I pad downstairs. Ludo is no longer in the kitchen, but the pizza has arrived while I’ve been gone, and two XXL boxes are teetering on a stack of frying pans. I rescue them and take them into the living room, but he’s not there either.
Nor is Bella. I set the pizza on the coffee table and check the garden and every other room in the house, but Ludo is nowhere to be found.
Worry licks through me. I call him, but his phone rings in the kitchen. Wherever he is, he’s left it behind.He’s walking the dog, dickhead. Don’t freak out.But even as I think it, more anxiety seizes my chest. I rub at it, recalling the many times Ludo has described the physical pain of a panic attack.Is this how he feels every day?
A knock at the door rouses me. Spotting Ludo’s keys on the back of the couch, I hurry to answer it, but it’s not him. It’s another pizza deliveryman brandishing two more extra-large pizzas. Bemused, I pat my pockets for my wallet, but the bloke shakes his head. “You paid online.”
“Course I did. Thanks.”
I shut the door, the pizza boxes warm and soft against my palm as the scent of greasy meat, tomato, and cheese overtakes the lemony-floral cloud coming from the kitchen. Nausea rolls my stomach. All the way here, aside from telling Ludo over and over that I love him too, all I could think of was getting clean, eating dinner, then getting dirty again, but as the second pizza order joins the first, I feel sick to my stomach. Ludo has always been inexplicable to me, but there’s something up with this shit.
Something iswrong.
Twenty-Five
Ludo
Aidan blinks up at me. “Where are yougoing?”
“To walk Bella. It’s morning. Look.”
I spring to my feet and open the curtains. Dawn light spills into the room and Aidan shies away, shielding his face.Oops.I didn’t mean to wake him, but leaving the room without speaking to him seemed impossible. I regret shaking him now, though; he looks like he wants to punch me.
“Ludo, mate,” he says, voice growly with sleep. “It’s five o’clock in the morning. Bella isn’t even awake yet.”
I glance at Bella, who, admittedly, is still stretched out in the middle of the bed like a giant hairy starfish. “But it’s morning,” I repeat. “So I have to walk her.”
It makes perfect sense to me, but Aidan is frowning at me as though I’ve grown horns overnight. I rub my forehead to check and then click my fingers to rouse Bella. “Don’t worry. I won’t be long.”
Bella grumbles and groans. Stretches and rolls off the bed. She’s at my feet in moments, and I leave the room before Aidan can say anything else.
He’s on my mind as I leave the house though. I’m worried about him—he’s been weird ever since I came back from the woods last night. Hovering over me, asking me a bazillion questions about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. For a man who claims to be introspective and selfish, he’s doing a pretty good impression of someone’s mother. A good mother, I think. I never had one of those. Maybe he learnt from his own. He’s never told me much about her.
The woods are cool and quiet. I take the same route I did last night, but at the fork that would take me to Aidan’s tree, I go left instead of right. I’ve never been this way before. Aidan told me you could walk every day in the woods for a month and not go the same way twice. I’m starting to believe him, and I like exploring. The woods used to scare me, but not today. Today as I tramp through heather and ferns, I feel like I could walk forever.
* * *
Aidan
Bernard sighs. “Are you listening to me?”
“Nope.” I don’t even look at him. Too busy checking WhatsApp every two seconds to see if Ludo has been online.
He hasn’t, for the record. Not since he told me he loves me, and as hard as I try to fight the doubt, I’m starting to wonder if he’s even aware he sent me those damn-fucking words.
Bernard drifts away. I put my phone down and open Google, tapping in a search for manic symptoms of bipolar. Guilt seeps into every facet of my being, and I feel like I’m betraying Ludo in the worst way possible, but then I picture his wild eyes as he left the house this morning and recall the three hours I waited for him to come back before I had to leave for work.Nah. Fuck this shit. Something isn’t right.
A bipolar charity FAQ page fills the screen. I scan it from top to bottom, then go back to the start and read it all again with blood roaring in my ears. Every single symptom listed fits Ludo’s behaviour over the last few days: over activity, talking too fast, big ideas that go nowhere. Even the bright orange vest he left the house in this morning is a warning sign I didn’t understand until now.
I read on to the article written for sufferers, absorb the details and nuances of how Ludo might be feeling right now: euphoric, happy, energised. It doesn’t sound so bad, but there’s a flip side. A penalty for feeling on top of the world. Wherever Ludo is, he’s alone and disconnected from reality.“It’s a lonely place to be,”the author warns.“Frightening too, when you realise no one is keeping pace with your racing thoughts.”
A lump forms in my throat. I try to swallow it, but it’s stuck, rigid, and I realise it’s not going anywhere until I find Ludo and get him some help.
My phone rings on my desk. I jump on it, but it’s not Ludo. It’s Michael. “I can’t talk,” I snap. “I’m busy.”
“Charming,” he retorts. “I’m on my way to work too, as it goes, so I’ll only keep you as long as it takes me to get from the train station to the hospital.”
“The hospital? What the fuck are you doing there?”
