Free Letting You Go by Anouska Knight Page A

hours?’
    ‘Hope not, Al. They’re hot on the parking charges here, the thieving toads. Like anyone wants to be stuck at a hospital.’ Alex pulled her pumps back and grabbed her rucksack from the passenger foot well while Jem slammed the passenger door shut. Alex skipped to keep pace with her, glancing across the hospital car park as they walked. There was no sign of him. Jem pulled an expensive looking phone from the breast pocket of her denim jacket and checked the screen. ‘He went in already. I hung back to make a call, I didn’t spot you until after he’d gone inside,’ she said reassuringly. Jem returned her phone to her pocket, slipping her free arm around Alex’s waist. ‘Honest, Al, don’t go off on one … he didn’t know you were here or he’d have waited to say hi.’
    ‘OK.’ Alex smiled, trying not to leave such a tiny word hanging in the air all by itself. What had she been expecting anyway, a greeting party?
    Something mildly panicky was rising through Alex’s body the closer they got to the main hospital entrance. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t have the words, for her mum or her dad. How did you apologise for finally putting your own mother in hospital? For being the root cause of her broken heart?
    Jem nudged Alex with her hip. ‘So what’s this? The beach bum look?’
    Alex glanced down at the denim cut-offs and faded
Jaws
t-shirt she’d yanked on in the middle of the night as the espressos took effect. ‘It wasn’t exactly a deliberate outfit.’
    ‘Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water?’ Jem read. ‘Keeping the fear alive, are we?’
    Alex let out one of those breathy laughs that wasn’t worth the effort seeing as it wasn’t going to fool anyone. That fear was well and truly alive and kicking, like a great white killer shark, if great white killer sharks had legs. ‘Feels like ages since I last saw you, Al.’ Jem’s voice fell lower. ‘How are you doing?’ It wasn’t a good sign when Jem was quiet. It was like her defence mechanism. As if not talking about a thing could make it disappear.
    ‘I’m good.’ Alex smiled. It wasn’t Jem’s job to check on her, Alex was the eldest. She missed her role. ‘How are
you
doing, Jem?’ she countered, pulling Jem in to her a little as they walked past A&E. It was always a strange sensation Alex felt when they got together, as if it was possible to miss a person even more when they were within reach.
    ‘I’m OK. I’m just glad I was already up here and notstill in London when Mal called. It was a bit of a shock, Alex. She didn’t look great last night. She didn’t look … like Mum.’ Alex’s throat narrowed as they crossed the hospital lobby. She should’ve done more to stop this from happening, somehow, instead of hiding from them all.
    Jem reached for the lift button then stopped suddenly, as if something had just short-circuited in her head. She placed her hand flatly against the wall and held herself there.
    ‘She has to be OK, Alex,’ Jem said quietly. ‘I’m not ready for her not to be around yet.’
    Alex hung back. She swallowed her own thoughts and tried for
upbeat
, being the big sister. ‘You think Mum’s gonna check out before she’s seen one of us walk down the aisle, Jem? Unlikely.’ Blythe had made endless references to the great altar race over the years. ‘Course she’ll be OK. Like you said, tough as Dad’s old boots.’ But Alex felt as if someone had just kicked her in the neck with one.
    A cycle of what ifs began circuiting Alex’s head. What if she’d have come home this weekend, just for once? What if she’d have been with Blythe in the churchyard? What if that could have made the difference?
    Alex stopped herself. There was only one
what if
that could’ve ever made the difference and they all knew it.
    What if I hadn’t followed Finn into the bushes?

CHAPTER 10
    T he Acute Assessment Unit was quiet. No drama. No urgency. Jem announced herself at the