Two Rings And A Grudge

Celeste Lin POV At two in the morning, the leather of the driver’s seat stayed cold long after the engine stopped. I’d parked behind a twenty-four-hour gym again, in the one corner the security light couldn’t reach. I shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt my back, but comfort was impossible. Three months of this and I could rank London's streets by how well you sleep on them. This one was a six out of ten. Nobody had tapped on my window with a torch yet, though the two parking tickets on my dashboard were a polite warning that it could change. I wasn’t complaining. Complaining cost money. And I didn’t have that. Three months ago, I’d stuffed everything I owned into three duffel bags, and a storage until I told myself it was temporary. A few weeks. A month, tops. Just until I got back on my feet. I’d been very convincing. I’d almost believed me. I didn’t let myself cry about it. Crying wouldn’t bring back fifteen thousand pounds, and it didn’t buy petrol either. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat and lit the car like a lantern. I grabbed it, braced for another cheerful warning from my bank. Herald’s Hospital. Everything in me went still. I answered on the second ring, pressing the cold phone against my ear. “Cel?” Iris’ voice was soft and careful, the way people talk when they're trying not to sound hurt. “I’m here,” I said, sitting up in a rush and hitting my shoulder against the door. “What’s wrong? Is it Gran?” “You need to come. The doctor says her numbers are dropping. She’s awake. She’s asking for you.…” She paused. “And she’s asking for him.” My fingers tightened around the phone. Him. I didn’t need a name. I shut my eyes and saw him anyway, a tall young man in a clean shirt holding a trophy that should have been mine. That was twelve years ago, and I could still see it shine. I hadn’t seen Oliver Vane in six years, not since the night he walked out of the library and left me alone with my thoughts. I swore never to stand in the same room with him again. I still hadn’t forgiven him. “He’s on his way from his own hospital,” Iris said. “Cel, whatever happened between you two. Please, put it aside. Just for Grandma Yai” “Ten minutes,” I said. Iris hung up before I finished the sentence. I started the car, and pulled onto the empty street. Herald’s at night smelled of bleach, and lavender air freshener, and under that something I didn’t want to name. Death. My boots squeaked down the corridor like a bad omen. I kept my hands buried in my jackets pockets so nobody would see them shake. Room 112 was at the very end, of course. Everything bad is at the end, and partly because of the unwanted tension climbing up my neck at the thought of being in the same room as Oliver. Through the narrow glass panel, I saw her. Gran, and my stomach dropped. She looked so small in the middle of the hospital bed. Her fragile body barely made a dent beneath the thick white blankets. A man stood beside the bed with his back to me. Tall. Navy coat over surgical scrubs, a chart in one hand. Perfect posture, as if someone had ironed his spine. I knew him from behind. That was the insult. I’d grabbed the first things I could find in the back seat: a black hoodie with sleeves that swallowed my hands, ripped jeans, my boots, hood up. I looked like I’d lost a fight with a laundry basket. Wonderful. Six years of rehearsing this moment, and I’d dressed for it like a burglar. I pushed the door open. The latch clicked. He turned. Well-built. Fair skin. Clean shaved. He wasn’t the nerd from school and the boy with braces I used to know. Now he looked exactly like the rising-star neurosurgeon the press loved to praise. Golden boy. Unshakable. Perfect. For a moment, the six years between us disappeared. All that remained was the same cold tension I remembered. Behind his glasses, his eyes were hazel, for one second, stripped of everything. They went to my hood, sleeves, my face, and stayed there, slowly, as if he were reading something he hadn’t expected to find. I felt it like a hand on my skin. Shadows sat under his eyes like thumbprints. His auburn hair was a little messy, and I had a very inconvenient urge to know whether it was soft. I ignored that. I’m good at ignoring things. I’ve had practice. He was handsome, annoyingly. It had gotten worse. Neither of us said hello. I think we’d both have rather swallowed glass. “Fah?” Gran’s weak voice broke the silence. My gaze snapped away from Oliver. I was at her bed before I knew I’d moved, on my knees, her hands in both of mine. Her skin was dry and fragile as tissue paper. “I’m here, Gran,” I whispered, forcing a smile. “Right here.” “Good,” she murmured. Her cloudy eyes found me, drifted to Oliver, and came back. “Both of you. Good.” He stepped closer and gently tucked the blanket around her shoulders. His movements were graceful and precise, almost too gentle for a man built like him. It was almost unbearable to watch. I looked at the floor. Then because I’m weak, I looked at his hands again “Ollie,” Gran whispered. “I’m here, Mrs. Lin,” he said. His voice was deep and clam. It was irritatingly steady. “You two…” She had to stop for breath. “All this time… holding on to anger.” Another breath. “Life is too short for pride.” “Gran, don’t tire yourself-” “Quiet child,” For a second the old Hazel flashed through, the woman who once made a waiter apologize to her for his own mistake. “Give me your hands. Both of you.” I hesitated. Across the bed, Oliver watched at me through his glasses, his face blank as a wall. Slowly, he laid his hand on the blanket. I laid mine beside it. Gran’s trembling fingers pulled them together, and my knuckles pressed against his. His skin was warm. That was unfair too. Broad hand, longer fingers, nailed clipped to the quick. Mine, still stained with ink, looked as if they belonged to another species. A strange feeling shot up my arm like a spark off a bad plug. Pure discomfort, I decided. I didn’t look at him. He did not look at me. We both stared at Gran with enormous concentration, like two people pretending the fire alarm wasn’t going off. “My last wish,” Gran said. She looked at me, then at him. “Before I join your grandmother, Oliver… I want to know you’re taken care of.” “Gran, what are you saying?” “Marry each other.” The heart monitor kept beeping, suddenly deafening. I’d heard wrong. Surely I did. “What?” “Marry,” Her grip was surprisingly strong. “You belong together. You always did, before a silly misunderstanding. Promise me. Give an old woman her peace.” “No,” I said. “No,” said Oliver. We said it at the same moment, in the same tone, and for one strange second Gran’s mouth twitched into something very close to a smile. It was the last good thing I saw in that room. I yanked my hand back like I’d touched a hot stove. My knuckles were still tingling. I shoved them into my sleeve and told them to behave. “Absolutely not, Gran.” A laugh burst out of me, short and ugly. “We haven't spoken in six years. We can’t stand being in the same room.” I turned to Oliver, waiting for him to shut this down in his usual cold, tidy voice. He didn't look at me. He pushed his glasses up one finger and kept his eyes on Gran. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Mrs. Lin, you need to rest. We can talk when you’re stronger.” “Ollie…” Gran whispered. “No,” His voice firm but gentle. “I respect you too much to make a promise I don’t mean. A marriage based on a deathbed wish wouldn’t be real.” It stung. Which was ridiculous. Since I had just said no myself. But hearing it from him, so calm and so correct, was the old story all over again. His words still felt like rejection, and they reminded me exactly why I’d hated him. Oliver the sensible one. Oliver the grown-up, looking down at me from his moral high ground. “He’s right,” I muttered, getting to my knees. “It’s ridiculous.” Gran looked at us. Disappointment settled in her tired eyes like dust. “You think you know what you want,” she whispered, turning her face to the window. “You don’t know anything.” Ten minutes later, a doctor came in to check her and asked us, kindly, to leave the room so she could rest. In the hallway, the silence was a third person. At six feet tall he loomed over me, and I had to tilt my chin up like I was looking a building. He took his glasses off, pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the lenses slowly, never taking his eyes off me. Without the glasses, his eyes were worse. Daring. Closer. I caught myself looking at his mouth and switched to the exit sign, which turned out to be fascinating. “You haven't changed,” he said. “Anger first. Always.” “And you’re still insufferable” I crossed my arm to hide my shaking hands “She’s dying, Oliver. Did you really have to lecture a dying woman about what makes a real marriage?” “I gave her honesty.” His voice was cold. “That’s better than lying so she feels good for five minutes. Or were you planning to meet me at an altar next week?” “I’d rather marry a traffic warden” “Then we agree.” He put the handkerchief away and slid his glasses back on, and the shutter came down behind them. I watched it happen. It was like watching someone lock a door in your face. “I have a round at five. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.” He walked out through the glass doors, long strides eating the floor, before I could think of an insult good enough. I watched his shadow all the way across the car park. I hated that I did. I went back in, sat in the hard plastic chair and held Gran’s hand. Her breathing grew shallow as I listened to the steady beep of the monitor. At 5:20 a.m., the line went flat. The last thing she ever said said to me was You don’t know anything. I would have given everything I had left to prove her wrong.