Chapter Eleven

Joey pulled a face and backed away as Charlie vomited all over the floor, fell over and burst into tears. Sighing and feeling torn between compassion and irritation, Joey bent to rub her back and try and soothe her as her body rejected the ridiculous amount of alcohol she had consumed.

"I'm sorry," Charlie wept.

"It's fine," Joey said tightly. "Look, let's just sit down okay?"

With some effort, she guided a very wobbly Charlie to her feet and sat her in a chair. Charlie gazed at her, becoming more tearful by the second. She felt like the world was ending. Joey turned to her bag and dug out the hoodie she'd brought with her. Whipping her t-shirt off and using it to wipe her arm down, she threw the hoodie on instead and zipped it up.

"Okay, here's the plan," she said decisively. "You sit there while I clean up and then I'll take you..."

Her voice trailed off when she spotted areas of red in the mess Charlie had made. Holding her nose in protest, she bent down. Charlie had definitely thrown up some blood.

"Then I'll take you to the hospital," she said.

"I don't want to go to hospital!" Charlie protested.

"You're not exactly in a position to argue, Charlie," Joey told her, standing up again and wondering where Alf might keep cleaning supplies.

"But..."

"You're going to hospital, Charlie," Joey said. "No arguments."


Ten minutes later, and with Aden on his way to rescue them, Joey had cleaned up the boat so that it was as good as new. Now, she was sitting on the floor, resting against a cushion with Charlie in her arms. The fragile woman snuggled against her, still tearful but thankfully no longer heaving. Joey closed her eyes and stroked Charlie's hair, trying and failing not to get too emotionally invested in the situation.

"I'm sorry," Charlie mumbled.

"You have to do stop doing stuff like this, Charlie," Joey replied gently. "It's not doing either of us any good."

"I just can't live without you," Charlie said.

Joey sighed heavily.

"I know how you feel," she admitted.


Aden approached the Blaxland and was surprised to find Charlie curled up in Joey's arms.

"Give it to someone else, okay?" Joey was saying when Aden hopped on board.

He watched her put something into Charlie's pocket.

"Taxi to the hospital?" he said.

Joey nodded and extracted herself from Charlie's arms. Together, they picked the inebriated police officer up and carried her to the car. She complained loudly at being in the back on her own so Joey relented and sat with her, holding her hand as they headed away from the docks.


The emergency department was busy when Aden and Joey arrived with Charlie in tow but Rachel took her friend into a side room as soon as she could.

"What happened?" she asked Joey as Charlie lay back on the bed looking particularly sorry for herself.

"She drank. A lot," Joey explained. "I found her after a lot of vodka and a lot of wine. She had blood in her vomit so I thought the safest thing to do was to bring her here."

Rachel nodded and told her that she had done the right thing.

"Are you sticking around or...?"

Joey shook her head quickly. She approached the bed and kissed Charlie's forehead gently before tugging on Aden's hand and headed out of the room.


The following morning, Joey woke up feeling like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, the first thing she thought about was Charlie. Was she still in hospital? Was she okay? The knowledge that she could have really lost her for good played heavily on her mind. Had Charlie really intended to kill herself yesterday? And what was Joey meant to do and feel about that? Her hurt was still very apparent and she didn't feel able to let it go but she was also desperately worried about her ex-partner and didn't want her to be as upset as she was. She wondered if she had done the right thing by not accepting the ring Charlie had tried to give her. Hauling herself out of bed, Joey skipped breakfast and a shower, threw some clothes on and jogged out of the house towards the Surf Club.


Escorted by Leah, Ruby entered the hospital and found Charlie in her hospital room, looking a little better than she had the night before. She'd had to have tests, which had confirmed that she'd damaged the lining of her stomach with too much alcohol, which is what had caused the blood but that it wasn't going to be a long term problem. She'd been given a night of rest and rehydration and at least had some colour back in her cheeks.

"How are you feeling?" the teenager asked, pulling up a chair.

Leah came to sit on Charlie's other side.

"Embarrassed and apologetic," Charlie admitted. "And I'm really struggling with my memory. I'm drawing a complete blank over what happened yesterday."

"You drank a lot," Ruby said with a hint of a smile, although she was still desperately worried.

"Yeah, I figured that much," Charlie sighed. "How did I even end up in the hospital though?"

"Joey and Aden brought you in," Rachel said, walking into the room.

"Joey?" Charlie asked hopefully.

Rachel continued studying her notes for a moment and then turned to her patient with a smile.

"She found you on Alf's boat and by the looks of things, you gave her a stressful few hours," the Doctor said. "She seemed very worried about you."

"Really?"

Rachel nodded, hoping she wasn't giving her friend false encouragement. Having recovered from the shock of the Senior Constable falling in love with a woman, the whole town was aware of how desperately Charlie wanted to be back with Joey. And the whole town was worried about her state of mind.


Tony sat behind his desk, working on his accounts but keeping an eye on Joey as she took out a lot of stress on the punch bag in the corner of the room. She was pounding the bag with strength Tony hadn't realised she even had and looked to be concentrating hard. Rachel had come home the night before and described the state that Charlie had been in so Tony figured that Joey's mood was connected.

Joey punched harder and harder as adrenaline took over her body, helping her relieve her aggression and grief over Charlie's behaviour the previous day, not to mention everything that had gone before. Normally so mild mannered, Joey was struggling with all the feelings that had been raging through her ever since that fateful day on the boat with Robbo. Only a couple of weeks ago, she had been able to console herself over what happened with the knowledge that at least it had led her to falling in love with her soul mate. And now Charlie had destroyed everything that meant anything to her. But on top of that, she seemed intent on destroying herself too. And with that, came a lot of conflicting feelings for Joey. Aden had hassled her about where she and Charlie stood for ages the previous day until she had snapped at him and stormed off to bed. She knew her friend was only trying to help but it was all too much for her. She aimed more punches at the bag and several swift kicks. Then she jumped back as the whole thing fell off the wall.


Once all the paperwork had been signed, Leah and Ruby led Charlie out of the hospital and towards the car. Nobody quite knew what had and happened on the boat that day. Joey hadn't provided Rachel with much detail and Charlie had a big, black space where her memory of the day should have been. Sitting in the passenger seat, she closed her eyes and wished once more that she could turn back time and make right the mistakes she had made.


"Joey!" Tony yelped, jumping to his feet and hurrying over to his customer and his broken punch bag.

"Sorry," Joey said.

She winced as she pulled her gloves off and Tony was horrified to discover the state of her hands.

"How hard were you hitting that thing?" he asked.

"Pretty hard," Joey admitted. "I am sorry though. I can pay for the damage."

"We'll worry about that later," Tony said. "Let's get your hands fixed up first, okay?"

Joey nodded and followed him into the back room. At least all the stress and tension had temporarily gone.


Later that afternoon, Charlie managed to escape the watchful eye of her sister and headed out for a walk in a bid to clear her mind. Approaching the beach, she immediately spotted Joey sitting huddled on the sand. Her heart skipped a beat and she forced herself to pluck up the courage to approach and thank her for her help the previous day.

"Go away," Joey said unhappily when Charlie came to sit beside her.

"I just wanted to thank you for yesterday," the police officer said, not moving away. "I hear that you saved my life."

Joey merely shrugged.

"I'm grateful..." Charlie ventured. "Hey, what happened to your hands?"

Joey whipped round to glare at her.

"How dare you even speak to me?" she snapped.

Charlie visibly shrank back. She still wasn't used to the venom that seemed to pour out of her ex-girlfriend these days.

"I'm..."

"How could you do that to me yesterday?"

"I don't know what I..."

"You don't know?"

"I don't remember."

"Convenient," Joey said bitterly.

"Look, I'm really sorry..."

"Stop apologising!" Joey yelled, leaping to her feet. "All you did all damn day yesterday was apologise and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of all of this! Do you know how hard it was to deal with you? Do you know what you tried to do?"

Charlie stood a little hesitantly.

"I don't remember anything," she said.

"You tried to kill yourself," Joey hissed. "You wanted to take the boat and drown and when I stopped you, you tried to throw yourself overboard..."

Charlie stared at her.

"I mean, how dare you behave that way, Charlie? What was your plan? Wreck my life even more by having your death on my conscience?"

"No! No, I didn't mean..."

"Well this is the last time, okay?" Joey insisted. "You have to leave me alone. You have to stop following me around and making me feel guilty for not forgiving you. You're the one in the wrong here. You're the one who took something so fragile and so perfect and destroyed it. You can threaten to top yourself, you can drink yourself into oblivion and I honestly don't care anymore. I'm not going to feel guilty and I'm not going to keep saving you."

She stormed off back up the beach.


Next time... Joey makes friends with Angelo and people start to think that Charlie and Hugo are dating...