All at Once

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Considering how late it had been when the post-gig celebrations came to an end, it was gone eleven by the time Noah and I woke up the next morning. Both groggy and nursing sore heads, but happy.

After Noah padded out to the kitchen to make coffees, I plumped the pillows behind my head and sat up to begin scrolling through my phone. The early reviews were already online. I was halfway through the first when Noah pushed open the bedroom door with his foot, carrying two mugs and wearing only a pair of bright green boxers and a disheveled head of bed hair.

I smiled up at the sight of him.

"What?" he asked, a slight frown dancing across his forehead.

"Nothing," I replied.

"I know that face, Abigail," he continued, setting the mugs down on the bedside table and climbing back into bed over me to get back on his side.

"You might want to start Googling yourself," I said, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, The Ambition, not you personally."

With a bemused smile, he dangled his arm down to the floor to fish around for his phone. Propping himself up on his pillows next to me, I couldn't help watching his screen from the corner of my eye.

Like I had done just a couple of minutes before, he clicked the first review that came up in response to his search. As he scrolled through the article, my heart began to swell as he studied the words written about him and his bandmates.

The album was a resounding hit with all the critics. Positive review followed positive review, with five-star ratings from even the toughest people to impress. Not only that, but the fans and industry experts were raving over the launch gig. All the drama that had hit the boys over the previous few months had been forgiven, and the majority of posts claimed that The Ambition had returned even bigger and better than before.

Noah's pride was obvious on his face as I snuggled in under his arm to drink my coffee and read the thousands of posts with him. To the world outside, he was the talk of the town. But, tucked up in our crisp, white sheets on a lazy Friday morning, we were just Abi and Noah.

We were halfway through a glowing article from a notoriously hard-to-please Rolling Stone critic who'd received the advance album in LA on the morning of the gig, when my phone began to vibrate from its long-forgotten position under my pillow.

Rolling away from Noah, I placed my empty mug on the bedside table and reached behind my head to find the handset.

"It's my Aunt Caroline," I said out loud as the unfamiliar name flashed up.

"Caroline?" Noah mumbled, not taking his eyes from his screen, "Didn't know you had an Aunt Caroline."

I shrugged. I'd only ever mentioned her in passing to him, of course he wouldn't know much about her. The fact that she lived in Cornwall and rarely spoke to my mum, her sister, anymore meant that even I knew hardly anything about her. The days of shared family trips to Euro Disney when my cousin Sarah and I were kids had long faded into nothing more than happy memories of dad being alive.

"Hello?" I answered, my stomach already starting to knot at the thought of why she would be phoning.

"Abigail, it's Auntie Caroline."

"I know," I replied, "Not changed your number for a long time, clearly."

She let out a small laugh. "No, I think I'm the only person in England that still has a landline these days."

I mirrored her polite laugh then cleared my throat.

"So, erm, what's up?"

She took a deep breath. "I don't want you to panic, Abi, but I'm afraid it's your mum."

As the words left her lips and shot through the phone like bullets, I felt the blood rushing from my head and pounding furiously towards my arms and legs. I'd only ever felt the sensation a couple of times before in my life. Fight or flight. That split second when your whole existence is at stake and the body prepares itself to either run or attack.

It was a rare feeling, but one that triggered every synapse in my brain to travel back in time to the day I had last felt it. The day I found my dad.

Jumping out of bed I threw the phone at Noah and ran to the wardrobe to pull out the first pair of jeans I could find and an old, faded hoody of his.

Looking at me with concern etched deeply on his face, he picked up the handset as though it were a poisonous snake. Raising it slowly to his ear, he took over with a calm, controlled voice.

"Hello, Caroline? This is Abi's boyfriend, Noah."

A brief pause in their exchange followed as I tugged on a pair of mismatched socks and rushed over to the dressing table.

"Yes, from the band. Thank you, that's very kind of you to say so."

A pang of frustration snapped within me as I pulled out a face wipe too hard and promptly ripped the entire pack open, sending a barrage of small white squares flying onto the floor. Trust try-hard Aunt Caroline to get the formalities out of the way first.

He nodded as he listened to her speak, only interjecting occasionally with a quiet "uh-huh" or "I see".

As I grabbed the nearest bobble to try and scrape my hair up into something that resembled a ponytail, he was bringing the conversation to a close.

"Okay, I'll tell her. Yes, don't worry; I'll look after them both. Thanks for calling."

Rolling out of bed, Noah walked over to the dressing table where I sat frantically combing my knotted hair up onto my head with my fingers. As he placed one of his large palms on the back of my neck, the warmth of his touch brought me into a brief state of calm, like the silent peace that can only be found right in the eye of a storm.

I dropped my hands and let my long locks tumble down around my face, still smeared with the frantic attempt to remove the previous night's make-up.

"Is she...?" I mumbled, fighting back the surge of sickness rising rapidly within me.

"Your mum's fine," he whispered, bending to wrap his arms around my shoulders from behind. "She had a heart attack late last night, but she's in recovery now. They didn't have your new number down as her next of kin, so Caroline was the one that got the call from the hospital. Apparently she ended up tracking down my management to try and get a working number for you."

"How do they have my number?" I asked, adrenaline still battling against any other emotion.

"Who else do you think I've got listed as my next of kin?" he smiled, pulling his arms a little tighter around me.

I shook my head, still trying to make sense of it all.

"So, where's my mum now?"

"She's been admitted to the cardiology unit at her local hospital. They had to do an emergency open heart procedure so she's pretty beaten up, but she's awake and asking for you."

He placed a kiss on top of my head. "I'll call a car to come and get us now."

I glanced up at his reflection in the mirror.

"Don't be silly, you don't have to come," I said, finally feeling the heat of relieved tears bubbling behind my eyes. "You guys are going to have loads coming up with the album release. I don't know how long I'll be back for; it could be days. Maybe even weeks."

"Not up for discussion, sorry," Noah said, placing another kiss on my head as the first tear broke free and forged a stream down the deathly pale porcelain of my cheek.

Striding over to the wardrobe in his boxer shorts, Noah pulled my old pink suitcase down from its hiding place on top and started throwing clothes in for the both of us. I wanted to move, to help him pack or do something at least slightly useful, but my body refused to do anything except shake uncontrollably as the tears fell harder and faster.

According to most people, the car journey from London to Bath normally only takes about two and a half hours 'on a good day'. But, on what was unexpectedly turning out to be the worst day, it felt like the longest two and a half hours of my life.