Ignite

Chapter 55

It takes another few hours, but eventually the nurses convince me to leave, promising they'll call when Jake wakes again.

Sylvia picks me up, and when we arrive home, I head straight to the shower, cocooning myself in a stream of warm water. I'm painfully aware of the heaviness in my limbs, and though I want to sleep, I'm too terrified to attempt it.

The idea of lying in bed, surrounded by darkness, is too much, and I stay in the shower for forty minutes, until the hot water runs out and I start to shiver.

I turn the tap off and step out, covering myself with a towel. Then, my phone rings.

It's sitting on the counter, hooked up to a charger after dying at the hospital, and for a moment, I close my eyes, praying it will stop. It'd been ringing constantly since the ball, popping up with familiar names and numbers: Lewis, Emmy, Aleisha, Harper, Sylvia, Muhammad.

I hadn't answered any of them.

But when I look over at the screen now, I hesitate.

It's a private number - one I don't recognise. Maybe that's why I hit the accept button and bring the phone to my ear.

"Hello?"

There's a pause, and then an automated woman's voice kicks in.

"You are receiving a call from Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, Ravenhall. If you would like to accept the call, please press one followed by the hash key."

My breathing stops. For a long time, I stand there, unable to move, but then I lower the phone, press one, and bring the receiver back up to my ear.

"We are connecting your call," the women's voice says. "Please note, all conversations with the inmates are recorded and kept on file. Thank you for your cooperation."

A dial tone rings for a few seconds before the line connects. I hear a beep, a click, and then there's panicked breathing on the other end.

"Claude? Is that you?"

Mum's voice slams into me, making me flinch, and I close my eyes.

"Yeah."

"What's going on? The warden told me Jake's in hospital."

My knees grow wobbly and I sit down on the edge of the bath, breathing deep.

"He is. He got admitted yesterday."

"Why?!"

She is astounded, outraged, screaming down the line. For a moment, I wonder if she even deserves to know. But all that thought does is make my brain short-circuit. I'm not sure what to think anymore, who to trust, so I go with the truth.

"Because he jumped in front of a car, Mum."

The line goes horribly silent. Even her breathing stops, and I squeeze my eyes shut, hard enough that stars explode on the back of my eyelids.

"What?"

"He said he wanted to make the guilt stop, that it was all his fault."

Her breathing comes back, fast and getting faster.

"Claude—"

"Please tell me he's wrong."

The desperation in my voice comes through clear and bright, and I know she understands what I'm asking.

"Please tell me Jake's confused, and you're guilty, and I haven't been blaming the wrong person for the past six months," I beg.

She's silent for a long time, and in that silence I allow myself to believe she'll fix this.

But then she speaks.

"Jake would never intentionally light a fire, Claude. You know that."

Her tone is flat, giving nothing away, but it's a tone as familiar as my own thoughts. It's one I once looked out for every evening, when Mum would arrived home and I'd try to evaluate how drunk she was. She'd always been good at sidetracking me, telling me misleading facts and half-truths that hid the whole story. It was something I'd almost forgotten, pushed to the back of my mind.

The return of that voice now make my hands shake, the phone skidding back and forth against my cheek.

"Mum—"

"I don't want to talk about this, Claude," she says. "I just want Jake to be okay."

The iron in her voice makes a sob finally tear up my throat, ripping free like she'd dropped a fish hook down into my guts and yanked.

"Well, he's not, Mum. I don't think he's ever going to be okay again."

She sucks in a breath, and for a moment I can picture her there: orange jumpsuit, hair growing out it's dye, nails bitten down to the quick, phone pressed against flushed cheeks.

"He has to be," she says softly. "You tell him to get himself together. He can't sabotage his life. Not again."

The receiver clicks, the line going silent, and I realise, belatedly, that she's hung up, and that she's given an answer to my question with two simple word.

Not again.