Intent [Wattys 2017]

Chapter 66

Emma

I think I've entered an alternative universe. There can't be any other solution, I must have.

In this universe I was abandoned by my boyfriend in the middle of a bloody ice rink, the same guy told me he loves me, I caught him talking to my estranged father, and now we are stuck in a hospital waiting room. Plus the icing on this cake of a night is that Harry has been snapping at everyone in his view, including me!

Yup, in that universe my night has turned to shit,

Oh wait, this is my life. Right. Now.

How did this even happen?

In all of the places in this bloody world he just had to be there.

I still can't get over how I felt when I first clapped eyes on him. It felt like I was gonna be sick. My stomach in knots, with a the lump the size of a golf ball in my throat and I couldn't stand up straight because I was stuck in the middle of the ice rink.

Somehow, I started to shuffle my feet in a forward type of motion. I wouldn't call it skating by any means but I was moving. I've got no clue to be honest, my head was spinning and I was about to chuck my supper in front of young kids who were skating circles around me.

It was horrible. It was humiliating. My mind was racing in all different directions, my heart beating faster than I could take in air and I felt so faint I'm surprised I didn't trip over my own two feet.

My mind was a riddle of emotions.

No part of me wanted to get anywhere near that man but I continued to make my way over, closer and closer as my thoughts got mistier and blurrier. Everything in my brain whirling around a mile a minute and I couldn't get control. The only thing I could focus on were the two men standing by the bar...wait...and for the first time since I saw both of them together earlier I have a clear thought.

What the hell was my FATHER doing at the bloody bar?

Flashes of that night invade my thoughts and I swear I see stars all over again. Even sitting here in this waiting room I feel really woozy just like when I was back on the ice.

It was all too much.

My hands were clammy, my legs felt numb, and I couldn't remember the last time I took a breath, and even with all my other thoughts and worries I still kept asking how I was still standing upright in that moment.

Of course this is me we are talking about so that little fact was quickly remedied by some over energized little girl, dressed in bright yellow, skating right into me causing me to loose my balance and fall, hard on the ice, landing right on the wrong side. It was like it happened in slow motion while she was able to skate away without a scratch.

Well lucky her.

If only I had my weight on my other leg or she had rammed into my other side but tonight just isn't my night obviously. The ice beneath me was cold and a moment later I felt a sharp pain shoot through my collar bone, through my shoulder all the way down to my fingertips.

I won't go into the particulars but the damage that my father caused in my shoulder was so bad that I needed a few metal plates to reconstruct some of the bone so any kind of injury or dislocation could be problematic. This is nothing I haven't dealt with before but right now having to explain it to Harry is that last thing I want to do.

Harry is more than anxious for information but I just can't. No matter what I do I can't stop thinking about what could have happened back there.

I remember thinking over and over: he can't see me, no matter what. I am not facing him, not now, not ever!