Broken Heart Syndrome, page 14
‘Frankie, I don’t really know any of the porters.’ Well that wasn’t very nice, although I suspected probably true. Still, I didn’t get how it was relevant. ‘I would never know if it was one of their birthdays and I’ve worked there for years. I like that you know them. I like that you care about them so much you’d go to the trouble of baking a cake. I like how kind you are, how loyal you are to your friends.
‘I get it now. I get that you’re shy. I thought you were cold, but kept getting glimpses of the real you and it didn’t gel. With other people you were so warm, always smiling, laughing. I could tell you were lighting up their day just by being with you, and I was jealous that you wouldn’t shine that light on me.
‘A handful of times I managed to see the real you. A couple when you forgot yourself and shared your humour with me, and a couple when you stood up to me. Never for yourself and how I was treating you, always for the patients. Knowing now how shy you are with me I can see that that must have taken courage, but you were willing to do it because you care. That’s why I like you. As for why I’m attracted to you I would start by saying that you’re probably the most beautiful women I have ever seen in real life.’
‘What!’ I squeaked, my eyes as round as saucers. He was deranged. He had totally lost his mind. I almost felt sorry for him. He searched my face, his eyes warm and his lips tipping up in a small smile.
‘Jesus, you really have no idea do you? How is that even possible?’
‘No idea about what?’
He had leaned into me and touched his lips behind my ear on the other side to his hand. I could feel his stubble rough against my skin. My pulse was beating wildly and I shivered.
‘No idea about how beautiful you are,’ he muttered against the skin of my neck, then slid his nose along my jaw. I closed my eyes. What was happening?
‘I think you are a little weird Thomas G. Longley,’ I whispered, so quietly that I wasn’t sure he would hear me. I realized he had when I felt his lips smile against my skin and his body shook slightly in a silent laugh.
He lifted his head and stared down at me his eyes dancing, ‘Why am I weird?’ he muttered through a smile.
‘What you’re saying defies the laws of the universe.’
‘No Frankie,’ he said firmly, his smile dying. ‘What I’m saying makes perfect sense in the universe I live in, and the one I plan on dragging you into.’
I couldn’t think whilst he was that close and I could smell him, feel his stubble, and get lost in his eyes. I needed space to take in what he was saying. So I pushed against his shoulders muttering, ‘Okay, enough sharing for now I think. Better finish the cake or they’ll be an extremely scary bridezilla screaming for my blood.’ He stared at me a second then reluctantly moved back.
After I’d finally finished the cake and there was still no sign of Lou (who I had vowed to kill by strangulation with her own intestines), I had to accept Tom’s offer of a lift in his van.
‘I’m not a crazy stalker you know,’ I blurted out; worried I might have scared him with my van cleaning fantasies.
‘What’s going on in that screwy universe of yours now?’ he asked.
‘I just don’t want you to be scared that I’m like your “number one fan”, and you might be in danger of me lobbing of your foot with a sledgehammer, or slicing off your thumb whilst forcing you to write a novel of my choosing.’
He was backing the van out of the space now chuckling. ‘Okay I don’t think you’re a stalker seeing as you have largely ignored me for the last three months, but now I’m thinking I might be a little scared.’
‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I’m a bit of a “Steven King” freak.’
‘Ah, “Misery”,’ he said, scrunching his nose in distaste.
‘You didn’t like the book?’ I asked, because seriously it was a good book.
‘Or the film,’ he replied.
‘Why not?’
‘Not my thing,’ he said evasively.
‘Oh,’ I paused a moment but curiosity got the better of me. ‘Why not?’
‘Um,’ Tom was shifting on his seat uncomfortably and I was intrigued, he hardly ever looked unsure of himself. He squared his shoulders. ‘I don’t like scary films,’ he admitted. I was stunned into silence for a moment. Then the image of big, alpha male Tom hiding behind his hands, and squealing during a scary bit of a film flashed into my brain, and I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Tom asked grumpily as we pulled into the grounds of the hotel where the wedding was taking place.
I was trying and failing to get myself under control. ‘What’s your favourite film?’ I managed to choke out through my hilarity.
‘”Notting Hill”,’ he replied as he parked the van in a huge car park and turned to me. I burst into a fresh bout of laughter, even harder than before.
‘That’s…that’s a romantic comedy,’ I informed him.
‘I’m aware of that,’ he said, his lips twitching as he turned to look at me whilst I was still shaking with laughter. ‘What’s you favourite film?’
‘”The Silence of the Lambs”.’ Tom looked at me a beat, and then it was his turn to burst out laughing.
‘This does not bode well for future cinema trips,’ he said through a smile and I stopped laughing abruptly.
Another image flashed through my mind, one of Tom and me out at the multiplex, arguing good-naturedly over what to watch, with me trying to convince him that the remake of ‘Evil dead’ probably wasn’t that gruesome. The image of us doing something mundane and normal together as a couple was so beautiful, and something I had stupidly pined for so long, that I felt my chest squeeze at the knowledge that it wasn’t for the likes of me. I needed to remember that. He watched my face, the amusement fled from his and he frowned.
‘Frankie?’
I looked away from him, searched the grounds of the stately home to locate the marquee then glanced at my watch.
‘We’d better get going,’ I said, grabbing the handle of the passenger door. Before I could open it Tom’s hand shot out and over mine at the handle, his big body hovering me on the seat.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ I lied, ‘I just really need to get the cake in there.’
‘Bullshit. I just got you laughing flat out with me for the first time and now you’re totally shut down. I want to know why.’ He was too close again.
‘Look, the cake-’
‘Bugger the cake. Why?’
‘Tom, I need to-’
‘Why?’
I felt my blood start to boil, why couldn’t he just bloody let it go.
‘We’re never going to go to the cinema together, that’s why,’ I blurted. His brows drew together and his eyes flashed, all of which I ignored. ‘Look, I’m sure Cassie loves chick flicks.’
‘I’m sure she does,’ he returned. ‘So what?’
‘So, she’s your girlfriend. You guys can go enjoy sappy films together to your hearts content. I hear “The Notebook” is suppose to be particularly vomit worthy.’
‘Firstly she’s not my girlfriend Frankie, not anymore anyway. I would have thought that much was obvious seeing as I spent last night in your bed. Secondly I’m pretty sure that if I willingly watched “The Notebook” I would be voted out of the man club and my manhood would attempt to turn in on itself to form a vagina.’
I ignored the second point because I agreed that watching the notebook was not compatible with XY chromosomes (unless you were in the ten percent of the male population that was gay) and focused on the first.
‘You broke up with Cassie?’
‘Jesus Frankie,’ Tom let me go and sat back into his seat. ‘How much of a prick do you think I am? I spent the night with you last night.’
I scoffed, ‘Only because you took me home and felt responsible that I didn’t choke on my own vomit.’ He sighed and I could tell his patience was slipping. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and ran his hand through is hair. When he opened them he seemed calmer.
‘Right, we’ll get the cake inside that massive tent-’
‘Marquee,’ I corrected automatically.
‘Then we’re going to get a few things straight. The first being that I’m taking you out tomorrow.’
Chapter 17
Worth it
Tom stalked down the corridor to his office, holding onto the last of his patience by a thread. He knew from what Frankie had revealed when her guard was down that she liked him. Bloody hell, she had even said that she loved him.
He could see how she reacted when he got close; her body would still and she’d even hold her breath she was so tense. A woman did not have that reaction with a man unless she was crazily attracted to him. Despite this he was not having any success in his attempts to spend time with her.
Even after helping her decorate a goddamn cake all day (something which he never thought in a million years he would have enjoyed, but standing next to her in that small kitchen, smelling her perfume, watching her hands effortlessly create beauty with such skill, precision and speed, he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather have been) he still wasn’t breaking through.
After delivering the cake he’d driven her back to her flat and had decided to finally sort things out with her with no distractions. When they arrived her door was ajar. He thought this was weird as Lou had assured him that she would be gone till late evening, and he was sure he’d heard Frankie shut it as they left. He was further alarmed that on seeing the door Frankie’s face drained of all colour, and she proceeded to usher him towards the exit in a manner which seemed almost desperate.
She was hiding something.
She knew what was behind that door and she didn’t want him to see it.
His first instinct was that someone might have broken in and she could be in danger going alone. But after witnessing her reaction and how frantic she was for him to leave he decided to let her keep her secrets for now, and not force anything before she was ready to trust him.
It was a mistake.
He should have pushed his way in, found out what she so desperately wanted to keep from him, and then made sure that she knew the way it was going to be between them. Since he left she hadn’t taken any of his calls, and had gone back to avoiding him completely. After what he’d told her on Saturday, and the level of attraction she obviously felt for him, her behaviour was bizarre, and he had decided once and for all that he was going to get to the bottom of it.
There were two people he needed to speak to and he’d tracked at least one of them down in the medical registrars room.
As he pushed open the door to the cramped room lined with computer screens he was assured yet again that his decision not to pursue a career in general medicine was the right one. There was no way the cardiology registrars would put up with this shoebox. Then again there was no way they would put up with being the dogs’ bodies of the hospital like the medics did.
Any patient that didn’t slot into other specialties was dumped on the medics. They were called to all the arrests, in fact they were bleeped so often, and for such an array of random crap, that Tom wouldn’t be surprised if they were the first called when there was a problem with the hospital’s plumbing.
‘Lou,’ he called to her across the room. She looked up from her position perched on the edge of the desk next to a computer at which her boss (the elderly care consultant Richard Morris) was sitting.
Rich was a few years older than Tom. He was an okay guy but Tom had always thought there was something a bit off about him. Rich was staring up at Lou like he had just emerged from a vegan commune after twenty years and she was a full cooked breakfast. Lou had him dangling off her hook and she knew it.
She was the type of women who knew exactly what her effect was on men and in that moment she knew how she was affecting Rich. She was sitting close and giving him a great view of her long legs in that short skirt. Her head was thrown back and she was laughing. One of her hands was resting lightly on her throat and the other on Rich’s forearm. He noticed that across from them Dylan was scowling fiercely at his computer, studiously ignoring them both, which was no easy task considering the close confines of the room.
This, Tom thought, was interesting.
‘Lou,’ he called again and she looked over to him, ‘can we talk a minute?’
‘Sure,’ she chirped, hiding her surprise and springing off the desk gracefully in her ridiculously high heels, which she appeared to wear as if she was in a pair of old comfortable running shoes.
As she sashayed over to him he caught Rich with his eyes glued to her arse. Yup, Lou had him on her hook, no question.
He also noticed Dylan glowering in Rich’s direction and then finally casting a wary look over to Tom. Tom reckoned Dylan was sensible to be wary of him at the moment. Tom and Dylan were going to have words and soon.
Lou smiled at him as she approached and led him out of the room into the deserted corridor (this was an added shitty feature of the medics’ room; it was stuck at the very farthest corner of the hospital and was a pain in the backside to get to, making through traffic rare).
‘So Weasel,’ she started, crossing her arms in front of her, ‘what’s crawled up you’re a-hole and died now?’
‘You have such a beautiful turn of phrase Lou,’ Tom said through the small smile he was unable to hold back. Despite how annoying she was, there was no arguing that Lou was hilarious. He still didn’t know why she called him ‘Weasel’ but was just grateful that she didn’t do it in front of other people. ‘I need to talk to you about Frankie again.’
She sighed and dropped her hands to her sides, shaking her head. ‘I’ve told you everything that I feel comfortable telling you. I’m sorry but the rest you have to figure out for yourself.’
‘All you told me was to go for it. I’ve tried that Lou, but she’s locked down tight and won’t give me any kind of an in. She just keeps going on about weird fucked up rules of the universe making us impossible, and talking about herself as “her kind of people”.’
‘She told you that she was a certain kind of people?’
‘Yes, amongst other crazy stuff.’
‘Bugger, I thought she had left all that behind,’ Lou muttered nonsensically.
‘Please give me something to go on Lou,’ he pleaded.
Lou pulled in a breath through her nose then let it out slowly, closing her eyes. When she opened them she seemed to have come to some sort of decision. ‘Frankie had a difficult childhood…’
Tom’s body went very still and the atmosphere in the corridor changed as his mood darkened. ‘Did someone hurt her?’ he asked in a scary voice.
‘Well… yes,’ Tom’s body went rock solid and Lou, sensing that his head was about to explode, quickly continued. ‘Not in the way you think,’ she hurried on. ‘Her parents, being Italian, had a tendency towards high expressed emotion. You know lots of screaming and arm waving, nothing physical. But there were other…’ she paused and looked away from him for moment, ‘…problems. Then her dad left when she was eleven. I think that must have knocked her confidence, and definitely meant she had to take on a lot of responsibility in the home and in the restaurant her parents worked in. Then she started secondary school around the same time and things there were…difficult.’
‘How difficult?’ Tom asked. Being outgoing and a natural sportsman Tom had sailed through school.
‘Hell,’ Lou said simply. ‘She was vulnerable when she started. Her dad had just left, she was super skinny and awkward, combined with being naturally shy. She didn’t have an eating disorder, just a growth spurt at ten where her body just stretched out a bit too quickly without giving her the chance to put on the weight she needed.
‘Kids can smell blood and weakness and they made her the target from the first day of school. Seven years of persecution later Frankie emerged very much the worse for wear. It was mostly verbal, occasionally spilled over into physical. Tom, I swear some of the things those kids did-’ Lou stopped for a moment and took in a sharp breath. She continued in a low voice, which vibrated with her anger. ‘I swear to God, if I could go back in time and get my hands on those sick little bastards, I’d rip them limb from limb.’
Tom was in no doubt that this was true. He’d seen how much Lou cared about Frankie, and he had personal experience of how fiercely protective she could be when it came to her.
‘Okay, so she was bullied. What else aren’t you telling me?’
‘Her last boyfriend was…not nice.’
‘How not nice?’ He felt his gut clench again.
‘He didn’t hurt her, not physical. He was just…mean.’
‘Mean?’
‘Chris knew he wasn’t good enough for her, I’m sure that’s why he did it. He tried to wear her down. Told her she was nothing. Verbal abuse, but effective stuff, especially with somebody like Frankie. He ripped away the last of her self-esteem. They were together for three years. Three years she put up with that crap. Unbelievable.’
‘Who ended it?’
‘I did.’
‘Sorry?’
‘After her mum died Frankie had had enough. He’d crossed a line, didn’t support her. Got pissy that her dying mother was taking attention away from him. She wanted to cut him loose, especially after she caught him snogging a medical student. Dylan and I went down there. I helped Frankie move out and Dylan…well lets just say he convinced him pretty effectively to leave Frankie alone and never contact her again.’
‘There’s something else, some secret she’s keeping now.’
Lou looked away and when she looked back at him her face was wary and closed. ‘There are some things that you need to hear from her. She still has some…responsibilities that aren’t to…pleasant.’ Tom made and impatient noise low in his throat, he was getting tired of being in the dark when it came to Frankie.
‘Look,’ Lou continued, ‘all you need to keep in mind is that she doesn’t see herself the same as the rest of the world sees her. No matter how much her friends try to build her up she just won’t believe it. She’s still shy-’
