I don’t know jack about bipolar. A few lonely nights have driven me to google that shit, but every article I read was different, and I’m no wiser than I was when we met. “I wish I didn’t drink.”
“Are you an alcoholic?”
It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that question. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not physically addicted—I didn’t miss it when I was in hospital—but it didn’t take me long to get back on it once I was home.”
“Uh-huh.” Ludo draws another picture. Scribbles it out and tries again. His fingertip on my skin is giving me goosebumps but somehow feels so normal I can almost ignore it.
Almost.
“I’ve always been a caner,” I say when Ludo doesn’t speak. “My dad gave me my first beer when I was ten and I lost my stop button somewhere in my teens.”
“How old are you?”
“How old areyou? I can’t work it out.”
Ludo snorts. “Twenty-five, but I got asked for ID buying fags a few months ago, so maybe I don’t look it.”
“You smoke?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is it like the drinking thing? You only do it in self-destruct mode?”
“Something like that.”
“They told me not to smoke after surgery. Said I’d get gangrene or some shit. So I haven’t.”
Ludo reclaims his finger and stands. He sweeps my plate and mug from the table and carries them to the sink. “You smoked a lot before?”
“Like a fucking chimney.”
“Then youdohave willpower.”
He turns the tap on and fills the sink. I wonder if I should go or help him with the dishes, but I don’t move. I just watch him, tracking every movement in his slender body. Yeah, cos despite the fact that he’s gained some weight since I last saw him, he’s still a skinny mofo. He’s lost the blond though. His hair is now as dark as mine and almost as long.
It suits him. And I’m digging his clothes—slouchy ripped jeans and a faded black tee with the sleeves rolled up. He’s barefoot too, which is my fucking kryptonite, but I shove that vibe down. Ludo does things to me no one else ever has, but I haven’t had a sexual thought in so long that I no longer know what to do with them.
I draw my gaze away from his perfect feet and back to the pale skin of his exposed arms. The masochist in me searches for his surgery scar, curious if it’s as macabre as mine, but I stop short before I get to his wrist.
Jesus.
In the hospital, Ludo wore huge T-shirts, and on the isolated occasion he didn’t, I was too fucked up to scrutinise him too hard before I gave him my own. Now, though, I wish I had because it would mean that the white lines covering his biceps and inner arms wouldn’t be brand new to me. That the shock sluicing through me would’ve already happened, and the churning in my stomach and the scraping sensation in my heart would be in the past.
I shove my chair back, on my feet before I truly know what I’m doing. Six months ago I’d have crossed the kitchen in one stride, but I’m clumsy now and weak, and Ludo hears me coming.
He turns as I reach him. “Aidan...”
But his words die on his lips as I seize his arm and gently extend it so I can see every inch of his brutalised skin. The white lines areeverywhere. The only punctuation is the thick pink line from his surgery. “What—” I stop. Take a breath. Try again. “How many of these do you have?”
Ludo turns his bottomless gaze on me. “How many what? Scars in total? Or by my own hand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you shouldn’t ask.” He twists his arm out of my grasp but makes no move to get away from me. “Either way, I stopped counting a long time ago.”
“Do you, uh, still do it?”
“Cut myself? Don’t be coy, Aidan.”
