“Now?”
“Yeah. Then we can figure out food. There’s pizza in the fridge.”So much fucking pizza.“But we can have something else.”
“I don’t like pizza.”
“Okay, well, let’s clean up, then we can sort something else.”
Ludo frowns, but his gaze shifts from me to the piles of pots and pans and the open cupboards. “Do you think the saucepans would be better over there?”
“Maybe. Try it.”
It’s all I have, but for ten whole minutes, it works. Ludo blurs around the kitchen, stashing his things in all the wrong places. When that no longer holds his attention, we move on to the living room and put it back together, albeit in a totally different fashion to the way it was before.
Ludo eyes the sofa. “This looks weird. Do you think I should get a new one?”
Thankfully I’m saved from having to answer by a knock on the front door.
Twenty-Seven
Aidan
Ludo jumps. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know, mate. It’s your house.”
He huffs, clearly irritated, and flounces out of the room to answer the door. If it weren’t so terrifying, it’d be cute.
Voices filter out of the hallway. Female, and then the deep tones of a man that ain’t Ludo. I tense and take a step, but a woman bustles into the living room before I get any further, towing Ludo behind her, and I drop my fight stance. “Rita?”
She nods. “Aidan. Nice to meet you. Ludo, take a seat, sweetheart.”
Ludo pulls a face, his expression a conflicting mix of bemusement, insolence, and affection. “What are you doing here? And why did you bringhim?”
He jerks his head at the tall man standing by the door, an NHS ID tag hanging around his neck, stance every bit that of someone who means business.
My heart turns over, but Rita merely smiles. “Now, now, Ludo. You know if you miss an appointment and give me reason to be concerned for your welfare, I always have to bring Dr Dennis with me. He’s no trouble, though, is he? Give him a break.”
Ludo blinks. “Hmm?”
“Never mind.” Rita meets my gaze and subtly inclines her head to the door.
I get the hint. She wants me out so she can talk to Ludo on his own. Get his side of the story. I kind of regret tidying the house up now, but I have to have faith that she’ll see the same false energy in Ludo that I have. That she’ll know what to do to help him, protect him until he comes back to me.
Ludo doesn’t notice me leave, he’s too busy peeling varnish off the coffee table as I slip past him and into the hallway. Lacking any better ideas, I limp upstairs and finish cleaning the bathroom. Then I retreat to the bedroom and find clean sheets to put on his bed—he wouldn’t let me last night.“You don’t like duvet covers. If you did, you’d have one.”
I’m buttoning the pillowcases when Rita comes upstairs.
“I think it’s an episode of hypomania,” she says. “Do you know if he’s missed any medication doses?”
“You asked me that already. I really don’t know, I’m sorry. I think he keeps pills in the top drawer of the dresser, though. If that’s any help?”
Rita opens the drawer and retrieves medication I’ve never seen. She shakes a pill bottle and holds it up to the light, frowning. “It’s hard to tell when he stores them like this. He used to have a tracker box, but I’m assuming he’s lost it.”
My leg is throbbing and suddenly feels like it can’t hold me up a moment longer. I drop the final pillow on the bed and sit. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
“I don’t expect you to know, Aidan.” Rita puts the pills back in the drawer and shuts it. “I’m thinking out loud. And I’m glad you’re here. Moving forward, it gives me more options.”
“What do you mean?”
