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Chapter Twenty-Five

We drove in comfortable silence to begin with. It was clear that neither of us was in the mood to discuss anything deep after the day's events, so we snatched small snippets of conversation over the quiet strains of the stereo. Mainly about university; what I had missed in the last three weeks, how the tutors had been treading on eggshells since the crash and Ben's death, and how my performance group had been making do with whatever singer was willing to get up and perform a second time with them.

"I'm sorry I haven't been there," I said quietly. Noah had just finished telling me about one particularly disastrous performance, when the singer had completely forgotten the lyrics in her own group's performance so got up again with him, Cole and Lina, only to do exactly the same thing a second time.

"Don't be stupid," he laughed. "You've kind of been in a coma, it's not like we were annoyed with you for not being there."

Suddenly, an unanswered question flashed into my mind.

"How did you know about the accident?" I asked.

"What do you mean? Everyone knows about the accident," Noah responded.

"I mean, how did you know it had happened so soon? My nurse Lilly said you were the first to arrive at the hospital."

He sighed as he pulled up to the counter of the same drive-thru we'd been at before.

"I was following you," he said quietly.

"Can I take your order please?" The robotic voice cut through the tension between us like a knife.

"One Big Mac meal and one McChicken Sandwich meal, please," Noah responded, without taking his eyes off me.

"You were following us? In your car?"

"Medium or large fries?" The robot-human hybrid cut in again.

"Medium," Noah answered, still looking directly at me, gauging my face for any reaction.

"But... you didn't come after me when I left your room. How did you know I had-"

"Drinks or extra sides?"

"Diet Coke for both." Noah snapped back, a little too viciously, considering the girl on the other end of the tannoy was only doing her job. "I saw you leave from my window and thought I should probably..."

"Nine pounds and seventy-eight. Collection from window number two," the robotic voice spat back at him bluntly.

Grabbing our food from the next server, Noah pulled over into the car park and we ate in near silence.

Finally, I spoke first. "I didn't know you'd followed us. Did you see what happened? Did you see the crash?"

"In slow motion," Noah replied, looking down as he fiddled with the straw of his drink.

"Oh Noah, why didn't you tell me?" I sighed.

"Because it's all I see when I close my eyes at night now. I just want to forget it. The other car came out of nowhere and all I could do was watch helplessly as Ben's car flipped across the road. With you in it."

Looking up at me, his eyes were glazed with sadness. His voice was barely a whisper as he continued. "I thought you were dead, Abi. I thought I'd lost you, after only just finding you."

I let out a deep breath and reached a hand up to stroke the side of his face. "Well, I'm still here aren't I?" I said, smiling gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

With his crooked half-smile that caused a dimple in his left cheek, he placed his hand over mine before turning his face to kiss it lightly.

"Mmm, chicken fingers," he laughed.