Bonnie Sveen Fan: Thank you for your review. I've got some ideas for the funeral chapter, however, I know I still have one more chapter (After this one) before I can make a start on it. I'm hoping that you enjoy this chapter.
Chapter 18
Tomorrow.
Opening her wardrobe, Gem searched through her wardrobe. All for a pair of black trousers and a black blouse. She was dreading grabbing them out. Silently vowing to either dispose of them or cut them up or even burn them. Once she returns home tomorrow, Gem Dean vowed to do whatever it takes to never see the clothes again!
Tomorrow.
Rash had once again slept on the sofa. After what had happened, she was scared. Iain had his whole future set out in front of him. He was going to get engaged to someone who clearly meant the world to him. It broke her heart. All she kept on thinking about was the what ifs? Deep down, all she wants was for Iain to come back!
Tomorrow.
Why did that idiot decide to just leave everyone there? Not just Iain, but Lily and Ethan as well! If Ethan hadn't had woken up from the crash, then no one would have known what had happened. The three of them would have been left in the crushed car. If Ethan hadn't woken up, then the three of them could have been left there for either day, weeks, months. If Ethan hadn't had woken up, Gem didn't want to think about it!
"Gem?" Rash whispered, entering the room.
"What is it?" Gem whispered, turning to him, noticing that he wasn't alone.
"Gemma Dean?"
"I'm not looking forward to tonight," Duffy whispered, "Was it right to let the funeral directors to arrange dressing Iain and Lily? I don't even know what they would have wanted to wear."
The funeral directors were at their flat right now. Iain and Lily were both resting in Charlie and Duffy's main bedroom. The two knew that they needed the extra comfort. Charlie stayed with the funeral director whilst they made the plans. Watching the two being carried in caskets had been painful, they were both so young.
When Duffy had agreed to being executor, she never imagined that this would had happened. She thought there would have been more time.
"What time do you want us to be at yours tomorrow?" Sam asked nervously, "I'm not going to be working tomorrow."
"Should you even be here today?" Dylan asked her, "Sam, I understand you feel the need to be here, but after yesterday."
"I know I need to be here," Sam mentioned, placing her hand on top of his, "Thank you for your concern, Dylan. But honestly, yesterday with the voicemail was a shock."
Dylan wanted to argue that it wouldn't be a good idea. That it wasn't going to be doing Sam any favours. That Sam was going to spend the day with people watching her, waiting for her to snap.
But he didn't.
Throughout his marriage to her, Dylan knew one thing.
Never get into an argument with her.
"Do you need the jewellery we've removed from Lily?" Dylan asked Duffy, "When we had to safely remove her from the car, we had to remove a necklace from her. I have a feeling it may have been special for her, since it had what I believe to be a ring to the chain."
Sam's eyes widened at those words. She may not have known much about Lily, but she knew Lily wouldn't take a ring with her on a weekend away. The reason being was that Lily was always afraid in case she loses it and won't know where she had put it.
"Why did no one tell me I hid it in the worst possible place?"
Surely, Iain wasn't referring to the engagement ring? He didn't did he?
"I still have the item if you think Lily would want to be buried with it," Dylan offered Duffy.
Frost formed on the grass, adding a glitter texture over each and every stone. The grass also looked as sparkly as stars within the night sky. The cold air began to hit the two, creating shivers through both their spines.
Even Ethan's sling couldn't protect him from the cold.
Only his left sleeve had an arm inside as Ethan still had trouble moving his right arm. His glasses suddenly became foggy, almost leaving him seeing nothing but white moisture within the lenses. Carefully, he lowered himself down beside the stone. Words couldn't describe what he was going to say to him, but he figured he could give it a try.
"Hey Cal," Ethan whispered, "I guess I needed some words of wisdom. I don't know if you would be able to watch over me. If you did, then you'd probably would have known what happened last week."
He wasn't sure if Cal would have been alerted to what happened. If he was still here, he probably would have checked over him to see if he would be okay. Just like Alicia was doing now. Trying to pick up the pieces of what was left behind, despite knowing full well what was lost.
"If you knew, then, you'd probably would have known what happened to Lily," Ethan sighed, "And Iain as well. Although I'm wishing you were amongst the first people to have greeted them."
This was hard. Cal was good friends with both Lily and Iain. If he was here right now, he would have tried so hard to make sure Ethan was okay, but at the same time going through the shock. Especially considering that things could had gotten a lot worse.
But how could it have gotten worse? What was worse than Iain and Lily not pulling through?
"Ethan," Alicia whispered beside him, "It's okay."
"It should," Ethan stuttered, "It should have been me."
Ethan knew what Cal would have said. His brother would have been angry with him for thinking like that! Feeling guilty for what had happened for the accident. Putting everyone through more stress than what needs to be formed. Wishing it was himself who died instead.
"It's all my fault," Ethan muttered, "The convention was my idea, I bought three tickets. Three for two. The second I asked Iain, I knew he'd accept but then came the third and we persuaded Lily to go."
"Ethan," Alicia whispered.
She said everything to him.
No one would have anticipated this.
No one knew what would have happened.
The important thing was that Ethan survived and help did arrive.
Alicia suddenly realised that she was so focused on helping Ethan recover, she forgotten that she lost her mentor in that crash. Sure, they never made the best of starts but at the time, Lily was going through a lot of stress at the time. Looking back, Alicia was angry at Connie for having Lily mentor her, putting her through all that stress when she was dealing with a lot. Looking back, Alicia blamed Connie for what happened between them. But later, the pair became civil, to the point of being friends.
Alicia was even the first person to have noticed that spark between Lily and Iain.
It broke her heart to know how that love story ended.
"Why?" Ethan choked up, "Why was I given another chance? When it could have been given to someone else?"
Alicia wrapped her arms around Ethan's waist, trying to avoid getting his arm. There are no words over what she could say to help Ethan through this difficult time.
Silently, she was dreading tomorrow.
Connie and Grace carefully glanced at each other as soon as they heard the door knock. Grace looked out the window, nerves built up the second a police car pulled up.
"This is where it all starts."
Connie looked around the area for Iain, before remembering with Grace in the room, she won't be able to see him or Lily. Only hear them for now.
Nerves kicking in, Connie carefully walked over to the door, turning the handle, she came face to face with the police officers.
"Hello?" Connie asked, trying to fight her nerves, "How can I help?"
"We were wondering if we can come in?" one officer asked, "We've found your daughter's car."
Rash carefully sat down four mugs of tea on the coffee table. The police had asked Gem to sit down, knowing fully well about the news that they had to share with her.
Surely, they couldn't had found out who was responsible that quick?
"We've been investigating an insight into the accident," one officer explained to the the two of them, "We've managed to find the vehicle connected to the crash."
"We've found the car in a bad way," the second officer explained, "The front of the car had been badly bent up."
Connie and Grace knew deep down it would have been. It was a mystery that Grace was still able to drive the car despite the damaged engine.
"The day after, it had been reported that a car similar to the description that Dr Ethan Hardy had given us had been stolen," the police officer explained to Gem.
Gem was confused to learn about a stolen car. What were the police trying to tell her? Did they know who did it? Did they work out a link?
"Unfortunately, the damage appeared to be identical to damages found during the accident that took place on the 17th of January," the officer explained to Connie and Grace, "The same day it went missing."
Mother and daughter looked at each other. Neither realised just how easy that was. To report a car stolen. Now the police will have to carry on looking for an imaginary person.
"What does that mean?" Grace asked nervously.
"I don't know how to break this to you," the police officer sighed.
"I'm sorry to tell you this Miss Dean," the officer sighed, "But we have reason to believe the person responsible for the accident had been joyriding."
Gem couldn't believe what she was hearing! What, what she w, was he, hearing was…was…
That she lost her brother and her best friend, because someone didn't keep an eye on their car keys.
"So, what you're saying," Gem lowered her eyes onto her mug, "I lost my family, because someone wasn't bright enough to keep an eye on their belongings?"
Rash was scared, he thought the first sentence was a whisper, but then he heard it getting louder.
"Because they probably weren't allowed to drive in the first place?"
Rash was certain that Gem's voice was increasing in decibels.
"Because someone was being reckless?"
Gem felt sick to the stomach. She remembered leaving the pub early the day it happened, after everyone had started talking about how old they were when they started to drive. Or how old they were when they started learning how to drive. A part of her wanted to yell at them. Call them insensitive! Two people they knew just died over a few hours ago! Was it something she needed to hear?
"Do you need us to do anything?" The officer asked her.
"No," Gem answered, "Because nothing you can do would ever bring them back."
Gem stood up quickly, not noticing or caring how stiff her muscles were. She felt her stomach churning a lot faster than it did. The walls started to move closer and closer to the point where she was certain more bad news was going to be shared.
"I need to get our of here," Gem stuttered, "I need to go somewhere!"
Rash tried his hardest to help Gem to sit back down. Reaching for her arm, he was hurt when she quickly moved away from him.
"This was what was removed from Lily when we removed her from the car," Dylan explained, holding up the chain with the ring attached, "It's beautiful. I can't imagine Lily would want to part with this."
Sam and Duffy told a closer look at the ring.
Duffy inspected it further. The ring was a shiny silver, with an 8th carat of a diamond. At both sides followed two smaller stones. A diamond on the outside, a sapphire on the inside. It looked as if Lily would look beautiful with the ring.
Looking up, Duffy suddenly noticed Sam drawing her hand close to her chest.
It soon dawned on Dylan and Duffy.
This was the ring Iain was using to propose to Lily.
"I, I don't think," Sam stuttered, lowering herself down, "Dylan, you're right. I can't, I can't be here."
Dylan lowered himself to Sam's level. He was about to restrain himself from going nearer to her, but he knew that she needed someone. Anyone.
Wrapping his arms around her, he closed his eyes. Feeling the first tear leave his eye, all Dylan could have done now was hold Sam tight.
Something he knew deep down that he should have done when they were still married.
Alicia watched with sadness as Ethan sat himself down on the sofa. Every time he came home, that sofa was the first place he sits at. Staring at the screen, as if the television was suddenly turned on. Sometimes, she had to turn on the television, just so that Ethan had a healthy distraction from the outside world.
"I'm going to get my outfit for tomorrow," Alicia sighed, "Do you need me to set out your clothes for tomorrow?"
"No thank you," Ethan whispered, "Because I'm not going."
"That's the last thing we all needed to hear," Jan muttered at the ambulance station, "They must have been really happy."
Dylan was only half-listening to Jan in the office. All he was paying attention to be the knowledge that Sam hadn't said a single word. Lily's ring was still in her hands. It was the only thing that Sam could have put all her focus on.
"Sam?" Dylan addressed her, "Could I get you anything?"
Sam shook her head. Not a single word left her mouth since she spotted the ring.
"Sam," Jan whispered, "We can arrange for you to take some time off."
"I can't," Sam whispered, "My clothes were set up on my wardrobe. My speech was laying on the coffee table, I haven't even made a start. And I still have Iain's voicemail on my phone, and I never finished playing it."
"How come?" Jan asked, shocked before being pulled to one side by Duffy.
"On the voicemail, Iain made a joke," Duffy explained, "He made a joke about entering an early grave."
"How was he supposed to know what would happen?" Jan asked shocked at the statement.
Jan knew that it was true. Iain wouldn't have known that he and Lily would have been in an accident. So why would he make such a distasteful joke about dying? After all, he wouldn't have anticipated the horrible fate that he and Lily would find themselves in. Especially considering the news that Lily was pregnant.
That teenager had a lot to answer for!
"I can't believe that Iain proposed to her early," Sam muttered, "How many times had I said that?"
"Sam," Jan whispered, sitting next to her, "I'm not going to ask this time. I want you to take the rest of the day off. Especially given how hard tomorrow is going to be."
"I'm okay," Sam insisted.
"I don't believe you," Jan frowned at her, "I've been struggling myself since the crash. You have no idea how many times I've looked at Iain's name at the roster and thought that it needed to be removed. But every time I've look at it, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It would made losing him real."
"We haven't even cleared Lily's locker," Dylan carried on, "We don't even know what she would have wanted to keep. It would be like treating her as if she left to go to another workplace."
"We can take you home," Duffy offered her, "I'm sure Jacob wouldn't mind me leaving to make sure you got home safe."
"What about the ring?" Sam asked looking at all three faces, "We need to give it to Lily."
"I'll worry about it," Duffy offered her, as she took the ring, "We're leaving Lily and Iain's caskets open until the undertakers arrive. We can put the ring on Lily's finger."
"Where it truly belongs," Dylan nodded to her.
Rash added the three scoops of hot chocolate powder into the two mugs. Three scoops each. Just like Gem enjoyed it. Milk rotating in the microwave, he poured a shot of boiling water into the two mugs. Grabbing the spoon, he stirred the mixture, creating a thick mixture of water and powder.
Ping!
Rash walked over to the microwave. Taking the milk out, he poured it over to the two mugs, noticing the steam lifting itself through the two mugs. The left mug suddenly changed from black to pink, the second mug remained the same cherry red colour.
"Gem!" he called, carrying the two mugs to the coffee table, "I've made us hot chocolates. Hot milk, your favourite."
Rash set the two mugs on the coffee table. The last time he saw Gem, she just stayed sat on the sofa. Eyes slowly focused on the television. It wasn't even turned on.
Gem must had gone back to bed. He couldn't blame her. Not after the news that she was told. Rash, himself was even sickened to learn that the deaths of two of his work colleagues was a result of someone making the decision to do something reckless. It even broke his heart to learn that now there was another victim of the tragedy.
Someone was going to be told that their car had been involved in an accident which killed two people and almost a third.
Although, Rash wasn't sure that he should even call this an accident.
If stealing a car wasn't an accident, surely crashing a car that was stolen wasn't either.
Walking over to Gem's bedroom, Rash opened the door with the pink mug in his hand. Heading in, he walked over to the bed.
Only to find it was empty.
