“How could you get into the car that night?” he asks me again. And I still have no other answers for him. Oh my god, Jez. Why is this happening? “I guess you don’t remember the Scotches that you drank that night.”
“I… I don’t.” No, not Scotch, Not my drink. I shake my head. Something in my brain, help me, help me remember what happened. Please. “No… I can’t have…”
“You did. I watched you. Hell, I paid for them.” He shakes his head, his eyes filling with disgust.
“Jez, please! I don’t remember! There has got to be a mistake!”
“No, getting into that car was a mistake, Noemie. Not remembering it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But it was a mistake. Getting into the car, turning the key and driving, when you had no right to, was the mistake. And I’m the one who paid.”
I can’t stop the sobs heaving from my chest. “I’m so sorry.” I can’t think of what else to say that I haven’t said.
“Now you know what you did. But it could’ve been so much worse. I was just injured. You could’ve killed somebody. You could’ve killed a child, a grandmother, a couple with two young children waiting at home… who would never ever see them again…”
And suddenly I want to be sick.
His parents. His parents were killed by a drunk driver. He is never, ever going to forgive me.
“Jez…”
“I… I can’t be here,” he says, and before I can stop him, he runs out the door of the chapel.
I chase after him. “Jez! JEZ! Come back! We need to talk about this.”
I push open the door and am instantly swarmed by a crowd of people and cameras and microphones. The flash of the lights momentarily blind me, and I have no idea where I am.
“Miss, MISS! What’s your name?! Did you and Jez just get married?! Where’s he going, can you give us a newlywed kiss?!”
The swarm closes on me, and the air is blocked out.
“Please… god, no, please… I can’t breathe. I get claustrophobic, please…” I beg them.
But they can’t hear me over the sound of their own voices and of the click clicks of the lenses as they capture me falling to the ground in a faint.
NOEMIE
When I come to, I’m in his arms.
He’s carrying me and I can hear voices in the background. None I recognize, but they’re yelling, loud and it’s making my head ache.
We stop moving, and I try to open my eyes, but it feels as though they’re welded shut. Then I hear the sound of a car door open, and my body being laid against cool, soft leather. His arms slip out from under my body and I try to reach out to stop him. To beg him not to leave me alone.
‘Uhhh,” is the only sound that comes out.
“Shhh, you’re okay. I’m going to get you out of here,” he whispers, cool fingers on my burning forehead. He’s gone but it’s only seconds before I feel him slide in next to me, pulling me back into his arms.
“Go,” he says, and I feel the car move and I slip back into the dark.
***
“Is she going to be okay?” I hear Jez saying to someone when I wake up again.
I’m back in the bed at the Bellagio, but everything feels different. What once felt like a haven, soft, safe, now feels like I’m back in the hospital. Cold and sterile, a half-way house.
“She should be fine, it doesn’t seem to be related to her head injury. You said she’s prone to claustrophobia?”
“Yes, it’s happened before. Before her injury.”
“Then this is probably what it is. Has she been in under any undue stress?”
“Hasn’t everyone?” His voice is bitter, angry.
“Well, call me if she doesn’t wake up soon. Otherwise, just let her rest. No too much excitement.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
I hear footsteps on the marble floor and a door close.
Well, at least I know it’s nothing serious.
Just my brain’s usual dickiness.
The door to the bedroom opens, and Jez walks in.
But I barely recognize him. He looks like he’s aged twenty years. His face is pale and gaunt, his eyes rimmed red.
He doesn’t look at me.
“Oh, you’re awake. How do you feel?”
“I’m okay. Just a little bit weak, but my head doesn’t ache.”
He just nods and walks over to the window, staring out into the night.
“Jez.” I say, not sure what I want to say. I just want him to at least look at me.
But he just stands there, like I no longer exist in his world.
“Jez.” I say, louder, firmer. He cannot ignore me.
His shoulders rise and fall and he turns to face me.
“I’m leaving,” he says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I have a car and a plane waiting.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“It was organized. By the guys.”
“Ah, the wedding crashers,” I say, desperate for anything to break the ice, so we can talk about the things we’ve learned.
“They were… just looking out for me.”
“I know. I didn’t mean… I know. They’re trying to protect you.”
“Yes.”
“And, so have I. Since I met you.”
“No. No, Noemie, not since you met me.” He says it like it’s a fact. Like there’s no arguing it now.
“I don’t remember what happened, Jez.”
He shakes his head and his eyes burn into me. “You know what? In some ways, that just makes it all worse. That… that I can’t even blame you for not feeling any remorse. Because how can you if you don’t remember what you did.”
“But I do feel remorseful about it, Jez.”
“How can you? You don’t remember doing it. That’s been your excuse over and over!”
“Fine. Yes, I don’t remember! And if you want to know the truth, I can’t even believe that I would do this. I would never get into a car drunk and drive. Come on, Jez! Do I really seem like the kind of person who would be so thoughtless? So selfish?” I’m desperate for him to give me the tiniest benefit of the doubt. To trust. To have faith. Despite everything indicating otherwise. Because that’s what faith is.