“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

”What does it mean, Jared?”

Lynn’s voice broke his thoughts and Jared lifted his concentration from the words on the page to Angel’s little sister. He smiled to her before dropping the book to his side and sighing. “It means I need to get a book you might understand.”

He had stayed by Angel’s bedside for days now, reading to her from books that he really didn’t know she’d like or appreciate, but more than anything it gave him something to do.

Lynn’s chuckle almost, almost, made the movement on the bed go unnoticed. The smile on Jared’s face was instantly lost as he snapped his gaze to Angel and for a moment he told himself it was just a trick of the mind, a play of light and shadows, but he couldn’t force himself out of hope. He crossed the room to her side where he dropped the book onto the chair and took her hand in his for what seemed like the thousandth time. “Angel,” he whispered, the anticipation almost choking his breath as he wished for her to move again with all that he had. He was sure her hand move. Only slightly but he was sure he seen it.

He hadn’t noticed the fact that Angel didn’t return the reassuring grip. He was too concerned with the overwhelming knowledge that she was waking, and that his nightmares were proven wrong. He watched her with almost a hunger for her progress, his tired but determined eyes darting from one feature to the next as they were forced into action. Finally her eyes opened and the relief within him was immeasurable.

“Angel,” he whispered again, only to have her look at him with confusion and distrust. She spotted Lynn and a second later the little girl ran out of the door, presumably to find her parents. Then her string of questions came from her tired voice – questions that he had waited days to answer and knew the answers by heart…

”Where am I?”

‘In a starforsaken hospital room that smells like disinfectant and looks like pea soup already digested.’

“Why are you here?”

‘I couldn’t leave your side. I promised you I would never leave you, and I didn’t.’

“Where’s Phillipe?”

Jared’s eyes widened at first and he felt as he did when he seen the car storming toward them. Initial shock was slowly replaced by worry, and eventually anger as one of the arriving doctors rested a hand on his arm and asked his to leave. Nothing had prepared him for the sound of that toad’s name on her sweet breath. He fought with the doctor at first, snatching his arm from the man’s grip and growling words in the negative as he tried to stay with Angel; tried to reason why Phillipe’s name was on her lips and not his. The doctor’s grip was strong, however, and Jared had no choice but to leave the noisy and bustling room.

Outside, the corridor started to spin as he collapsed into one of the ready chairs and rested his elbows on his knees, head in hands. The loud voices of the team of doctors from the room he had just left were somehow muffled as they met his ears. Angel had woken and he was eternally grateful for that; his heart was still pounding with relief from when her eyes met his, but he knew every second beat was now one of panic over her words.

A familiar voice echoed his worry, but he knew it was for a different reason as he looked up and met the furrowed gaze of Gabriella Craven. She and her husband walked straight past him and to the door of Angel’s room, where the his dade doctor that had escorted him out blocked their way. He didn’t hear the words they exchanged, but it wasn’t long before they were both looking even more worried, but with a hint of relief. Giving in to the doctor’s orders they returned to where Jared sat, numb and confused, and Gabriella sat next to him. The bench of seats barely moved as the woman’s light frame perched delicately next to him, as if any more force would break her like a twig. Jared looked at her. He tried to smile… he knew he should, but even a fake one was impossible. He shifted his gaze to Darius, standing over them like a watchtower, with just as much ferocity. Jared blinked slowly, words failing him as he tried.

“She… just…”

Silence choked him, and he was saved the chore of speech when a doctor joined them an eternity later. The noise had died down and it appeared that most of the professionals had left the room. All three expectant faces turned to the woman and she took a deep breath and smiled lightly.

”She’s sleeping, but she’s stable now. She’s just exhausted, which is normal. However, we have run some tests and there have been repercussions of the head trauma. Angelina’s injuries were extensive and she’s very lucky to have woken up, but she has some memory loss. From what we could gather before she fell into deep sleep, she can’t remember anything of the last year or so. In time, she may get those memories back…”

He couldn’t breath. It felt as though every function that kept him alive had suddenly given up. His vision darkened, the doctor’s continued instructions dissolved into a low buzzing beneath the pounding in his ears, his chest tightened and he had to force his lungs to expand to keep from passing out. He looked to her parents again and his head started to ache too. He wasn’t sure if it was his ill ease or if he actually seen them smile to each other. Either way it turned his fear to anger and he knew he had to leave before it showed.

“I should go…”

He didn’t know if his words were truly voiced and he didn’t look to them to see. He stepped past people in the corridor, each one making his head pound even more, until he reached Angel’s room. He had one intention of entering, and that was to grab the bag that sat just inside the door, obviously moved by someone in the hustle. But as soon as his eyes fell on her, clearly sleeping now as her breathing had turned deeper and colour returned to her features, that task threatened to leave his head. He wanted to hold her, to wake her up and have her know exactly who he was and what she meant to him, but he knew it could only make matters worse… for the both of them. He grabbed the bag and his jacket, falsely self-assured that he had everything despite the book his brother had given him sitting in the side table. He wanted to look at her again, but he fought it with everything he possessed for fear he’d leave his heart behind too.

What he didn’t know as he left her room, and eventually the corridor and the hospital itself, was that he didn’t have a heart to take with him; it had shattered in that waiting chair minutes before.

He pulled on his coat roughly as he stepped onto the footpath. It had started to rain and the newly risen sun was obscured by clouds of grey and white. He needed to go, and the only place that came to mind was home. He knew his brother wouldn’t be there, and his sister was back at school. He couldn’t call a cab, not for the crowds of people, but for the lack of drive and concentration. He raided his pockets and found his mobile phone. He kept it on him when he left the school, but always kept it switched off. Now, he turned it on, glaring at the tiny screen as it took ages to light up and welcome him. His headache grew and he had to duck into a doorway to make the call.

”Hello?”
“Dad…”
”Jared. Is everything ok?
There was a pause as Jared toyed with an answer, then discarded it.
“Could you… could you come get me?”
Another pause.
”Of course. Are you still at the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
”Well, get to the station and I’ll pick you up from there. You’ll catch your death in this weather.”
“Beep the horn when you get here.”


The station was close to empty as Jared entered it minutes later, soaked to the skin and not caring. Darkened blue green eyes searched for a clock and found a huge, black-faced, Victorian one hanging above the platforms. The faded white hands told him it was close to seven.

Forty minutes later a horn caught his attention and he never fled a building faster. His mum was in the back seat and smiled to him sympathetically as he opened the passenger door and climbed in, his mum taking his bag and putting it on the floor beside her in the back. His dad watched him closely from the driver’s seat and for a moment Jared’s eyes met his before he turned away and pulled out from the station.


”How is she?” His mum’s voice sounded after five minutes of silence.

“She’s fine…” Jared’s voice choked as he slumped further down in the seat and unfocused his gaze on the passing buildings. “Just… She has memory loss. She can’t remember anything… a year.”

He could almost hear his mum’s heart break as she whispered a strained ‘oh’, and his dad cleared his throat as if Jared’s own emotions threatened his breath. Jared closed his aching eyes as he chewed on a nail of his thumb, his elbow resting solidly on the window frame. The words echoed in his mind, ‘You promised you’d never leave her…

… but that was when you existed…’

Just once on that journey home, he didn’t have to wonder why his mum carried tissues in her handbag so many years after her children’s grazed knees stopped making them cry.

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