#clive reader

Hi Anon! Thank you so much for your kind words! I’m sorry it took so long and I’m not sure that’s what you had in mind, but I hope you like it, nevertheless. If anyone else has prompts to suggest, I’m happy to try my best :).

Enough.

At the hospital, Clive is there when she wakes up, tie and top two buttons of his shirt undone, sitting on a chair by the side of her bed – he reminds her of late nights at the office and glasses of Scotch, watches as her hand instinctively reaches for her midriff, the comforting, quick, regular beating of a heart on a monitor; she glances up at him, bites her lip: “You’re here,” she states, not so much a question and more of a conclusion (the conclusion to a chase she didn’t know they’d run, of a battle she didn’t know she’d fight - a single punch to her stomach, lonely, she remembers the clouds in the sky above them and the pain, Clive’s body, right there, his arms around her as they moved into the ambulance; he had the baffling certainty of someone she’d never thought she’d believe in) and –

“How are you?” he asks, now; Martha smiles, tired but honest, taken back to that night when he stood in the middle of her living room as she listened to him ramble on with sweet words of mild commitment, laughing to herself, waiting until he’d said enough bollocks about support and triumphs to open her mouth with a joke and put him out of his misery – she tells him the baby’s fine, that’s it’s most probably going to be perfectly fine for the next six months she’ll spend carrying it, that he can get back to whatever date he probably had to cancel because of this but: “No, you,” he insists, then, his look warm, set on hers, low hospital lights reflecting in the shade of his eyes –

She’s caught off guard. Also, she’s scared, is what she is (a bit less, now, sure, but she was terrified before) and: I’m glad you were there, she lets herself think, looking up, crossing his gaze because she was (truly, weirdly, sincerely was) but: “I’m glad you’re here,” she confesses, instead, present tense, because she is, now, watching him, Clive, awkwardly sitting on a chair that’s way too small for his frame – she’s not quite sure how much of a mess the three of them will be, yet, but at least it’ll be fun to watch, she thinks –

His fingers wrap around hers, then, and for a moment, it feels like more (more, she’s always liked that word: more like standing at the edge of high rooftops, overlooking the universe) and she lets him: lets him hold her hand and even drop a kiss against her forehead, later, say: “I’m glad I’m here, then,” with a smile on his face that reminds her that whatever they have is enough to make her smile back, these days.  

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Liked it? Want more stories like this? You can find some here or here and find my original writing here. If you would like to help me justify the truly unreasonable amount of time I spend writing, you can consider donating to my tipee writing fund, here.

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