Downfall by S.D. Wasley

  ****

  Alone, my shoulder throbbed in unison with my head. I gratefully took the pain medication the nurse doled out. Dad arrived, having left Starr to handle the show reschedules and ticket refunds. I could just imagine how she was coping. Dad had a lot of questions for me but I pretended to be a little dopier than I actually felt so he’d back off. The doctors and police had already filled him in so he could stand to wait for the full story. In fact, it might be efficacious for me to pretend to have forgotten most of the details. Uncle Max had told Dad about the Jude episode on the Main House balcony so I also had to try and convince him that was all sorted out now.

  Mum turned up just before lunch. Dad gave her a cool nod and left in order to give us some time together but Mum simply let me nap until public visiting hours recommenced. The surgeon came to see me late in the afternoon. He talked about reattached ligaments and sutured muscles, something to do with pinned bones and follow up surgery, and something else about physiotherapy. I trusted that Mum was listening, or that someone would explain it to me again, because I certainly didn’t take much of it in. The older night nurse entered my room and told me quite sternly to rest so I pretended to sleep for a while until the painkillers took effect and I drifted off in earnest. I woke in the evening, my room dim and the hour very late. Mum was gone, and Cain wasn’t there, either. He didn’t come. Perhaps my words had convinced him, after all. The ache in my heart had no edge of triumph.

  Liz came in with Jude the next day. They didn’t mention Cain at all but gave me flowers and talked about the farmer who’d shot me. He’d been charged with reckless behavior causing harm, but everyone seemed to think the whole situation had been a sad accident. Vanessa arrived soon after so Jude and Liz said goodbye. Vanessa put her phone on speaker to include Albion, still in Augur’s Well, in our conversation. He was positive I’d gotten caught in the middle of some kind of gang warfare or a drug deal gone sour and didn’t believe a word of the farmer story. I couldn’t help but laugh at his theories, but then sucked in my breath when the movement hurt my shoulder. Vanessa’s face filled with worry.

  “Frankie, when they let you out, will you please come home and let me look after you?” she begged.

  “Uncle Don wants her to stay with us,” came Albion’s voice through the phone. “He’s already spoken to Dad.”

  Vanessa frowned. “I don’t think she’s safe there. You won’t go back to him, that guy Cain, will you, Frankie?”

  I hesitated. Would I?

  “She’s perfectly safe with us.” Albion had missed her question and was still arguing about where I should live. “Frankie, I feel super guilty over what happened to you. I let you get into this dark stuff. You’ll fail college if you keep going this way, on top of screwing yourself up with this crappy, unhealthy relationship you’ve got going on.”

  “Alby, please. You don’t need to worry about me. Neither of you do,” I added, looking at Vanessa. “I’ve learnt a lot. I won’t make those mistakes again. And I will come home to live at the Old House.” Vanessa looked a little hurt. I pushed her gently with my good arm. “Ness, I appreciate your offer. We’ll hang together much more, okay? I don’t need you to look after me, just be my sister. I’m really sorry about that crap I said to you,” I said, remembering. The apology was so simple now.

  That prompted a teary smile. “But what about if Dad wants you to go back on tour with him?”

  I considered. It would certainly get me away from Augur’s Well but touring with Dad simply didn’t hold any appeal anymore.

  “I don’t think I want to.”

  “What?” Albion sounded as shocked as Vanessa looked. “I thought you were addicted to travelling?”

  “Yeah. I think finding my way around new places was my only freedom in those years on tour. That’s why it was so important to me, I guess. It was the only bit of independence I had.”

  “So that’s it?” Albion had a smile in his voice. “You mean, having stumbled upon a life she could call her own, Frankie found peace even in the small town existence in Augur’s Well?”

  I chuckled, and then gasped involuntarily as the dark shape of Cain appeared behind Vanessa in the doorway.

  “You’re awake.” Cain’s lips curved into a smile that made my breathing shorten.

  Vanessa’s face hardened. She gave me a long, meaningful look, stood up, and kissed my cheek by way of goodbye. Albion was still on speaker phone as she departed, demanding to know what was happening. Cain sat in the chair she’d vacated and gave me a quizzical look.

  “That’s your sister, right?” he said. “She didn’t look very pleased to see me.”

  “She thinks you’re bad for me,” I said. “My cousin Alby does, too. They don’t realize it’s the other way round.”

  He ignored that. “She’s protective of you?”

  “She said she wants to look after me.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Cain said.

  “They helped me hide from you. From all of you. They helped distract me when ...”

  “When?”

  “When I was sad,” I admitted stiffly.

  He leaned forward. “You should never have been sad.”

  “I had to be. I had to do what was right.”

  Cain looked tired, and rubbed his head with his fist. I wondered if he’d slept since Land’s End. “Did it get easier, leaving us behind? Leaving me behind?” he asked.

  The ache in my heart had never eased and that was what he wanted to know. But telling him the truth would validate his argument and I needed to stand strong. My resolve had already weakened too much. I had to push him harder, push him away no matter how much it hurt.

  “Yes, it got easier,” I lied. “I got on with things. College. Friends. Socializing. I was doing okay.”

  He looked unconvinced. “Socializing? Dating?”

  The lie stuck in my throat a little this time. “I ... thought about it.”

  It was a low blow. Cain jumped up and paced my room for a moment. I couldn’t look at him but I sensed he paused at the door. Would he leave?

  But he was going nowhere. He swallowed his emotion and busied himself with pouring me a glass of water before sitting back down in the visitor’s chair. He looked me in the eye. “Do you want to be with me?”

  “I can’t be with you.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I couldn’t answer. It would mean giving in.

  “Francesca, if you want to be with me, then there’s nothing that’s going to keep me away from you. For all I care, the Archangel Gabriel could come down and intervene. It wouldn’t make any difference. You say you thought about seeing other guys after you left ... I promise, if you let me be with you, you will never need anyone else. I’ll make sure I’m worthy of you.”

  I fought the urge to laugh insanely at that. Worthy of me? “You shouldn’t have come back,” I attempted. “When you didn’t come back last night I thought you’d made the right choice.”

  “I have made the right choice. And I did come back but you were already sleeping.”

  I sighed to cover the way my heart felt like it split open and fizzed up in my chest. “Cain. You don’t work when you’re with me. I break you.”

  Cain leaned in close. “Then I want to stay broken. I want you. Do you want me?”

  My God, he was beautiful. I forgot everything else, looking at his sun-browned face, the messy black hair falling over his forehead, and those deep, dark eyes. It was ridiculous how much I loved him. My resistance finally failed me and I found myself nodding fervent assent. I had chosen. We had chosen, and it was the low road. He buried his face in my hair, breathing kisses into my neck as I melted into him, abandoning us both to a fate of damnation.