Destroy Me by Karen Cole (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

digest this information with mixed feelings. ‘What I don’t get,’ I say, ‘is how she did it. How did she get Charlie to let her in, in the middle of the night?’

Theo shrugs. Apparently, she knocked on Charlie’s door and pretended that Meg had fallen and needed bandages.’

Hence the ransacked medicine box out on Charlies kitchen table, I think. It was nothing to do with Ben.

‘And she’s in custody? Because I don’t want her anywhere near Dylan,’ I say, trying to sit up again, alarmed at the thought that Lizzie might be free to roam around.

‘Shh, don’t worry,’ he says soothingly. ‘She can’t hurt Dylan now.’

I sink back on to the pillow feeling dizzy and only a little reassured.

‘What about Delilah? Was it Lizzie who poisoned her?’

Theo nods grimly. ‘Yes, she confessed. According to the police, you left the back door open and she let herself in.’

I think about Delilah and shudder. How much must Lizzie Hamlyn hate me to do something like that to such a sweet, innocent creature just to hurt me?

My voice lowers to a whisper. ‘Did she tell the police about the hit and run? About Daisy? Do they know?’

He frowns and nods slowly. ‘The police will come to speak to you later when you’re better. But you shouldn’t worry about that for now. You need to concentrate on getting better.’

Clouds sail past my window, shape-shifting as they go, and I pass the time by trying to work out what they resemble. That one, with the hint of grey at the edge, looks like a crab claw; another is like an embryo or a mermaid – I can’t decide which. I wish I could defy gravity and float up there with them. It seems blissful, the idea of resting my head on a cloud. But I know that in reality a cloud would just be damp and cold, like fog.

I notice things like clouds now. I notice a lot that I never noticed before – for example, the way the leaves on the bush outside my window shiver in the wind and the spider’s web that’s tangled in its branches. There’s no sign of the spider, but I can see a fly caught in the deceptively delicate thread. It isn’t moving but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s dead.

I know how that fly feels. I know what it feels like to be trapped – how quickly anger and frustration can turn to despair, and despair to resignation. I know that prisoners try to find ways to keep their sanity – that they jealously store memories and feed off them slowly, rationing them so there will be enough to last. And that when they run out of memories their imaginations expand to fill the void.

Thirty-nine

Dr Blake tells me I’m lucky. Ha! Ha! According to her, I’m lucky that the damage to my spinal cord was in my back and not my neck because that means I still have full use of my upper body. Lucky, lucky me!

‘I’ll be straight with you,’ she said as she sat opposite me this morning, her frank blue eyes unflinching. ‘It’s not likely you will heal completely from a spinal-cord injury, but you can maybe regain some motor function if you exercise regularly.’

I’m lucky. Well, everything is relative, I suppose.

After Dr Blake leaves, the physiotherapist arrives in a waft of positivity, badgering me to exercise, bending my legs, moving me around like a slab of meat. Then she leaves me alone again to sit and stare at the white walls and listen to Mary snoring in the bed next to mine. I must have drifted off to sleep because when I wake up, it’s visiting time. And here is my mother, marching in like she owns the place, with Dylan clinging to her hand, grinning.

‘Ah, thank goodness you’re awake this time, Catherine,’ she says in her usual disapproving tone, as if I’ve been deliberately unconscious, just to inconvenience her. ‘How are you feeling, darling?’

‘I’ve been better.’

She pulls up a chair and starts unloading her bag on to my bed. ‘Now, I’ve brought you some books and some grapes. And Dylan’s done you a drawing, haven’t you, Dylan?’

Dylan nods bashfully and unfolds a piece of paper with an indecipherable scribble on it. He has written in a shaky hand: to Mummy love Dylan.

‘That’s beautiful, sweetheart,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

He’s looking wide-eyed at the wheelchair next to my bed.

‘That’s my new chair,’ I tell him, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘Pretty cool, don’t you think?’

‘Can I sit in it?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

Dylan clambers into the wheelchair and sits there, legs swinging, while Mum gives me the rundown on things that have been happening at the WI and on her street.

‘And Theo’s been helping with fixing the fence,’ she says. ‘He’s such a treasure, that man. You know, he’s been here to the hospital every day. He slept here the night of the accident. He’s so devoted to you.’

‘Hmph,’ I say. I don’t want to say too much in front of Dylan, but she gets what I mean.

‘You need to forgive him, Catherine. You know, “Forgiv­eness is the attribute of the strong”. I think Gandhi said that.’

Perhaps my mother is right. Maybe I should forgive Theo. If he can forgive me for what I’ve done, then shouldn’t I forget about Harper and give him another chance? There is no point in holding on to anger. It only festers and corrodes. I know that. But forgiving isn’t always so easy. I’m not sure I can ever excuse Theo. And forgiving myself is even harder. What is it they had in South Africa? A truth and reconciliation commission. It was a good idea. Before you can even begin to forgive you have to start with the truth, not a vague semblance of it, but the whole truth and nothing but the truth – like in a court of law. I’m not so bad at the ‘nothing-but-the-truth’ part, but the whole truth? Now that’s a different matter. And if