Summer at Tiffany's by Karen Swan Read Free Book Online

chest, staring down at his closest friend and feeling – Cassie knew – helpless. And if there was one thing he wasn’t, it was that. He could cope with anything but that.
    Cassie ordered briskly – and too much – at the Starbucks counter as Suzy and Velvet bagged the leather sofas in the far corner, the two of them engrossed in a clapping game. She set down the tray of lattes, foamy milk for Velvet, croissants, pain au chocolat, pain au raisin, two muffins (double-chocolate and a ‘breakfast’ blueberry one), fruit salad and a muesli-yoghurt pot.
    Suzy arched her eyebrows.
    â€˜You need to keep your strength up,’ Cassie said weakly, before Suzy could get a word out.
    â€˜Clearly.’ Suzy reached forward and handed the fruit salad to Velvet, who instantly started sucking on a slice of mango and within seconds set off a bright yellow river of juice running down her chin.
    Cassie handed over a napkin, before grabbing the double-chocolate muffin and peeling back the case, slicing it in half and handing it over to Suzy on a plate. Suzy was famous for her sweet tooth, but she just looked down at it like it was made of chipboard.
    â€˜Suze, you have to eat,’ Cassie scolded, bringing her chair closer.
    â€˜I know. And I will.’ She set the plate back down on the table. ‘I just need to . . .’ She inhaled deeply. ‘Take a minute. Everything happened so quickly yesterday – the train pulling away as Arch fell, being trapped until the next stop . . . It was like being in one of those dreams where you can’t run, can’t throw a punch . . . you know?’ Her head dropped down, her legs shaking.
    Cassie squeezed her knee, remembering it all too clearly: Suzy’s screams, the way she’d pounded at the windows so hard Cassie had thought they would shatter, how Henry had had to hold her back from pulling the emergency stop as she wrestled with him, reaching for the red handle.
    â€˜I keep thinking I’m dreaming. Last night, when I was lying in that bed and all I could hear were these
machines
, keeping everyone alive, keeping Arch alive . . . ! I mean, how is it even possible that this is happening? Yesterday I had to kick him out of bed for snoring like a train, and now he’s in here.’
    â€˜You’re in shock yourself, Suze.’
    Suzy’s eyes lifted to hers and a long moment passed between them. ‘What will I do if he doesn’t . . . ?’ She couldn’t articulate the thought, as though to give it voice were to give it life, as though the words would be comprehensible to Velvet even if she weren’t involved in a suck-to-the-death on an orange segment. ‘No one else would put up with me the way he does, as you’re always telling me,’ she muttered with a wry, hollow laugh.
    â€˜Well, it’s true. You’re a nightmare – far too bossy and always right. Which is why Arch
is
going to survive this.’ Cassie smiled kindly. ‘There’s no way he’ll leave you and Velvet. There’s not a man on this planet who has got more to fight for than him. You two are his world.’
    Tears began to fall from Suzy’s eyes again, her lips drawn thin as she struggled for self-control. ‘God, the irony. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they go and do.’ She shook her head. ‘I thought the past few months had been so hard on us – Archie’s barely been around, and I’ve been a snappy cow, knowing I should have been doing more than I was but not wanting to burst my bubble with Veevs. I thought
that
was our hard-luck story, you know? A piffling little bonus was our karmic retribution for . . . whatever. But what does any of it matter now he’s lying in a bed up there on a ventilator? Who gives a stuffed cow about some job? He always hated it anyway. Said the blokes on his desk were losers who—’
    Cassie interrupted her with another