Read My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) for Free Online

because of discomfort and nightmares, her spirit still sank whenever she dared to face a mirror unclothed. She simply wasn’t ready for anyone else, even Mike, to see the scars. Although she could probably get away with ignoring the situation for a while longer. At least till she was out of the chair.
    She shuddered, then tried to reassure herself that today would mark another milestone in her emancipation from the attack that had scarred her body almost as badly as it had scarred her mind.
    Eager for progress, she heaved herself off the bed and fought her way into a somewhat crooked but now almost upright position, surprised to find that, despite the lack of painkillers, her stomach and torso weren’t as painful as expected.
    She’d fought to enforce it, but Mike and her dad had eventually accepted her desire to be as independent as possible. Perhaps the message that she wasn’t going to play the obedient recuperation game had reached her body, too. Encouraged, she edged towards the corner and retrieved the crutches, gingerly placing her weighton them, ignoring muscles that protested against even this mild abuse. Several seconds of dogged endurance later, most of Hawkins’ weight was off her feet, but the burning sensation was already cascading through her upper body. She relented, placing the metal supports back in the corner.
    Walking short distances unaided was possible, but also painfully slow. She creaked her way across the landing, hearing strains of Capital Gold from downstairs, pleased to discover that, for the first time since returning home, she reached the bathroom without having to pause halfway.
    She closed the door, leaving it unlocked in case of emergency. Then she plugged the bath and cranked on the taps before inspecting her make-up-free appearance in the mirror, resisting the urge to strip and inspect the laceration marks. She brushed her teeth, watching the bath slowly fill, feeling a hint of unease. Today was a big deal.
    Now six weeks old, her wounds would at last be watertight. The external sutures had been removed by a doctor a week ago, leaving only the internal binds, with butterfly stitches outside, just in case. But now she was allowed to soak and thereby dissolve those. Then she’d get her first proper look at the repair job carried out by the surgeons.
    Fortunately, Hawkins had always done a reasonable job of looking after herself. Okay, so she enjoyed the occasional cigarette or bottle of wine, and chocolatewas a weakness, too, but none was indulged to extremes, and she countered their effects with regular running and healthyish food. She liked to think her size ten figure was due more to this effort than to random biological or metabolic good fortune. Stress was part of life, especially of her job, and she had yet to find any grey hairs. But she worried about the long-term effects of her scars because, as anyone approaching their thirty-sixth birthday would testify, things didn’t heal as fast as they once had.
    Beside her, the bathwater was getting deep. Hawkins turned off the taps and positioned a towel within reach, in case she needed to call on her dad. There was no point embarrassing them both in the midst of an emergency. Then she slipped out of her pyjamas, glad that the mirror had steamed up, and grimaced her way over the edge to immerse herself in the hot liquid.
    Forty minutes later, Hawkins drained the tepid water and showered. She carefully dried herself and manoeuvred back on to the bathmat, catching sight of her towel-covered reflection.
    She turned to face the mirror, standing up as straight as possible, aware that her last line of defence had gone. Previously, stitches and dried blood had provided visual noise, behind which the scars could credibly have ranged between extremes. Obviously, she’d been able to view her stab wounds obliquely, once the stitches had dissolved or been picked away, in the bath. Butthere was something scarier about confronting them from a