Distracted By You: Book 1 in The Exeter Running Girls Series, стр. 57
When the paramedic arrived, Savannah and Leonora tried to urge me to my feet, but I was struggling. My ankle was suffering from shooting pains and my body was too much in shock to move. The trembling was like nothing I had ever felt. Those lightning bolts of fear hadn’t completely abated. They sat there, waiting to rumble again even though the threat had gone. Once the paramedic said I needed to get up the stairs, I felt a set of hands take hold of me.
With one hand under my legs and the other round my back, I was lifted into Tye’s arms.
He didn’t look at me. He kept his focus straight ahead as he carried me down the corridor and up the stairs.
“Tye?” My voice sounded small. In answer, his cheek twitched, his whole face was taught. I didn’t know what to do. This was not what was supposed to happen. It was a greater mess than I had ever thought.
I had been so wrong as well. Thinking that Kyle was not mad enough to try something somewhere so busy. Guess you never really know what’s going on in someone’s head.
“Tye?” I said again as we reached the floor above and he directed his steps to the main door, heading for an ambulance parked outside. He wouldn’t reply.
It was crushing.
At the paramedic’s instruction, he placed me to sit on a stretcher in the back of the van, then he turned away. His eyes never lifting to my face as he jumped down onto the pavement.
“Tye!” I said it louder that time. My voice angry. I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t speak to me. He froze. His back turned towards me yet making no move to walk away. I didn’t know what to say first, there was so much, but I was too angry right now. Too scared of what had happened to pour it all out. “Do you want to know what the ladybugs are about?”
My random words caused him to turn his head. He looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“That’s what you want to say?” His voice was incredulous. “Kyle just attacked you and you’re talking about ladybugs?”
“Yes. I am. It’s…” I couldn’t think of a good word, so opted for something strange instead. “Relevant.”
When he made no move away, the paramedic hovered on the doorway.
“You coming or staying?” The paramedic asked.
Tye looked away for a second, trailing his hand up the back of his neck as he always did when stressed, then he turned back to the ambulance and climbed in.
The legal process of it all sounded strange. Kyle was being charged. I gave my statement in a room alone with the police as I sat in a cold plastic chair. The room was white again. Too white. When I told the police officer about Kyle’s comments that I looked like my sister, there was a dawn of realisation on her face.
“I think he needs help,” my words made her nod.
It was possible that Kyle’s own grief had turned him into that thing. He was giving a confession and cooperating with the police after all. He made no attempt to hide what he had tried to do.
Cara had taken charge and called both my parents to explain what had happened, passing the phone over to me to explain as well. I didn’t cry, amazingly. I felt like that dried up piece of toast again.
I had fractured a bone in my ankle. Tye had stayed the whole night, holding onto my hand as the x-ray came through and only leaving when they had to do a little operation to reset the bone. He was back by my side when they put it in plaster.
I was out by morning. We hadn’t slept and were walking, well, he was walking, I was hobbling on crutches through the park in the centre of town.
We hadn’t really talked yet. Everything had been too busy. He had asked me to tell him exactly what Kyle had done, so I had given a brief overview without talking about the Rosie bit. There was a point in the night where I thought he’d beat up the pillow they had given me to rest my foot on, just so he could have an outlet for his anger.
Now, as we walked and hobbled through the park, we were quiet. I was trying to get used to how you walked with crutches, he had his hands in his pockets, staring down at the tarmac path.
“Can we stop?” I had trailed behind him, struggling to keep up. My words had broken him out of some deep thought, he looked back surprised, but nodded. I slowly clambered onto a bench nearby, looking out at the skyline of Exeter and the cathedral that peeked above the buildings.
He sat by my side, keeping distance between us.
“My sister loved ladybugs.” My words startled him. He snapped his head to look at me with bewilderment. “She loved them. Ladybug backpacks, clothes, everything. She died six years ago. She was dating Kyle at the time.”
My words practically struck him across the face as good as a fist. He turned on the bench, resting an arm on the backrest and pulling up one knee so he could face me properly.
“They were together?”
“Yes. They hadn’t slept together, but they were exploring.” I couldn’t smile. My face felt flat of emotion. “When she died, he was broken too. Just like the rest of us. When I first saw Kyle at that party back in February, he said I looked like her. He said it again