understands has disappeared as if he never existed. I just want to talk to him. I just want him to tell me it wasn’t all in my mind. I need to see him and just . . . know. But I wouldn’t even know where to start. I don’t know how to find him, I don’t know where he works—hell, I don’t even know if he lives around here.
Heath. Hunter.