AS I STARE UP at my building, trying to catch my breath, I am dreading what I will find upstairs.

First option is that she isn't there. After me being gone with so little an explanation, she's just packed her stuff and left.

Second option is that she's there, but she's pissed at the fact I'd gone AWOL for nearly three weeks, with only a text to explain myself. Although I would hope her anger would subside when she sees the state of my face.

Or the third option, the scenario where she doesn't believe me because she thinks I abandoned her, just after we took the leap to the next level.

To be honest, all options weren't great. I was praying for a fourth option to appear and for it all to be okay, for once. But as all these options start to bounce around so much they make me dizzy, I decide it's time to head inside.

***

I FEEL LIKE THE lift is closing incredibly slowly, and as I watch the numbers tick up and up, I actually feel a bit sick by the time the doors open on my floor. I walk round the corner to my door, and just look at the door, not wanting to face what was inside.

"Just open it," I whisper to myself.

Keys in hand, I reach out a shaky hand and hit the fob against the lock just as the door flies open.

Her cheeks are red and blotchy when I finally focus on her, and she has red eyes, like she's been crying. She cups her mouth, same as Alex, and as she takes me in, her expression goes from sadness, to shock, and then finally, to relief. Her eyes are fixed on the mess around my eye, the worst of the damage, but my cheeks warm in the relief filling her eyes.

I don't know what to say, so I just start with the only thing I can think of. "Did you miss me?"

She closes her eyes before she hops towards me, her eyes welling up before she gently puts her arms around my shoulders. She drops her face into the crook of my neck and the relief continues to flood through me as she kisses me softly just under my ear. I try to lift her, but my ribs protest and I wince.

"Lara, I am so sorry," I tell her and she moves her head up to look at me. "I'm so sorry."

As she moves backwards, and I hope I'm mistaken, a flash of annoyance brushes over her expression before she frowns. It stays for a few more seconds, but as she strokes my cheek gently, I feel like the anger can't be directed at me.

"I'm sorry I didn't call." My voice is barely a whisper.

Her eyes soften quickly as a tear drops down her cheek and I lift my hand to catch it before leaning forward to kiss it away.

"I..." She starts to say something but then she shakes her head, walking away from me, into the apartment.

I follow her in, ignoring the mess, but as soon as I spot that crumpled piece of canvas, I make a beeline for it. I pull it flat in my hands, looking at for it a few seconds as I shake my head.

The canvas is basically destroyed, with tears in the fabric and the sketch lines smudged. The pride I had felt a few weeks ago when doing it has now gone, and what's left is just shame. As a result, I find my hands start ripping at the canvas more, ripping it to shreds.

"Archie, don't!" she calls, lunging sideways to stop me.

Ignoring the pain lancing up as she tugs it away from me, I shout back at her. "No! This needs to go." I rip it twice more before I hear a thud and a cry, realising Lara had fallen to the floor. Forgetting the drawing for a moment, I kneel down to try and help her up, but as she bats me away, I realise something.

I had left the canvas at Billy's, which means she must have seen him in the last few weeks if she's got it back, and she's seen him since she's known I've been in the hospital.

My mouth opens and closes, as I'm not sure of what to say.

"How... How did you get it back?" I ask with gritted teeth. "When did you get it back?"

She pushes herself upright, hobbling over to the sofa and sits down. She's looking at the pieces of canvas on the floor, not saying anything, and I have no idea how to react to her now.

Finally though, she speaks.

"Billy." She turns her head to look at me, and her tone is accusatory, even though its just one word. "He gave it back to me."

"He gave it back to you?" I ask. "What did he say?"

If he had spoken to her before I could, which was quite likely, he could have said anything; and as his sister, she would probably believe him.

"He said you got angry at him, that you swung at him. He said you swung first."

"An-" I half scoff as my mouth drops open in shock. I can't believe what I'm hearing.

"He said you came up there raging, demanding that." She points to what remains of the canvas scattered between us on the floor. "He said you hit him first, and that even after he gave it back to you, you kept trying to hit him."

"What?!" My voice is barely audible as a cloud of red mist settles over my vision. "He attacked me!" I sit down on the other side of the sofa and look her directly in the eye, so she knows I'm not lying.

"Then what happened? Where the hell did you go?" She narrows her eyes at me, and I feel like she's not going to believe me, no matter what I said. "And if you didn't do it, then why the hell does your face look like that?"

"What?!"

"Just answer the question, Archie."

I no longer recognised this girl in front of me. I didn't recognise this sudden harshness in her voice and the coldness in her eyes. I didn't recognise the way she was speaking to me, as if what we had shared together these last few years didn't matter.

"Answer the question!" she shouts again, demanding again.

"Lara, he attacked me." I say it calmly but through gritted teeth, keeping my voice as level as possible. "I came back up the stairs to grab the picture and I found him sitting on the sofa looking at it. He shouted, before I'd even had a chance to explain, but it didn't make any difference. He hit me once and then didn't stop." Holding my ribs as my entire body tenses, I say, "I told him it wasn't what it looked like, that you and me were together, but he didn't hear me. He didn't believe me."

"What do you mean it wasn't what it looked like?"

"He saw a drawing of you naked, Lara. If I was him, even without his temper, I would be mad."

"Then why did you hit him?" She points at me accusingly.

"I didn't hit him!" I shout, wincing as the sudden movement pulls at my ribs. "He hit me! He kept hitting me!"

To prove my point, I lift my shirt to show her the black and blue bruises still decorating my ribs. "How the fuck am I supposed to even begin to fight back when he had me on the floor, kicking me." Wiping my fingers gently across my stomach, I show the bruises from where he kicked me repeatedly. "How was I supposed to fight back?"

"But..." She falters, looking from my stomach to my face and back again, looking confused.

"What? Was it him that told you I hit him?" I ask, lowering my shirt.

"He-" She begins to say something but then pulls her phone out of her pocket, frantically searching for something. A few seconds later, she finds what she's looking for and puts her phone in front of my face. And when I take it in, I cannot believe what I'm seeing.

It's Billy. Only he has cuts and bruises all over his face, similar to mine. He has a black eye, a cut on his cheek, as well as what looks like a broken nose.

I take the phone from her and scroll through her pictures, not asking permission. He has a fat lip in the next one, and in the third picture, his eyes is swollen shut, similar to mine.

"Lara, I swear to God. This was not me."

As I hand her phone back to her, I start to panic. How the hell am I going to be able to tell Lara that he may have hurt himself on purpose, to cover his own story, to make it look like it was me. But at the same time, it makes me worry both for Billy and for her, because how truly fucked up do you need to be to willingly do that to yourself to prove a point... The fact he would do it at all makes me really uneasy. I'd likened him to a loose cannon once, but now he feels more like a loose nuclear bomb.

I feel trapped in a corner but as she pulls her phone away from me, I catch sight of the date the photo was sent. It was two weeks ago, when I was in a coma, and as the red mist settles over me again, I know I have him.

"When did he send you that?" I ask.

She scoffs at me. "Why the hell do I need to answer that?" she answers defensively but I stand my ground.

"Just answer the goddamn question," I shout, mimicking her. "When did he send it? When did he say it happened?"

She looks at me for a few more seconds before speaking. "Last Monday."

"Last Monday as in two weeks ago, Monday?" I ask, taking my phone out of my pocket to dial Dr Cruz.

"Yes!" she shouts at me, clearly losing her patience. "What are you doing?" she asks, confused as I put the phone to my ear.

"I'm proving to you just how fucked in the head your brother is."

She flinches at my words.

"And then you're going to pack your stuff and leave," I add, too angry to care about the hurt that's now covering her face.

"Cruz speaking. How can I help you?"

I pull the phone away from my ear and put him on speaker.

"Hey doc, it's Archie." I try to keep my voice steady, but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold it.

"Oh hey, Archie. Did you forget something?"

I fix my eyes on Lara as I talk, wanting to focus on somethig as I seethed about how she thought so little of me. That she thought I would attack someone, and that I would attack someone so brutally... after everything she knows I've been through.

"Nope. Just wondered if you could clear something up for me?" I ask, gritting my teeth.

"Sure." His voice sounds a little unsure, probably because he could tell I was angry. "What's up?"

"Can you tell me where I was last Monday? The fifteenth," I clarify for Lara's benefit.

"Arch... Archie, are you okay?"

"Never better," I say, holding my nerve as Lara's cheeks redden to a deep purple and tears well up in her eyes again.

"Well, I'm not sure what you're doing Archie, but you were here last Monday."

"And where is 'here' exactly?" I ask, raising my eyebrows at Lara again.

"New York Presbyterian. Monday is the day we started to wake you up. Arch if you're feeling confused, you should come back in."

I start to feel bad that he thinks I may have something else wrong with me, so I decide to tone it down, both for him and for the fact Lara has gone an alarming shade of white. I may have taken it too far, but then I remember that she'd thought I was capable of something that horrible, so I go one step further.

"Thanks Cruz. I've changed my mind."

"Changed your mind?"

"About pressing charges. Can you send me that officer's details, the one who came to take my statement?"

Lara's eyes widen but I narrow mine menacingly.

"Marquez. Sixty-fifth precinct. And I'm glad you've come around, Archie. It's a good thing we took those pictures."

"Definitely. If you could send me those again, that would be great. And thanks for clearing that up."

"I'll send them shortly. Archie, are you sure you're okay?" he asks quietly.

"I'm fine. Thanks again, Cruz." With a few more pleasantries, he finally allows me to hang up.

"Arch-"

"NO!" I shout, cutting her off. "You don't get to say anything." I walk past her to the kitchen and she grabs at my arm, pulling me back, which makes me cry out loudly as the movement wrenches my ribs.

She lets go immediately and cups her mouth. I can't look at her anymore, so I turn away sharply and find the ice, along with two tea-towels and a sandwich bag. I put the ice in the sandwich bag and then wrap them in the towel before putting the cool cloth against my jaw, which was now really starting to sing in pain.

Still not able to look at her, I watch her in my periphery as she paces up and down, trying to gather my own thoughts.

I'm still not calm. I don't think I'll ever be calm. Not about this.

She knew all about what happened with my dad, and how I had let him come after me for years because I wanted to believe he could change. She knew that I had only really let one person in, and she knew how hard it was for me to open up and let her in, and yet I did. And now she has given me the reason why I never wanted to open myself up to anyone again.

It gets you nowhere. It gets you beaten and broken, and it just brings you pain and suffering that's just not worth it.

She should have believed me when I told her where I was. She should have believed I would never do something like that. She should have believed in me.

But now she knows that my belief in her, my trust in her, the things I have been slowly building over these last two years, have gone. Gone. Broken.

"Archie, I..."

"I don't want to know what you have to say anymore." I bite my lip as tears sting my eyes. "How could you, Lara!" I shout. "How?"

"I..." She wipes at her eyes as she looks down. "I don't know. He came to me, hurt, bleeding. What was I supposed to do? Questioned him and pushed him away?"

"No... of course not. But I can't believe you immediately assumed it could only be me?!"

"I-"

"You should never have thought it was me. What the hell?"

"Arch, he's never lied to me before."

"Neither have I!" I shout even louder. "And I have been here for you way more than he has these last few months. I take you in, I help find you a job at WEH, let you stay here for free and then this is how you repay me? You throw me under the bus?"

Her mouth drops open in shock. "I was not throwing you under the bus."

"Were you going to press charges?" I ask, wincing slightly as the sudden movement pulls at my ribs. She doesn't say no, so I scoff and push off the kitchen island. "So what? I would have just come back from being in hospital for three weeks to find the police waiting for me on my own fucking doorstep?"

"NO!" She shouts it so loud it makes me jump. "Archie would you stop being so goddamn unreasonable and just listen to me?"

"I think I'm well in my rights to be unreasonable here, Lara."

I walk away from her, at least I start to, but then I realise I'm not finished.

"I don't trust many people, Lara, you know that. After everything that's happened to me, with Matt, Dad, or even with Tessa, you know I don't let people in." My voice is quieter now, more controlled, but I don't think I've ever been more angry than I am now. "I let you in. I told you everything, and now you're throwing it all back in my face!"

She wipes at her tears again. "Please, Archie. I'm so sorry. I promise... I promise I won't do it again."

"You should never have fucking done it in the first place!"

It's quiet between us for a moment, with only the sound of our heavy breathing. But then she looks at me, and I know that look, and it sends that red mist over me again. That angry red mist.

"Can-"

"Oh, you have some fucking nerve." I bite the inside of my cheek as I try to use my own pain to calm myself down. "You were about to ask if wouldn't press charges."

"Archie, this will ruin his life. He'll get time for this." She gestures to me and I actually want to laugh now.

"Yeah! For good fucking reason!" I walk towards her. "This is just the half of it. You want to hear the rest?"

She frowns but I continue anyway before she stops me.

"Six fractured ribs, two of them broken, a fractured eye socket, a bruised skull and a broken nose." I step closer to her so she can see the detailed mess of mottled bruises on my face. "Lara, he rammed me so hard into the kitchen island I thought he had killed me. I heard my ribs snapping before I felt it, and then when I fell to the floor he just kept on kicking."

She shakes her head.

"Lara, I don't care if he's your brother or a random stranger. I'm sorry. If he can do this much damage over something so small, he really does need to be behind bars."

She cups her mouth and shakes her head but I continue.

"What if I don't report him, and then he snaps at someone else? He snaps at someone in the park, or at the gym. Or if he snaps at you?" I'm know I'm pushing her way too hard here, but she needs to hear it. I need it to sink into her mind. "He doesn't have that control anymore, Lara. He doesn't, and he's dangerous."

"I know!" She say. "I know he doesn't. But prison isn't what he needs, Archie. He needs help. Please," she begs. "Please, we'll-"

"We?" I ask harshly.

"I," she corrects herself. "I will get him help."

I don't move for a moment as her eyes bore into mine. I'm standing on the fence here, because I am well within my rights to call the police and press charges, and she can't stop me. But then I do agree with her. Prison isn't what will help him. He just needs help.

Finally, my decision is made, and I give her a very slight nod, watching as she sinks in relief.

"Thank you." Her voice is shaky as she takes a step towards me but I take a quick step backwards, away from her.

"I'm not doing it for him," I tell her, my voice slightly softer but still harsh enough to make her flinch.

It's quiet between us for a few more minutes as I take the relative silence and use it to try and calm myself down. I move the ice pack to my side and breathe an uneasy sigh of relief as the cool sensation helps ease the pain.

"I'll go and pack my stuff." She says it so quietly I nearly don't hear her.

I look up at her and frown, forgetting that I had asked her to pack her stuff and leave.

I shake my head and it's her turn to frown.

"But you-"

"Don't leave," I say quickly. "You don't have anywhere else to go, not unless you go to his... and I don't want you anywhere near him."

She seems confused by what I'm saying, but then I suppose she would be.

I walk past her and her fingers wrap softly around my arm. Compared to three weeks, I notice a significant difference now that I see her in this new light. Three weeks ago, I wouldn't have been able to resist her hands on me, and I would have let those hands do anything to me. But now, the thought makes me feel sick to my stomach, making me flinch away from her, her touch making my entire body go cold.

I'm no longer moved by the hurt in her eyes after today, and as I make my way to my room, I don't look back at her. I close my door, lock it and head straight to my bed, lowering myself down carefully as the immense pain of both my body and my mind threaten to crush me into oblivion.

For a moment, my mind reminds me this is probably how Tessa felt when I left, when I suddenly abandoned her without any explanation. Those green eyes flash up in front of me as I lie backwards, and as I try to push them out of my mind, they only get stronger.

"Come home," she tells me.

It may have been a whisper in the air, but to me the thought had never been more clear.

I did need to come home, because home in England was now the only place for me. Home was the only place I knew I had people I could trust, and to help me get over this and get back to where I'd worked so hard to be, home was where I needed to be.