He was trying to make a joke, though it came out far too serious. I attempted a smile.
I’m glad you’re here.
And I truly was.
I stayed in hospital for two whole days. They took the tube out of my mouth the next morning. It was still hard for me to talk in more than a whisper and the doctors were keen I shouldn’t strain my voice, so – apart from Mum and Dad – I was only allowed visitors for a few minutes at a time.
Jam came to see me, full of remorse that he’d left me and Shelby on that second floor. I told him – in a fierce whisper – that he didn’t have anything to be sorry for.
I knew, rationally, that Shelby’s death was Cooper Trent’s fault. He was the one who’d left us in that office building to die. He was the one who’d kidnapped us in the first place.
But somehow I couldn’t help feeling that I’d failed her.
A policewoman explained that once Cooper Trent had lured us into the building, he had sneaked up behind Annie and knocked her out so she couldn’t raise the alarm. He hadn’t needed to kill her, as she couldn’t identify him, but he would have almost certainly murdered Madison if he’d found her.
‘Your little sister was very brave, hiding from him until the fire engine arrived. He was obviously waiting to make sure the fire took hold, but the sirens scared him off,’ the officer said. ‘Don’t worry, though. We’re on his trail.’
Later that day, Annie brought Madison in to see me. Madison chatted away, her big brown eyes round and solemn as she told me how she’d woken up on the back seat of the car to see Cooper attacking Annie and had hidden behind some bins outside a building up the road.
Annie herself said very little. She sat beside me, her hair neatly combed and her clothes properly ironed. But there was a dead look in her eyes that chilled me to the bone.
‘Mommy’s taking some special pills,’ Madison whispered into my ear. ‘Because of Shelby.’
And that was the closest anyone came to talking to me about Shelby’s death. I guess they didn’t want me to have to face it until I was better, but it preyed on my mind the whole time.
Shelby was dead. Gone.
It was too big to believe.
Mum and Dad were at my bedside most of the rest of the time. They sat with me and read to me and chatted about getting me home as soon as possible. On my second day in hospital, they brought me a laptop so I could watch stuff online. Rory even came in for a brief visit to show me a huge model aeroplane he’d made out of cereal packets. I tried to show some interest, but the truth was that the more time passed, the more the pain of losing Shelby built up inside me.
I didn’t really understand it. We had never been close. And yet the last few moments we’d shared had made me see Shelby in a completely different light. I’d always thought of her as the selfish one, but now I could see that I’d been selfish too – never really trying to see life from Shelby’s point of view at all.
The worst thing was that there was, now, absolutely nothing I could do about it.
The police came to take a statement on the afternoon of the day I got home. Mum hovered anxiously while I told them – my voice still hoarse – how we’d been locked into the first storage room and how, later, I’d dragged Shelby with me to the second.
The police explained that they were close to catching Cooper and, the following day, Mum and Dad brought me the news that he had been killed while resisting arrest and all the money he’d stolen had been recovered, as had the bodies of Frank, Rick and Julianne.
I felt nothing.
I felt nothing about anything.
Even though it had only happened three days ago, Shelby’s death seemed to belong to another lifetime. It felt like some horrible dream that I still hadn’t properly woken up from. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone, not even Jam.
Mum and Dad were clearly worried about me, but the more time passed the more shut up in my head I felt. And then, one day, about a week after I’d come out of hospital, Jam showed up out of the blue.
‘Hey, Lazerbrain,’ he said, peeking his head round my bedroom door.
I was sitting propped up on pillows on my bed, staring at a school book. I wasn’t reading it, but Mum had, in the last few days, got back to nagging me over my revision so it made life easier to wander around with a relevant book in my hand. I was, as she pointed out, getting behind when it came to my GCSE preparations and the exams were less than two months away.
I didn’t care.
I just wanted to be left alone.
‘Lauren?’ Jam wandered over.
With an effort, I turned my head to look at him.
‘What’s up?’ I said. Perhaps if I had a quick chat he’d leave me alone too.
Jam crossed his arms and frowned.
‘Nothing’s “up”,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to see you.’
‘Oh.’ I couldn’t think what to say. ‘That’s nice.’
Jam squatted down in front of me. He looked deep into my eyes.
‘Shelby dying wasn’t our fault,’ he said. ‘We did the best we could to save her. You nearly died, trying to save her.’
I turned my face away, but he reached out and gently turned it back.
‘Stop beating yourself up,’ he said gently.
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Lazerbrain.’ Jam smiled and, in spite of everything, that smile pierced through the numb fog in my brain.
‘I am fine,’ I protested. But even as I spoke, tears were leaking out of my eyes.
I brushed them away, but more followed and soon I was wailing my guts out.
Jam put his arm round me and let me cry. When I’d finished, he took my face in my hands.
‘Don’t,’ I said, suddenly self-conscious about how puffy and red my eyes must be. I fingered the wooden oval round my neck. ‘I look awful.’
‘Hideously gorgeous,’ he said with a big grin. He pointed to the wooden necklace. ‘That’s why I gave you that, remember? You’re self-obsessed and impulsive and vain and I love you to bits, OK?’
‘Well, I hate you,’ I sniffed, grinning back. ‘Coming into my life and understanding me . . . you’re the world’s most disgustingly perfect boyfriend and . . . and everything’s better when you’re with me.’
Jam laughed. ‘Are you actually admitting that you need another human being? That you’ve finally realised you don’t have to handle everything by yourself?’
I smiled, remembering what Shelby said just before she died.
‘Maybe,’ I said, sitting back against my pillows. ‘Maybe I am.’
Nobody does it alone. Not even me. And it isn’t just Jam I need, either. There’s Mum and Dad and Rory. And Annie and Madison. Especially Madison.
I’m going to need all of their help as I face the challenges ahead – coping with a world that suddenly doesn’t have Shelby in it . . . my GCSEs and whatever comes after them . . . making it work with Jam when we get into the sixth form . . . and dealing with the fact that Sam isn’t my birth father after all – that the man whose genes I carry was some anonymous medical student who doesn’t know Madison and I exist. I have no interest in finding out who he is. Not now. Not yet.
Who am I?
There’s no one answer to that. We are all becoming ourselves every day – creating a past to take into our future. And other people are the biggest part of what makes us who we are.
Even the ones we thought we hated.
Even when it’s too late to change anything, no matter how much we wish we could.
Even though sometimes it isn’t until we lose someone that we realise what they gave us – like my sister.
My sister, missing.
Sophie McKenzie, Sister, Missing
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