Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,153

do on her own. Reluctantly, they had both finally agreed to wait outside the door, providing that she took no longer than five minutes. Initially that had been an issue when she had wanted to take a bath but she had worked out that she could do that on Celeste’s shift as the other girl would come into the bathroom with her and Elise found that she didn’t mind.

Dr Edwards visited daily and usually stayed for about an hour. He was a private doctor - a friend of Vaughn’s parent’s - and Vaughn had called him the second he had heard about Elise’s injuries. On the one occasion, Dr Edwards brought a young woman called Rachel with him, who was a physiotherapist and she had begun to work on the nerve damage that Elise had sustained to her left wrist. Rachel had arrived during one of Cole’s shifts and Elise had not missed the look of appreciation that he gave when she walked in. His eyes had been pretty much glued to her during the whole of Elise’s treatment and she was amazed that the girl had managed to keep her cool and continue with the programme whilst under such intense scrutiny.

Elise had teased Cole about it afterwards but he had denied it all, merely saying that it made a change to see another female other than her and Celeste. She had just smiled and filed the information away, ready for another day.

Vaughn’s visits were the best and she looked forward to those the most. He had made sure that he had all of the night shifts and after the first night, when he had slept on the airbed on the floor, she had insisted that he sleep in the bed beside her. At first he was reluctant as he didn’t want to make her any more sore or uncomfortable but they arranged the duvet in such a way as to provide her with a protective cocoon and still allow him to be near enough to cuddle her carefully. He also visited numerous times during the day and Elise began to wonder how on earth he, or either of the others for that matter, were getting any work done.

To begin with, none of them spoke about Dale and what had happened but over the coming days, Elise’s memory started to return in bits and so it was inevitable that the subject should be raised.

She had questioned Dr Edwards initially as she still couldn’t remember how she had come to be in Celeste’s flat. The doctor had explained that they had found her car parked downstairs so had assumed that she must have driven here herself although how on earth she had managed that, given the extent of her injuries, seemed to be in question. He had concluded that she had been functioning purely on adrenalin and was amazed that she had not passed out before she did. It was ridiculously fortunate that she had made it safely to her friend’s house and not passed out whilst she was driving. He didn’t know any other details though and so she knew that she was eventually going to have to speak to Cole or Vaughn.

By Saturday she was feeling a lot better and persuaded Celeste to let her go into the lounge and watch some television. She didn’t need to sleep anywhere near as much now and she was getting bored with looking at the same awful wallpaper. On that subject, when Elise had taken it up with her, Celeste had vigorously defended her decorating choice, which had lead to a very spirited debate between the two girls. It was totally beyond Elise how her friend could consider the look of the bedroom to be anything other than terrible but in the end they had had to agree to disagree and Elise realised that she would probably never completely understand this girl with her unusual tastes.

As she exited the bedroom accompanied by Celeste, Elise immediately noticed the large man standing just outside the door dressed in a security type uniform. He was a typical butch bodybuilder type with a shaved head and a big bulky body. He was tall as well - well over six feet.

“Hi Sean,” Celeste said as they walked past, “I’ll be putting the kettle on in a minute if you fancy one?”

“Oh thank you Miss Brown – that would be great.” ‘Sean’ replied, “Do you need any help there, Miss?”

“Oh, no thanks, we’re fine.” Celeste replied as she