Chapter 18
“This is for the best, Harry.”
Harrison watched his mother count out the little white pills. One for him, two for her. One for him, two for her. He didn’t know what was in them, she took so many these days, but he knew what she wanted them to do.
“We’ll curl up together, all nice and comfortable, and we’ll go to sleep.” Her voice was calm, soothing. It had a dreamlike quality to it, as if a part of her was already gone. “When we wake up, we’ll be in paradise. No more pain, no more suffering. We’ll be free, Harry, and we’ll be together always.”
He didn’t believe in her paradise. The only thing they would be at the end of this was dead. But then again, the dead can’t feel pain, so maybe she had a point. Maybe nothingness would be a kind of paradise, after all.
Harrison didn’t want to die. But life was no picnic, as his grandmother used to say, and his attachment to his own heartbeat wasn’t so great. After all his mother had done to protect him, how could he let her down now, when she needed him most?
He’d tried to talk her out of it, of course. Told her they could leave this place. Pack up what little they owned and disappear—somewhere his father would never find them. They could start again, just the two of them. In a little house, with a garden where she could grow flowers. He would get a job and then he could take care of her, like she’d always taken care of him. He’d spun the tale so vividly, even he started to believe. But she couldn’t see the little house or the garden. Her gaze was fixed on paradise.
When she scooped up her collection of little white pills, he stared down at the pile she’d set in front of him. He could throw them away, all of them. Even at thirteen, he was stronger than her and she wouldn’t be able to stop him from taking them. But she would only find more, when he wasn’t there. And he didn’t want her to have to go through this alone.
Swiping at the tears on his face, he picked up the pills. She smiled at him then, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Such a good boy,” she said, laying a hand on his arm.
They took the pills together, one after the other, swallowing them down with cool water from tall glasses. He was careful not to cut his tongue on the chip in the rim, though he wasn’t sure why.
After they finished, his mother led him into the bedroom where they lay down together on the faded blue bedspread. She held him close as he lay with his head on her chest. She stroked his hair, running her long fingernails through the golden strands, as she’d done when he was small.
“I love you, Harry,” she told him, her words faint as she closed her eyes.
Drowsiness crept into his limbs and his head became heavy. “I love you, too.” He’d expected to panic at the end, believed some sense of self-preservation would kick in. There was a curious absence of both. He continued to lie there, long after his mother’s hand ceased to move and her heartbeat slowed beneath his ear, and waited for it to be over.
The sound of yelling came to him from far away, and a loud bang told him the bedroom door had slammed open. He tried to open his eyes to see what was going on, but his lids were too heavy. He heard his father yelling, at first angry, then something else. Shocked maybe? Or fearful? That couldn’t be right. The voice still sounded so far away, he didn’t even worry about being hit.
Rough hands grabbed onto him and started shaking. “Harry! Wake up, Harry!”
Harrison bolted upright in the bed, hands clawing at his throat as he struggled to breathe.
“What’s wrong?” A groggy voice came from beside him, but Harrison couldn’t respond. He was still in that tiny bedroom, lying beside his dead mother while his father screamed into the telephone beside the bed, telling the ambulance to hurry.
Hands clasped his cheeks, their heat searing his cold, clammy skin, and he flinched away. “No, I don’t want to die,” he growled, scrambling back toward the headboard, out of the clutching arms of death. “I don’t want to die.”
“Harrison, wake up.”
He went still as the face in front of him came into focus. Jeremy. The other man was sitting up on his knees with mussed hair and wide, worried eyes. “It’s only a nightmare,” he said, striving for a calm voice. “You’re all right.”
Harrison’s heart plummeted as the truth washed over him. He’d revealed himself in the worst way. Now there would be more questions, and he would have to answer them because he wouldn’t lie about this. Jeremy would know how messed up he was. It would be too much. They would be over.
“I have to go.” He pushed the covers away from his sweat-slicked body. Grabbing the clothes he’d laid out over a chair the night before, he started to dress.
“You’re leaving?” Jeremy asked, his confusion clear. “Why? It was only a nightmare, everyone has them. There’s no need to be embarrassed.”
“I’m not embarrassed.” He yanked his shirt over his head and sat on the edge of the bed to put on his shoes.
Jeremy grabbed a pair of pyjama pants and thrust his legs into them. “Harrison, stop,” he said once he was covered. “I’ll make us some tea, we can talk, it’ll be okay.”
Harrison shook his head. “Tea isn’t going to fix this.” Taking his bag, he left the bedroom and rushed down the hallway. Jeremy was right behind him.
“You’re actually running out on me because of some nightmare?” He was halfway to the door when Jeremy grabbed hold of his arm from behind. “Will you stop for one fucking second and talk to me?”
“What do you want me to say?” Harrison yelled as he spun around. “Because once I’ve said the words I can’t take them back. And you’ll know how wrong this is, how wrongweare, and then—” His voice cracked and he stopped, taking a deep breath as he tried to compose himself. “Except it’s already too late, isn’t it?”
Backing up a step, Jeremy stared at him with wary eyes. “Too late for what?”
For us.Harrison held Jeremy’s gaze, but he had no idea what to say. How did he even begin to explain this? “Damn it.” He muttered the words under his breath, biting them out through clenched teeth. “Iwantedthis, so much, you have to know that.”
Jeremy gave a curt shake of his head. “All I know right now is you’re scaring the crap out of me.” He held his hands out in front of him, as if protecting himself from the coming blow. “Tell me what’s going on,” he demanded, his voice raspy with emotion. “Whatever it is, just say it.”
The adrenaline that had raged through Harrison’s system was gone now, and he was left with an overwhelming sadness. He didn’t want to lose Jeremy, but the time had come. He couldn’t avoid it, or pretend he would get to it tomorrow. He had to tell the truth now and be done with it. “I wasn’t having a nightmare. I was reliving a memory.” He forced himself to meet Jeremy’s gaze as he said the words that would ruin them. “For me, the memories are worse than nightmares.”
