Tom was clicking his pen as he made his way to cubicles. He pulled open the curtain to find Dylan out of it on the bed. He was snoring. Tom smiled at him and then turned his attention to the notes at the end of his bed. He picked up the clipboard and flicked through. Finding nothing relevant to Dylan's current state of mind he put the clipboard back.
Dylan flinched in his sleep and the snoring stopped. His eyes flickered open and his beautifully blue eyes were fixed on Tom.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Just checking up on sleeping beauty. How's the pain now?"
Dylan rolled his eyes at his remark, "It's fine, a little stuff but it's fine."
"OK, well it will be for some time. Looks like you'll be restricted from work for a little while."
Dylan gave Tom a boyish half smile. "Illnesses is why I became a doctor. Patients are what make most doctors miserable."
Tom smiled and then seated himself on the end of the bed and turned to face Dylan. He pointed at his cast, "So why were you in a fight with some inanimate objects?"
He sighed and glanced at the cast before looking back at Tom.
"Because ... I needed to vent my frustration. It worked."
"Why were you frustrated?"
"Life in general is a frustrating thing. We all find ways to cope with it but sometimes you need to do something different."
Tom laughed "Oh so physical exertion is your coping method?"
His face was straight and his voice was stern. "No. It was the something different."
Tom patted Dylan's leg as he got up off the bed, "OK mate. You can leave when you want to."
Out in the peace garden was Zoe. She was laying on the bench, arms resting on her abdomen and her eyes closed. She felt the light shift as a figure blocked the sun, casting a shadow on her face. She opened her eyes and was shocked to find Dylan standing over her. She shot up into a sitting position and looked up at the man.
"You startled me."
"I think we need to talk."
"About what?"
He sat down next to her and held his right arm in his other hand. After taking a deep breathe he began to speak to the floor. "About everything." He brought up the courage to look her in her brown eyes, those beautiful brown eyes. "There's something I need to tell you."
"Well tell me then."
"I can't. Not here."
"Where would you like to talk, Dylan?"
"Somewhere private. Meet me in the on-call room in 10 minutes. That gives you time to smoke one of your cancer sticks." He gave her a half-hearted smile.
She nodded.
He was pacing the room. Just do it. Just tell her. At that moment the door opened and he turned to watch it open. Stood in the doorway was Zoe. She looked about as nervous as he did.
She walked in, closing the door behind her. "So, what did you want to say?"
Kiss me. "I just wanted to, um, apologise, for the way I acted in the pub and outside of the pub."
"Oh, right. Well ..."
"Well ..."
"I don't know Dylan. I just want to know why you've been acting strange lately."
He took a step closer to her. "I don't know how to tell you."
"Just say it, that's what words are fo-"
Before she had a chance to finish her sentence he had already grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her to him. His lips were locked with hers and he felt so right. She was feeling the same as him because she didn't pull away. Instead she began running her fingers through his hair.
When they pulled apart they both took a while to catch their breathe. Dylan looked into her eyes with a grin on his face, "They say actions speak louder than words."
Zoe took a step back from him and dropped his gaze. The atmosphere in the room shifted."I know about your past."
Dylan's smile faded, "What do you mean?" He was taken aback by this.
"About your father, about your mother ... about you."
"What? How did - How could you possibly know?" He was beginning to squirm under the pressure of her knowing his secret. Please, don't say you know about the murder.
"I'm sorry Dylan." She gently caressed his forearm, "I did some research and found the article about your mother's murder and your father's imprisonment."
He dropped himself onto the bed that was positioned next to him. He rubbed his knuckles against his stubbled cheek and exhaled deeply. "I suppose I should tell you then. The whole story, not just the parts the newspaper found most interesting and took out of context."
Zoe climbed onto the bed and sat diagonally behind him.
He began to tell her his course of events "My father wasn't always the way he was. He used to take me fishing with him when I was younger. I never did like fishing. One day when we came back home my mother was sat on the couch and she'd been crying. She was holding something in her hand. My father went over to comfort her and when he saw the thing she was holding he started to cry too. It wasn't until later that I found out she had been diagnosed with cancer. Terminal they said. A few months after, my father had turned to alcohol as his source of comfort. He had become an alcoholic whilst my mum laid in bed dying. Then there was me, this 8 year old kid who had no parents but, instead, fragmentation's of parents." He paused, allowing himself time to think. Zoe placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "By the time I was 9 my father had lost his grasp of reality. Although my mother had fought her battle with cancer and won he was adamant that I was the cause. He would come home drunk and I'd know he was drunk because the second he walked through that door the whole house would fill with a foul odor of booze. My mother used to protect me. She'd take the beatings so I wouldn't have to. But sometimes he'd come home while she was out. I'd try to hide but that just made him angrier. He'd beat me. No matter how much I cried or how loud I screamed the blows just kept coming. Until one day. The day I ran away." His eyes began to fill with tears and then the tears began to stream down his face. His bottom lip was trembling as he tried to recall what happened that day.
Zoe moved closer to him and put her arms around him. He rested his head on her and continued to cry. She spoke soothing words to him and gently rubbed his arm. "It's OK Dylan. You don't have to go on."
He shook his head and tried to speak, his voice was croaky. "No. I have to."
A couple minutes later he had re cooperated and insisted that he carry on.
"I ran away because I couldn't stand the pain he put me in. I thought I would've been free and that all my troubles would be over now. I was wrong. He found me. He dragged me back home by the scruff of my neck. I struggled to breathe because he was cutting off my airway so I pleaded with him. That was the last thing I remembered because when I woke up I was face down in a pool of blood but I was home. I couldn't see him so I ran upstairs to my mother. That's when I saw her. Dead. She was dead and it was all my fault. She died protecting me and when she didn't tell him where I was he beat her to death. I remember walking over to her and kissing her forehead before being ripped away from her. He whispered things to me, about how she was was dirty whore and how she had it coming to her. I retaliated so he threw me against the wall. That was when the police burst through the door. They took him away and that was the last time I saw him. Now I was 10 with no parents, not even fragmentation's." He sighed, the memories were still fresh in his mind. He used to play them over and over in his mind, trying to figure out how he could have prevented it. "I was put in a foster home which didn't last long. They had to keep transferring me because I fought all the kids. At the age of 11 I ran away from there. I had to look after myself. I was no longer a boy. I found a hostel to live in until I was 13. I ran into some luck and was accepted into an all boys school after getting above average on a test. I cheated. Once I graduated college I decided I wanted to study medicine and applied for 5 universities. 4 turned me down. I didn't realise how much pressure I would be put under. Uni was hard. I started to lose focus of the important things in life and became a care free student. Parties every night, hangovers every morning ... Then after years of partying and a near liver cancer scare I ended up here."
He let out a sigh of relief and felt marginally better that he was able to get that off of his chest.
Zoe was in shock. More shock than when she read the article. Dylan turned to face her and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"There's something I think you should see." He said.
She nodded, still speechless.
Dylan unbuttoned his shirt, this was a harder task than usual because he was still getting used to his plaster cast. He slipped his shirt off and turned his back to Zoe, revealing his scars.
"Oh my god." Zoe had found her voice. She ran her finger over one of the scars that was raised more than the others. "How did you get this one?"
"He, um, he whipped me across the back with wire."
When he turned to face her Zoe just stared at him in amazement. She wondered how he managed to survive all these brutal attacks. Oh Dylan. Why didn't you just tell someone?
"I just want you to know, I still really, erm, like you."
She smiled and rested her forehead on his, "If anything this makes me like you more. The way you opened up to me and put trust in me."
"Good." He cupped her face in his hands and began to kiss her. They laid down on the bed continuing to kiss. Dylan slipped his hands under her shirt and ran his fingers down her soft skin. She was running her fingers through his hair. Their kisses became more intimate and intense and when they had to stop to breathe Dylan explored her neck with his mouth. The feel of his stubble against her neck sent memories flooding back to her. James Kennington. She pushed him off of her.
"What, was it something I did?"
She rose from the bed and stood up, straightening her outfit making it look like nothing had just happened.
"No. It's not you. I just remembered I have to do something." With that she rushed off out of the door leaving Dylan sat on the bed looking confused and shirtless.