Chapter 49

Shawna stumbled out of her room late the next morning to find Hope already curled up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a book.

"Morning." She managed, headed for the kitchen, and started slightly in surprise when she turned away from the kettle to find Hope standing behind her. "What?" she asked, in the face of the serious stare coming her way.

"Have you apologised yet?"

"I'm not sure I've awoken yet," she pointed out, resting back against the worktop. "Normally Marcus'll leave a glass of water for me after a night out — "

"After you get pissed out of your skull," Hope corrected.

"You say potato..." Shawna tried to joke mildly, but it didn't sway Hope at all. "I'm sorry. What did I do? I didn't throw up, I know that. Did I call you names? I didn't proposition you in public, did I?" Suddenly, she paled, and Hope wondered if she'd remembered. "Did I say something about your mum?"

"Not me, Shawna. Marcus probably didn't bring a glass of water to bed for your because he didn't sleep in there with you."

"He... what?"

"He slept on the couch." The kettle clicked off behind her, but Shawna didn't even start to turn.

"What did I say to him?" she whispered.

"Lots of stuff, most of which was just angry — and I don't know if you had a point or not."

"And?" Shawna stared at the floor, knowing from the tone of Hope's voice that something worse was coming.

"You don't remember?"

"I remember being angry at him. I remember him trying to run away from everything again..."

"Do you remember telling him that if you didn't sleep with him it wasn't like anyone else ever would?"

"Oh, shit."

"What's going on with you two?

"He won't talk to me." Shawna slid down the cupboard to sit on the floor, picking ineffectually at the fleecy material of her pyjama trousers. "He even got me changed, didn't he? Before he came back out to sleep."

"I didn't do it." Hope pulled up a chair, putting her cup on the table and finished making Shawna's tea.

"He's all twisted and knotted up inside with worrying about Brianna but he just stuffs it all up somewhere inside, and any time it comes up he just goes quiet or changes the subject."

"Like you do, you mean?"

"What?"

"Any time he tries to talk to you about how you are you brush him off."

"I don't want him worrying, he's got enough on his plate."

"And that's what he thinks about you."

"He doesn't trust me to help.

"Really? Is that why you don't tell him?"

"I... mine hurts to talk about, Hope. I can't go back there yet."

"That's... alright, if that's how you feel. Marcus doesn't deal with things like the rest of us — maybe he's not ready either."

"Marcus never talks about anything. I know what he's like, but... I need something more from him than just physically being there. I talk to you about what happened in lectures and you talk about what people wear, who's dating who, who's not dating who any more. I talk to him about the same lecture and I get bullet-point breakdown of the relevant course material."

"So — don't take this the wrong way — what do you see in him?"

"What do you see in him?" Shawna cut back, and they both flushed as they realised what had been said. "I mean, he's your friend, too, right?"

"Right." Hope admitted, a little too quickly. "He's... he's honest. You can ask him for an opinion, and he'll give it to you, clear and crisp and there's no malice or meanness in him."

"That's what I want, but..."

"Maybe you're going about it the wrong way."

"Really? Enlighten me, Buddha." Shawna arched an eyebrow and blew gently over the surface of her tea to cool it.

"You used to take the time to explain what you meant to him, you don't any more. You ask a question, don't get the answer you expect, and just leave it."

"He should know what I mean by now."

"He might never know, Sho. That's what Asperger's means."

"How the hell do you know him so much better than me?" A note of anger began to creep into Shawna's voice, and Hope backed up in her chair a little, drinking her own tea as she thought about how to answer.

"I don't know him — you've got a better idea of what questions he'll understand and which he won't — I just understand why he gets the ones he gets and doesn't get the ones he doesn't. He's like Tommy, he hears what you ask and interprets it, but it's a literal interpretation. You ask 'what happened in your lecture today' he'll tell you about the lecture."

"If I ask 'what's going on with the people in your class?'..."

"... he'll probably give you an attendance count for the last three or four weeks." Hope smiled, raising a slight grin from Shawna.

"Probably, but it'd be a start." Finishing her tea with a slurp, Shawna got to her feet with a slight groan and turned to put her cup down on the side of the sink. "I'm going to get dressed and go meet him down at the gym, try and say sorry."

"You didn't answer, you know," Hope pointed out, as Shawna reached the door. "What do you see in him?" Shawna waited for a moment, not turning to face her.

"He knows everything I've done, everything I've seen, all the decisions I've made, and he looks at me and sees someone worthwhile."

"We all see someone worthwhile when we look at you, Honey," Hope said to reassure her.

"Maybe, but you don't know the stupid things I've done, the bad decisions I've made."

"Well, when you get there... it might take him a few minutes to find that look again," Hope warned her. Shawna's step was even heavier as she walked away.

"You alright?" Tony rolled over, wrapping his arm round Lorraine's shoulder and pressed himself up against her back. His other arm had already lost feeling, trapped beneath her head, and he felt a rush of cold as she turned to face him and blood ran down to his fingers again.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she asked quietly, reaching over him to turn the clock round on the bedside table.

"I'm not the one that was still twitching and edgy at one in the morning," he pointed out. "What's up, Lolo?"

"I don't know. I guess... this thing with Brianna has just got me thinking."

"It does that," he admitted.

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't do it."

"Not like that... you probably don't want to talk about it."

"Talking helps, as much as anything can."

"Are you scared?"

"A little." He pulled her a little closer, squeezing her gently to him. "Not as much as you. I've been through this with her once already. It's not nice, but at her age, and with her history, she's got a good chance."

"But it's still only a chance."

"This day and age, Lolo, you coming back alive tomorrow is only a chance," he pointed out. "Better than hers, perhaps, but still only a chance."

"I don't like that."

"I remember that day."

"What day?"

"The day you realise that you aren't immortal — I'd come off bikes, fallen out of trees, played chicken on the high street, but I remember Bri coming in from the hospital and spending three days with her head in the loo. That's when I knew that some day she was going to die. And if she was, so was I."

"It's not going to be soon, though."

"None of us know that."

"Is that why you're like you are?"

"Like I am? What's that mean?" He smiled to take any heat out of it, and she edged back a little to stare at him.

"You're... you always look at the bright side of things. You're never down, you're never bored, you're never too lazy to do anything."

"You think I'm keeping busy so I don't have to think about it?"