I concede his point with a shrug. Aidan kisses my cheek, then stands and shuffles to the window. “It’s raining.”
“So?”
“So... we need to go to the pharmacy and get your prescription.”
“Wedon’t need to do that. I can go on my own.”
“I know you can, but I need to feed the cat, so I was hoping you’d come with me. Maybe we can get some ibuprofen too?”
I’m not convinced that he can walk to the end of the road, let alone across town to his bedsit, but Aidan is as stubborn as me when I’m stuck between yellow and black, waiting to fall. He’s not going to let me go anywhere without him.
We compromise by getting an Uber into town and going to the pharmacy first. He picks up the smallest pack of painkillers ever. I snatch them out of his hand and put them back on the shelf. “Jesus Christ. As if six tablets is going to be enough. Get the big pack.”
“But—”
“Bollocks!” I snap. “Dude, I’m not going to off myself with your anti-inflammatories, okay? Just get what you need.”
I stomp to the cluster of chairs to wait for my name to be called. After a minute Aidan follows me, a slightly larger box in his hand. He drops into the seat beside me.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not very good at this, am I?”
“Good at what?”
“Being there for you without pissing you off.”
“You think it’syoupissing me off?”
“I don’t know what’s pissing you off, to be honest, but you’re cute as fuck when you’re angry.”
A genuine, belly-warming laugh bursts out of me. It’s so unexpected that I don’t know what to do with it. “I’m not cute. I’m a pain in the arse.”
“Ain’t we all?”
The woman behind the pharmacy counter calls my name. I pluck Aidan’s ibuprofen from his hands and go to fetch my prescription. When I come back, he’s on his phone, texting furiously.
I’ve never really seen him text before, unless it’s something rude to his boss, and I’m not in the right place to distinguish curiosity from jealousy. I bite my tongue, but naturally he hears my unspoken question anyway.
“My cousin.” He holds the phone up. “Turns out he works in some crisis care team at the hospital. He found Rita for me yesterday when I flipped my shit.”
“Youflippedyourshit?”
“For real. You think I had a fucking clue what to do?”
I have no idea what went down yesterday, and I’m all too aware that my ability to ponder it is manufactured. That if I don’t take the pills I have at home and the extras I have clutched in my hand, that I’ll regress to that blank space where I simply don’t care about myself or anyone else.
Dread fills my heart. Ineedto care about Aidan. About Bella. I can’t handle a world where two souls who’ve given me so much of themselves don’t get anything back.
I turn on my heel and go back to the counter. By the till is a display of pill organisers, identical to the several dozen I’ve owned and lost over the last few years. I buy three. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
* * *
Aidan
Ludo is tired and racked with guilt and anxiety. The diazepam dulls his desperation for frantic activity, but it doesn’t dull the pain.
He sits on the couch, curled up in a ball, gaze fixed on a spot on the wall. I bring him all the medication he has in the house and the pill organisers he bought from the pharmacy.
“Come on,” I say. “Help me set this up.”
