Stories from the Back of His Motorcycle

It was all rushed from then on. I remembered whispering something into Vaughn’s ear but the words were lost to me now, I remembered his mother crying into her hands, and then there were so many people wheeling around his bed. I was left right there, in the middle of everything, an imprint of someone who’d been taken away.

Numb, finally, because there were too many emotions I was supposed to feel and so many more I didn’t think I was capable of feeling. I lingered in the middle of the hospital doorway I had been led to, unsure where I was supposed to go. Everywhere around me there were chairs, lined up in the middle of aisles, clogging up the space with their ugly, plastic forms. I was supposed to sit down and wait like everyone else but I couldn’t bring myself to move. I’d been put here by someone and here I was going to stay. Until some doctor came along to tell me Vaughn was alright, I was staying right there.

And I was introduced to the worst kind of waiting game. My legs began to ache, my arms began to stiffen up, and all I was left with was my ability to survey those around me. All faces painted with the same agonising waiting which filled me up to the brim. I almost overflowed right there onto the ceramic floor. Lamely, I pictured the way they’d sweep me away, clean me up, put a sign up for only a few minutes to tell everyone else to tread carefully. And then I’d be gone into the missing place everyone who left ended up.

I wanted to see Vaughn again. I needed to see him.

Nothing else was real.

Everything else was a lie.

I missed him; every second which passed I missed him with a physical pain I hadn’t known could feel so bad. Crippling me until I could barely stand. I was rigid, though, a statue broken somewhere down the middle, patched up until it just passed for okay.

A warm arm was around my shoulders, pulling me out of the way of the world. I looked uneasily up at Mr Hart and wanted to cry all over again because he was his twin in that moment. They looked so alike. It was like my Vaughn was holding me somewhere in the distant future even though he lay elsewhere in this hospital, fighting a battle all on his own in the present.

“Come on Alice,” he said softly so as not to drown out the silence all around.

He lowered me into a chair besides Mrs Hart and exchanged a sad, long look with his wife. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly for a moment, not wanting to see it, not wanting to see anything anymore. I was collapsing internally. I was a rockslide just waiting to happen and I was trying so hard to keep it all together.

Two smaller arms wound themselves around me to my left, pulling me closer over the chair into her body. I curled up, rested my head into her shoulder, ignored how bony it felt and how uncomfortable I was. It was bliss to hide for a little while in the crevice of someone else and pretend that I was anywhere but here, anywhere but waiting for Vaughn to get better or die.

“He’s going to be okay,” Mrs Hart murmured to nobody in particular as she held me like a daughter “my baby’s a fighter.”

I’m scared that all of the fight has left him; I thought loudly, fighting got him into this position in the first place. He was careless. He had good news for me and he’d managed to end up unconscious in the general hospital, closer to death than I cared to acknowledge. He should have stopped; he should have been the bigger person.

“What happened?” I found myself asking, voice muffled by her clothes. “Why is he... why did he have to do this to us?”

Mrs Hart shushed me gently and smoothed a hand over my hair. “He’s going to be okay Alice.”

“He should never have gotten into this situation.”

“My baby doesn’t know how to pick his fights carefully, and I think this one was about something more than just his pride,” she trailed off wistfully. “He didn’t have a choice.”

“He always has a choice,” I snapped, pulling away angrily, wanting to blame this woman for everything. Wanting someone to blame.

“Alice,” Mr Hart, now in the chair to his wife’s left, leaned forward so he could look at me. “This is hard for all of us and we’re all disappointed that he got into a fight but there’s nothing to achieve from getting angry. We have to be patient and wait. We have to hope that he’s going to be fine.”

“He’s going to be alright,” Mrs Hart’s voice wobbled dangerously before she was engulfed into her husband.

I sat there; back straight, watching as she broke down like a child, clutching Mrs Hart’s shirt as if scared she might fall right through her chair. I wondered what that must be like, to have a boy there to keep you upright when the whole world was falling down. Then I remembered Vaughn, and I wished with everything I had that he would be okay, because he was that boy.

I wanted to have a life with him; I wanted to get married and have three children and grow old together in a little house in a smaller town. I never wanted to have to leave him like this again. I wanted to keep him with me in more than just my memories; I wanted him there, solid, alive. I didn’t know how to go on without him with me.

“Miss Thornberry?”

A police man in full uniform, badge gleaming under the oppressive overhead lights, was offering his best you’re-not-in-trouble smile. It took me a couple of seconds of that smile to realise this cop was looking at me like that, and then a few more to wonder why there was a cop here smiling at me at all.

“Oh God,” Mr Hart groaned to my left “can’t you people pick a decent time to ask your questions?” He tightened his protective arm around his wife as if hoping to hide her away completely.

The police man chortled without humour, the sound echoing around the whole dismal room, making the people waiting for their lives to end look at him funny. He was the anomaly here. Dressed all smart, smiling, nothing to tie him to this hospital at all. Nothing like a boyfriend battling to stay alive in a room down the hall.

“We’re not exactly renowned for our timing, Mr Hart,” the officer continued.

I was reminded of the phone calls I’d had to make to each of my brothers. The bringer of bad news, that’s what they remembered me for, nothing sweet or nostalgic. Just the girl who’d ring to tell them that Dad was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

“What’s this about?” I asked finally, wondering why I hadn’t spoken straight away.

“About a Vaughn Hart and a Josh Scott, both involved in a fight which happened at 6:53 this afternoon inside this town’s Tiffany’s jewellery store.”

It wasn’t so hard to remember why I hadn’t spoken straight away, then. His answer caught me so off guard, I was speechless and wide eyed, the cogs and wheels in my head all run out of steam. I would have probably fallen off my chair had Mrs Hart not suddenly steadied me with a hand.

“Please, officer, this really isn’t the time for such questions. My son’s life hangs in the balance.”

“Again, Mrs Hart, we’re not renowned for our timing, and this will only take a few minutes. I just have a couple of questions for Miss Thornberry here.”

“They can wait sur-.”

I cut off their endearing butting in because I had nothing but time to spare in that waiting room, and I wanted to know all about this fight which had led to such awful happenings. If it could be true that Delia’s ex-boyfriend and my own boyfriend had been in, not only a fight, but an upmarket jeweller of all things. The pieces were all loose and not fitting together. I was a whole rolling film of emotions, never pausing for even a second.

“It’s fine; I can answer your questions even though I won’t be much help.”

The man nodded, strong and sure and everything I was lacking right then. He asked me if I wanted to leave but I couldn’t bring myself to stand. I didn’t trust my legs anymore; I didn’t trust any limb of mine. The chair propped me up like a doll with unseeing eyes and unfeeling hands. The police man took the seat beside me and I wondered if it was all becoming too heavy in that room, far too heavy to keep up any longer. I knew my shoulders were sagging with it.

“Did you know anything about the fight, Miss Thornberry, before, during or after it happened?”

I half expected him to pull out a little notepad and pop a pen before my eyes.

“No. This is the first I heard about it.”

“And does Vaughn have a history of getting into fights?”

“That’s Mr Hart,” I barked because it was a little too personal for this stranger to be calling him Vaughn. “And yes, he does, but not too badly. He’s gotten into fights before but they were with nobody I ever knew.” My mind cast back to finding the blood under his nails and seeing the bruises up his beautiful face. It hurt too much to think about him like that; in fact it hurt too much to think about him at all.

“Wait... there was one fight in the coffee shop I work at, Bailey’s Coffee on the corner of Blind Lane, a few months back. It was between him and Josh...” I blinked, disgusted at the picture the pieces were finally fitting together to make. A jealous tussle of testosterone in the middle of a crowded room with upturned chairs and spilt coffee.

Over me.

Because of me.

My stomach dropped at the thought that this, all of this, could be my fault.

“Yes?” he looked interested for the first time as if his ears had just pricked.

“It was pretty intense but another employee put a stop to it before anybody got seriously hurt,” I finished quickly, brushing over everything in between the beginning and end.

“What were they fighting over?”

Me.

“I can’t remember,” I lied instead of telling the truth. It was right on my tongue before it slipped back down my throat, getting lodged somewhere a bit too close to my heart.

It was as if he could see the lie right there, in my face. I thought I was a good liar but apparently this police officer was better at finding them, turning them out. I was suddenly glad that we were facing away from Vaughn’s parents with our voices low enough to be mistaken for quiet background noise. I couldn’t face them with the knowledge that their son was holed up in ward D2, fighting for life, because of some jealous twisted love triangle. If it was even a triangle at all, possibly something deformed, a shape with too many jagged edges.

“Was it because of your relationship with Vaughn?” he prompted.

“Mr Hart,.” I corrected, more forcefully than before.

“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry at all.

There was no point in trying to cover up this particular truth anymore. He had hit the lie right on the head and it was only as it fell away did I realise that I should have tried harder to hide it. To build it up. To make it more believable.

“Yes. Josh told me he loved me and Vaughn didn’t like that.”

“I should say not,” the police man almost laughed but caught himself, remembering where he was.

It was curious, this man. Maybe he was new on the job, or maybe he was still too young, but he wasn’t how I had always pictured police officials to be. He was looser, more relaxed, taking this whole situation easily in his big booted stride as if it wasn’t my whole world falling apart.

“So there’s been tension between the two for a while now, revolving around you. Do you have any idea who you think would start the fight? Mr Scott is saying one thing and Mr Hart isn’t... in the right state of mind to give his statement. I want you to either verify or dispute Mr Scott’s statement. Will that be okay?”

Josh! Just what the hell had he been saying now? And why was he going around getting into fights with my boyfriend, again?

“So this is Mr Scott’s account,” he pulled the notepad I had been waiting for out of his pocket and flipped it open to a page full of scrawling of words and sentences and paragraphs. It could have been anything, a haiku, a letter to the President, and it would have looked just as unreadable.

“Shortly after entering the Tiffany’s jewellery store at 6:40, Mr Scott spotted Mr Hart was browsing by the main counter. Curious, he approached him and saw that he was looking at rings – he was very keen to emphasise the importance of rings in his statement – and questioned him about the interest. Mr Hart told him it was none of his business and then...” here the officer cleared his throat and blushed a little “some heated words were exchanged, most of them about you, Miss Thornberry. And the fight started after Mr Hart landed the first punch in Mr Scott’s jaw.

He’s claiming that he knew nothing about Mr Hart’s previous illness and rang an ambulance after one particular blow to his chest left him unconscious on the floor.”

It all played out in front of my eyes, right there in the middle of the waiting room. Josh’s angry flush, Vaughn’s narrowed grey eyes, the way they had torn into each other, the way Vaughn had been hit in just the wrong place. His wheezing for air must have been horrible, the way the air would have gritted past his throat and stuck there as his poor heart beat to a completely new rhythm. Joshwas a good person deep down past his jealousy and temper. It was hard to see in that moment when all I wanted to do was find him and rip his heart out, but I knew he was. While he’d been the cause, he’d also probably saved Vaughn’s life by calling the ambulance when he did.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, trying not to sound like I was pleading, but on the edge of that anyway. I didn’t want to hear this anymore. The scene playing out in front of me was far too vivid and the image of Vaughn suffering was breaking me apart.

“Can you verify that Vaughn was likely to make the first move?” He was still all business, pretending that he couldn’t see how much this hurt.

“I wasn’t there, Officer, so I can’t say for sure.”

“But it would be in your judgement to make an estimated guess?”

“The last time I saw them fight, Vaughn made the first move but he was greatly provoked by Josh. I don’t know what they were doing there in first place but I can imagine it was probably the same scenario. The only difference is, Mr Officer, my boyfriend is in a hospital bed and Josh is perfectly fine,” I drew in a deep breath, filling up my suddenly deflated lungs. “It’s too early for the blame game to be played here.”

“I’m just trying to get the facts straight Miss Thornberry,” he said evenly before drawing himself up and out of the chair. I stared up in question, overwhelmed by this simple gesture, overwhelmed by it all. “If you have anything else to add then contact me on this number,” he handed me a card. “And remember to call the station when Mr Hart is ready for some questions.”

“I hope,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought to the whole situation “that I haven’t ruined the surprise at all. Congratulations, Miss Thornberry.”

I watched in utter bewilderment as the man left with a polite nod to Vaughn’s parents, steaming along out of the door to find, no doubt, some more witnesses and criminals to interrogate. Replaying his last words, I frowned at the empty space before me, making neither heads nor tails of his parting comment.

“He didn’t want to ask you like this, my dear, it was all meant to be a lovely surprise,” Mrs Hart spoke, a hand resting gently on my shoulder. “But everything went so wrong.”

“No,” I half laughed, it all clicking into place and yet feeling so wrong at the same time. Misjudged almost, as if the truth which had been dangling tantalising close for the past few minutes was nothing but a glorified lie. Vaughn knew how I felt about that kind of thing. I’d made it so clear to him, spelt it out in so many words, and yet here I sat feeling like I had just been slapped.

“Oh that boy better be alright,” I hissed, suddenly uncontrollably angry “so that I can bloody well kill him!”