Where We Go | Book Three

45. Okay Never Means Okay

The days that followed passed in a surreal blur. 

I barely took note of anything that was happening and found myself doing the bare minimum to keep my head down and not draw any attention. The rumours were already starting to spread across Land's End. I heard them as they passed and noticed the way their conversations halted when I turned.

I thought it would be a normal morning when I stepped out into the hallway of the hotel. Almost immediately I stopped. Mumbled voices carried from the reception below. Familiar voices.

"How are you holding up?" Lucy asked.

"I'm okay," Ben replied.

"Are you sure?" she pressed. "Because 'okay' never really means okay. Even for you."

There was a pause in their voices, a growing silence where I tried to listen closer. 

"I'm just trying to hold myself together until this is over..." he finally spoke. "I can't help but feel like we're not ready for what's about to happen."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I've never seen GUN like that before. They were like sniffer dogs following a scent last week."

"One more step and Em would've been dead..." Ben whispered. "And once again, it would've been my fault."

She sighed. "Ben, you know it's not good to blame yourself."

"I know. But it's hard not to."

"Things can only get better when both of you are working together."

"I just can't imagine what she's been through. What I'm feeling is nothing compared to whatever she's got going on in her head."

"Does she remember killing people?" she asked. My stomach lurched at the words, turning bile in my throat. I never wanted to face the reality of what I'd done and it made me feel worse knowing that it was what people were thinking.

I heard him exhale. It was loud and laced with tiredness and exhaustion. 

"Yeah... And I don't know how she carries on with that in her head."

"I can't even imagine..."

"Luce, can I ask you something?" he spoke quietly.

"Sure?"

"Do you think I did the right thing? I knew she didn't want to be saved the first day she got Infected. She screamed it at me... I feel like I've trapped her in a world where everything is so much harder for her."

There was a pause before Lucy spoke again. "If she really is the only one cured, she's a miracle... She's proof that you were trying to fix this, of how close you came to fixing it completely."

"And now we're having to do it all again."

"I can't lie and say there's not something selfish about the decision you made but you're not the one making choices for her anymore... Plus, if you think about it, wouldn't she have done the same for you?"

*

Ben wasn't at breakfast and as myself and Julia walked towards the medical centre, I tried to shut out all the noise in my head. The things Ben had spoken that morning, I'd never expected to come from his lips. And yet, he'd been more honest than I'd ever heard him. The guilt still weighed on his shoulders and nothing I could say to him would ever change that, no matter how much I came to terms with who I was.

"You're quiet this morning," Julia pointed out. Only a minor limp in her step was the tell she'd ever been wounded now.

I shook my head, opening the door to the centre for her. "Sorry," I said, following her inside. "My brain is on overload at the moment."