"Chloe?" He called but got no response. As he opened the door a little wider he heard crying coming from inside. Taking a chance he walked in. He saw Chloe standing stiller than still in front of a mirror, tears like a waterfall running down her cheeks. She was totally un-aware of the situation around her and hadn’t even registered the fact that Sean was in the room un-till she felt some one hold her. She didn’t know who it was and as she looked up she saw Sean's face, full of concern staring back at her. She hugged him. It was the first time in months, maybe years that someone had shown affection or any sort of emotion at all towards her. All she'd had for ages was nothingness. A load of distant and uncaring faces morn, noon and night does your head in after a while. Sean gently stroked her face and pushed the hair out of her eyes. That was another thing she missed: human contact. Where people didn’t flinch when they touched you or look at you like you were something that just crawled out and died. That was how Jason had looked at her since the rape. Well before that if she was being truthful. Since he'd started going away for long weekends with pretty secretaries. Cliché or what? But ever since then she'd known that he didn’t love her; that he was slowly falling out of love with her and was bored.
She gently closed her eyes. Feeling safe, which is a feeling she'd almost erased from her memory but just as she started to feel safe he did something quite unexpected. He tilted her head up and kissed her. She pulled away sharply and stared at him. She was amazed he did that, amazed and shocked. After all they had been through, together and apart she couldn’t believe that he would just take advantage of her like that. He went in to kiss her again and for a moment, just a split-second she considered it. Just to be loved again but then she came to her senses and ducked out of the way. He tried again this time managing to clamp his mouth to the side of her face.
"No." She said pulling away. He didn’t take the hint and followed her until she was backed up against the sinks where he tried again and got a slap round the face for his efforts.
"What was that for?" He asked rubbing his face.
"I said no." Said Chloe angrily
"You didn’t mean it." He said, very sure of himself.
"Yes I did."
"No you didn’t you want me and you know it."
"No I f**king didn’t! Why don’t you men ever take the hint? No means no."
"Oh come on! You were gagging for it."
"No I wasn't 'gagging for it' as you so politely put it I was upset. My best friend has just lost her baby and blames it all on me so I think I have every right to be. I thought you were being a friend. How could I have been so stupid? You were only after one thing like you always are."
"Oh yeah I forgot. Poor little Chloe. Got lumbered with a pregnancy that she didn’t want as it was her best mates boyfriend she'd been shagging and then when she once again gets pregnant with her husbands best mate that's not her fault either. She was 'raped.' Nothing's Chloe's fault is it?"
"You B*****d. How dare you? Just get out. Go see your wife or something. Go jump of a cliff for all I care just get out."
Part eight
Wiping the tears from her eyes Chloe slowly and shakily got up off the toilet floor where she had been sitting for the last half an hour. Crying and thinking back over the day's events but it still wasn't all clear in her head. It seemed like a bad dream gone wrong and part of her was still expecting to wake up any moment from now in her safe little flat in Holby that seemed to exist in another world. As she got up she felt saw all over. Her legs ached from having them crossed for so long, her throat hurt from the crying, her eyes felt raw and her fists hurt form hitting them against the wall a little bit too hard. It was all she could do to manage to put one foot in front of the other but she knew that she had to get to Tina, to tell her about Sean and hopefully get her to leave him. She knew it was a long shot and that it would probably never work but she had to try.
She walked along the corridor with a fixed smile on her face trying to pretend that everything was fine when it obviously wasn't. She saw a little blond girl running towards her but looking over her shoulder, as if some one was chasing her.
"Lou?" She called out.
"Auntie Chloe!" Lou yelled, running over and hugging Chloe round the middle.
"What?" Lou asked, looking up at Chloe's face and pointing to the tear marks running down her cheeks.
"I've been crying and so have you." She said wiping away the tears from the little girls face.
"Why?"
"I had a bit of a fight with Se- some one and they said some nasty things that upset me. Why were you crying?"
"Mummy and daddy."
"What?"
"Baby."
"What your mummy's baby?" Chloe asked. And Lou nodded her head violently. "What was happening?" Chloe asked gently but Lou looked confused. Chloe remembered that Lou probably wouldn’t know what was happening, as she was too small to understand.
"Was mummy alright when you left?" Lou thought about this for a minute and then put her hands over her eyes and started to pretend to cry.
"It's ok, I'll stop asking questions and well go and find mum, ok?"
"Mummy." Lou said angrily.
"Yes, Lou we'll go and find mummy now."
"No." Lou said loudly. "Mummy." She insisted and then started to cry again.
"What do you mean, Lou?"
"Mummy, boo hoo." Lou said putting her hands over her eyes and making crying noises until Chloe finally got what she was trying to say but didn't have the words.
"Mummy was crying?" And Lou nodded her head, and started to pull Chloe towards the cubical with Tina in.
When they got there Lou ran strait in and went to hug her mum but Chloe stood outside, wondering weather she would be welcome or not. Eventually she got up the courage to walk in. As she did she saw Tina lying on the bed with a large, red mark across one of her cheeks. It didn't take a genius to work out that she'd been slapped across the face.
"Oh my god, Tina. Are you alright?"
"I've just lost my baby, my husbands walked out on me and I'm not sure if he'll come back. How do you think I am?"
"I meant your face, It looks really saw. Has a doctor had a look at it?"
"Really Chloe, I don’t need a doctor I just bashed my face."
"I never thought you'd become a victim, Tina."
"I'm not a victim Chloe, I deserved it."
"So he did hit you?"
"No! Well, yes. But it was only this once and it was my fault."
"It may have been 'only this once' but that doesn’t mean it's going to be the last does it? You’re a nurse Tina; you've got brains. You know the amount of people that 'walk into doors' every week, you know that most of them swear that it'll never happen again or that it was their fault that they deserved it."
"But I really did deserve it, I killed his baby."
"And what's Lou going to have to do for her to deserve it? Maybe if he splits up with one of his girlfriends then she'll deserve a quick slap when no one's looking. Or if he's had a bad day at work then she'll deserve a punch in the face. Do you want to wait for that to happen or are you going to get out before it does?"
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