Hopes POV 🥀
I washed my hair and body in the shower, thinking about Mike. I was quite scared to see his house, just him and me there.. but I was also excited.
My application had been accepted, I was going to start being a carer for Michael the Sunday after he was released.
I'd spend a few hours with him a day, make sure he took his meds, and all that.
I didn't work on Fridays or Saturdays so someone else would be taking over and he had the companies number in case he was in a crisis and needed one of us.
The man who would work with him at the weekend was called Markus, a big bald Russian man covered in tattoos.
I'd met him before during my training as a nurse - he used to work on Louella ward at Clemmie Woods.
I'd miss Clemmie Woods, I'd made so many friends there with the staff, and Jamie had been discharged a day ago so I no longer needed to worry about working there to be with him.
James had insisted he didn't want or need any community care - but I'd still planned to check on him every other evening.
I was worried about him too, scared that Alex Adlon would come after him - angry at being locked away for so long, determined to get revenge.
But we had been assured Alex had no idea where James, or any of us, lived.
I was still intensely angry, and wanted to hurt Alex for what he'd done to Jamie, to our family. He'd tried to plead "not guilty" but there was so much evidence that he was convicted guilty, and locked away like he should be.
If he'd have pleaded Guilty, been ashamed of what he'd done, I wouldn't be so angry.
But he wanted everyone to think he was innocent - but we all knew he wasn't.
CCTV caught evidence on camera and there were many witnesses who saw Alex that night, walking behind James until they got into a dark alleyway - away from anyone's eyes.
The CCTV saw Alex follow Jamie into the alleyway passage, and they disappeared from view until Alex was spotted by another CCTV camera, running out of the passage and disappearing into the woods.
His bloodied clothing was found hidden in those woods, and Jamie was caught on the camera limping out of the alleyway about 10 minutes later, in tears and hysterics, covered in his own blood.
One of Alex's friends admitted that Alex had told him what he'd done, LAUGHED about it in fact. When I heard that Alex had found the attack funny, I truly wanted to set him on fire.
I focused on washing my hair, then worked mousse into my curls and blow dried it. Michael was being discharged on Saturday, in two days.
I remembered how he was in floods of tears, until I told him I'd be working with him as his carer. His face had lit up, his teary eyes then sparkling as he stared at me in disbelief and .. happiness?
I knew he'd gotten attached to me, but I didn't care. I was attached to him too.