Unintended

“Oscar,” I moaned, wrapping my arms around him and giving him a hug. “It’s too early to get up yet, my darling. Go back to bed.”

He wound his arms around my neck. “But Santa’s been!”

His eyes were wide, and he looked so cute that I chuckled. “How do you know?”

“Because there are presents under the tree, silly!”

So, he’d already been downstairs. I chuckled again. “He might have been, but you can’t get up until Daisy is up, and,” I added quickly, because he sat up, as if ready to run to her room, “you mustn’t wake her.” I sat up too, rubbing my eyes. “I think we should put you back to bed for a little while, and we’ll get up again very soon.”

Oscar’s lower lip pouted out, and I laughed. I was about to lift him up to take him back to his room when my phone started buzzing on the side table.

There was a withheld number showing on the screen, and while I wouldn’t usually have answered, the fact that it was so early unsettled me.

What if something had happened to my mum?

I reached over for it and answered. “Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Evie West?”

The voice was female and friendly-sounding, but that didn’t ease my rising panic.

“Yes,” I said. “Who is this?”

“My name is Karen Oldham. I’m a receptionist at Manchester Royal Infirmary.”

My heart began to race. Unaware of any problems, Oscar began to jump up and down on the bed, clearly not interested in going back to sleep.

Manchester though? Whatever it was, it would have to be something serious for her to have been taken there instead of a closer hospital.

“Wh… what’s happened?” I asked, trying to listen over the sound of my thudding heartbeat.

“About two hours ago, someone was rushed in, and it’s taken him a little time to regain consciousness. We asked him if there was anyone we could call for him, and he gave us your name. We had to do a bit of work to find you because he didn’t have your number, but… do you know an Ashley McKay?”

My fear-stricken brain took a moment to search for the answer. Ashley…?

OH! Ash! Hearing him being called Ashley had totally thrown me, and I gasped.

“I do,” I said, my pulse not slowing down any knowing it was him and not my mother in the hospital. “What’s happened?”

“I’m afraid I can’t give you any details over the phone. I can’t give out any information to anyone who isn’t family, which he says you aren’t, but you are the only person he asked for. Since then, he hasn’t said a word.”

My head began to pound along with my heart. I desperately hoped the worst I was thinking, that he and his girlfriend had had a fight and he’d attempted suicide, was not true. Maybe he’d had an accident, or gotten sick and his girlfriend was… elsewhere. But, even knowing what I did about her, surely, if he was unwell, she’d have been with him.

Shit.

“Well, can you… I mean… is he going to be okay?” I stuttered.

“We think so,” Karen said gently. “He is in a bad way. He could really do with a friend, I think.”

Tears crept into my eyes. “Okay. Sure. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thank you.”

As I hung up the phone, Oscar still bouncing around me, I took a deep breath, trying to pull myself together.

I had hardly spoken to Ash since we went to Birmingham. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, or even because I had nothing to say, I just didn’t want to always be in his inbox. I didn’t want it to feel like I was always checking up on him. I had wished him a Merry Christmas and offered to be around if he needed someone to talk to, but then I’d left it there because I didn’t know what his plans were, and because I was at Keely’s. Now I wished I’d talked to him more, because… what had happened?

I thought back to our conversation in the hotel. How he’d told me that he’d considered suicide before; he’d been considering it the night we met. I was all too familiar with wanting everything to end. With the knowledge that there were people who would be there for me, but tired of feeling like a burden on them, that they would be better off without me.

“Evieeeeee!”