I MIGHT SEEM SO STRONG - (MATURE & UPSETTING THEMES)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They'd got it so wrong.

Autumn watched as Marjorie tried desperately to console Mia in the hospital waiting room. She and Winter had not long arrived after Autumn had received a phone call from Reece. The first thing he'd calmly said was that he was sorry to call so late. There was a pause before he burst into tears, violently slamming Autumns mind back to over 30 years ago when Reece was a little boy. He told her that he thought Charlotte wasn't going to make it.

When they'd arrived Autumn and Winter had initially got lost within the maze of hospital corridors. Eventually, they heard Mia's voice - she was screaming. After a little while, she caught her breath enough to explain that Charlotte had written several suicide notes. When she'd realised that Charlotte wasn't breathing, Mia had called 999 and frantically followed their CPR instructions. Just as an ambulance arrived, she felt Charlotte take a breath but it was so weak she thought it was hopeless. She felt ashamed of herself but she couldn't watch the paramedics working on Charlotte, so she'd fled to the kitchen trying desperately not to throw up. Just as the paramedics brought Charlotte downstairs, Mia had grabbed the letters and shoved them in her bag, before getting into the ambulance.

She didn't know why she did it.

She didn't know why she'd read her letter while she was waiting for Marjorie and Reece to arrive.

She didn't know why she'd actually called Marjorie's phone first, not Reece's.

They were sat there for hours. Marjorie was leaning her head on Reece's shoulder on his left side. Mia was leaning her head on his other shoulder. The two women were holding hands across his lap and Marjorie was tracing little circles on Mia's hand with her thumb. Reece had his arms around both of them, staring at the wall like his life depended on it.

Autumn and Winter sat and held hands. Sporadically, Autumn would feel irritated by Mia's constant sniffling, then she'd immediately feel guilty for being annoyed.

When the doctor eventually came he advised them that Charlotte was alive albeit extremely weak - he also told them that just a few more minutes and things could have ended far more tragically. He told Mia that she'd done a good job, finding Charlotte and getting her to breathe - she really was just in time.

Still, once the Doctor left, nobody spoke. For several minutes everyone resumed their previous positions, lost in their own thoughts, realising with each passing second how much they'd failed Charlotte. When she'd said she was fine, it was easier to believe her than to push for clarification. Everyone had been terrified that she wouldn't be able to cope, so when it seemed like she was in fact coping - amazingly no less, they chose to accept a ridiculous lie just to save their own heartache.

Eventually, although they'd never know it, each of their thoughts settled on the same thing. Charlotte had written them a letter. She'd seen them as an important part of her life, to the extent that she was thinking of them during what she'd hoped would be her last hours on earth.

While her heart was dying, she was thinking of them. Even after they'd failed her so catastrophically, she wanted to explain herself to them.

She'd nearly died believing she was the one who had let everybody down.

That was the most ridiculous lie of all.