Holly was so grateful to max for giving her the job that she did all the over time he offered her and she covered for other members off staff. Any thing to get out off the house: to escape the past and ignore the present. Even her mum was nagging her, saying she wasn't being with her family enough; that Holly was leaving her to explain her absence to everyone else. But still she threw herself into her work. She did what you have to do to become a top doctor. Which meant working every hour that was humanly possible and the rest of the time she spent sleeping and drinking away her problems. It was the best thing she could see to do, this way she almost completely stopped being Holly Miles and became just Dr. Miles. She stopped being a human being and started being a doctor.
She had now been back at work nearly a week and it had been relatively stress free (well as stress free as you can get working in A+E!) She had run into neither trouble nor Patrick, which she was very glad about. She began to believe that he didn�t even know she was back. But he knew, oh he knew all right but he was just waiting. Hoping she'd forget all he'd done wrong.
So at the end of an especially long shift Holly walked into the locker room and saw a note pinned to the door of her locker. Her first thought was Tom. Then she realised it couldn�t be Tom. Tom was dead. The note was just a piece of paper folded over with Holly written on the front in untidy scrawl. Slowly, with shaking hands, she opened the note. This is what it said:
Dear Holly,
Please, please, meet me tomorrow. I'll be in the on call room all day from midday onwards. Please come; I really need to talk to you. I have some serious explaining to do.
Love Patrick
XXXX
Part nine
Nervously he glanced at the clock. It was only half an hour until his shift was over and she hadn�t come. He really thought she was going to come even if just to see him grovel. Maybe he didn�t know her half as well as he thought he did. Maybe she'd changed or maybe it was him who'd changed. He didn�t know any more.
He sat there for a further 15 minutes before he heard the door slowly creak open. He turned his head, expecting to see Chloe or Max telling him to go home or that he was needed in resus. But it wasn�t either of them and he broke into a broad smile when he saw the familiar figure standing in the doorway.
"I didn�t think you'd come."
"Neither did I! I was sitting at home telling myself I wasn�t going to see you, that I didn�t want to hear your pitiful excuses but low and behold half an hour later I was standing at reception without having made a conscious decision to be there. Now I believe you have a problem to wriggle your way out off." There was an uncomfortable silence in which he stared at the floor and hummed a tuneless song while she chewed her hair and picked at her nails. Finally Holly broke the silence.
"Well this is a first."
"What's a first?"
"You not having a witty or sarcastic remark to make."
"Well I don�t know what to say, I've never been in this situation before."
"What, you mean all the other girls you've two timed never found out?!"
"Ha ha! Very funny miss sarcastic. I mean I've never two timed anyone before."
"Only because you've only been in one relationship that didn�t end the morning after it started!" she muttered just loud enough for him to hear.
"I don�t know why on earth I thought I would be able to talk to you reasonably."
"It's because you think all you have to do is tell them how sorry you are and that the entire female population will fall at your feet. Well, that method may work on Lara but it wont work on me!"
He got up from his chair and made to go for the door but she was to quick for him. She blocked his way and pushed him back into his chair.
"No way, not this time. You're not leaving this room until I get a full explanation as to why there are three people in our relationship. Now lets start with Lara."
"Lara, right. Well that started about a month after you'd left. I was feeling pretty low and then she walked in. She was funny, pretty, understanding, smart and very sweet. So I asked her out and she said yes."
"Well when I met her I was feeling about as low as I could ever imagine being. I also noticed how funny, smart, sweet, pretty and understanding she was so should I ask her out?"
"Why wont you even give me a chance to explain?"
"Because I've wasted allot of my life giving you second, third or even seventh chances and I don�t want to make that mistake all over again so I need to know some thing before I even think of giving you yet another chance. Do you love me? And I swear if you mention the words 'lets be friends' I am going to personally make sure you can never have children!"
"No we really can't keep up this whole friends thing much longer can we? So its lovers or enemies. Well I don�t know if I can do the whole love thing. I need to know I can trust you before I know if I can love you. You say I need to explain what I did but you don�t even seem to think you owe me an explanation as to why you did a disappearing act with barely a goodbye and then just a few lousy postcards to prove that you were alive."
"I had to get away. It was all too much. Too much to for me to cope with." A tear slid down her face and her whole body shook with silent sobs. He moved towards her and tried to hug her. She hit him over and over and tried to move away from him but in the end she gave up and cried into his shoulder. Mascara, sweat and tears rubbed into his shirt but he didn�t say anything he just sat there holding her and rocking her back and forwards like a small child. After a few moments the door swung open.
"Patrick, they need you in re�" She broke off, staring open mouthed at the site in front of her.
"Lara!" He said, quickly untangling himself from Holly. "This really isn't what it looks like: she was upset and I was just�"
"Save it Patrick. Nobody wants to hear."
Part ten
It was cold and dark and lonely sitting on that park bench. But it had one advantage: there was nobody there. Nobody to criticise, to judge, to annoy him or to remind him of all the mistakes he'd made in his past and how he'd cocked it up again. As the sun rose in the distance he realised it was time he wasn't here. It was nearly six in the morning and he'd been sitting there since he'd been chucked out of the all night caf� at around two. The alcohol in his system made him light headed so he stumbled along: tripping and falling then swearing and cursing. Slowly and carefully he put one foot in front of the other and made walking look extremely complicated, as he did this he sung drunken songs and tried to drink from a can of larger without spilling it. It was a long walk back to his house but somehow Patrick made it back without knocking himself out or breaking any bones.
When he got to his house he took out his key and fumbled around trying to get it into the lock. It took him ten minutes to realise it didn�t fit. He took a step back: it was his house. So what had happened�?
"She's changed the locks! How dare she when it's my house? This is what happens when I go away for a day or so!" he told a stray cat. He knocked on the door as loud as he could without breaking it.
"Lara!" He called to the window "Lara sweetie will you let me in? I can explain everything if you just let me in!" the window opened quickly and a woman in a dressing gown appeared with her hair in curlers and a mudpack on her face.
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