Silence. Another groan. And then, “I need to sleep.”
He hung up.
I stared at the phone in disbelief and called him straight back, but he didn’t answer. On my third try, he switched his phone off.
Frustration coursed through me, along with an abrupt certainty that I was right about the pills. Perhaps he’d done it on purpose, but it didn’t matter anymore. He’d said he was safe. My heart wanted to believe him, but how could I when his medication was still untouched in his drawer and he was who-the-hell-knew where?What do I do? Call the police? Freddie? His old club?I’d never felt so helpless in my life.
My phone rang. I jumped.Micah. But when I looked at the screen, it wasn’t him. And I answered the phone with a heavy sigh. “Ma, this isn’t a good time.”
There was rustling at my mum’s end, and then her voice, high pitched and scared. “Sam? Can you hear me, son? I need you to come home.”
20
Micah
The idea of sleeping forever was cute but farfetched. Too soon, awareness returned to me with a sharp kick in the nuts. I couldn’t say how long I’d hibernated under a duvet that smelt of other people, but it was light outside when I forced myself to face the air-conditioned chill of the room.
My brain vibrated. Or maybe it was my phone again. I picked it up and squinted at the screen, but it was blank. Dead battery? Or maybe I’d turned it off. I couldn’t remember. Sam’s call had turned my head upside down. So many thoughts. I couldn’t catch them all.
I slid off the bed and limped to the bathroom. The mirror taunted me. I stepped up to it and caught sight of myself for the first time in days.Jesus.My face was a mask of pallid skin and shadowed eyes. Stubble darkened my jaw, but not the sexy kind. It looked like a battered Brillo pad.
Scratch that.Ilooked like a battered Brillo pad.
I leant against the counter and forced myself to retrace however long it had been since I’d last touched base with reality. Sam’s call played on repeat.Medication, medication, medication.I pictured the white boxes in my top drawer and tried to remember the last time I’d opened them up and popped the pills that plugged the hole in my sanity. The leak in my head caused by years of suppressing who I really was. Meera said I wouldn’t need them forever, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe they were the only thing standing between where I was now and where I’d been when I’d first realised Sam loved me back.
Fuck. Sam. I missed him so much. I couldn’t think about him for too long. But his phone call haunted me. It didn’t matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t remember taking those damn-fucking pills. And I certainly hadn’t taken them since I’d made the impulsive decision to run out on him and spend money I needed for the rest of my life on a dank hotel room.
The meds were supposed to stop me making stupid decisions. They were supposed to stop me overreacting to my moods and give me the stability I needed to recover from the crisis that had brought me face to face with an oncoming train. But they couldn’t work if I didn’t take them, and the harder I thought about it, the more certain I became that I hadn’t. My morning routine had gone to shit since I’d started sleeping with Sam. I’d been too distracted by the magic of being so close to him. I didn’t regret a moment we’d spent together, but fuck, fuck,fuck,I’d messed up.
I backed away from the counter and retreated from the bathroom. My own idiocy made me want to cry, but nothing happened. The numbness I’d carried for years became detachment, but not without feeling. The pain in my chest spread through every part of my body. I needed Sam more than I’d ever needed anything, but I’d ruined it. I’d hurt him, and worse than anything that had ever come before, I’d left him.
The bed hit the back of my legs. I sank down. The temptation to crawl under the covers and sleep a bit more was so strong, it choked me. My brain buzzed again, a discontented zap I now knew came from the drop in serotonin Meera had warned me about so many times. I stood, sat down, and stood up again. My head ached, my bones itched, and the pit of sadness in my belly made me want to die.
But there were other emotions too. Some so bizarre I knew they weren’t real, and some that kept me from face planting on the bed. Pacing hurt my leg. I settled for sitting with my back to the hotel room door and listening to the world go by while I tried to figure out what the fuck the rest of my life was going to be like if I was so dependent on pills I couldn’t function without them.
“You’re ill,”imaginary Sam reminded me.“You need time to get better... as long as it takes.”
But I didn’t have the capacity to believe his logic. The panicked monster in me saw only my current reality—that I was losing my mind and it was my own damn fault, and it would take more time than I could face to put that right. I choked on a sob.I’m so fucking scared.But there was something else. Hope, maybe? Or perhaps it was delirium, another side effect of messing my meds up. Either way, I latched onto it with both hands, crawled across the floor, and fished my phone from the tangle of sheets on the bed.
I turned it on. Sam had left me a voicemail. I hit delete without listening to it, cos if I heard his voice right now, I’d run all the way home, and yet another facet of my screwed up life would become his problem.As if you’re not his problem already. As if you haven’t been his problem since the day you met.
WhatsApp messages flashed up on the screen. I forced myself to ignore those too and searched out a contact I hadn’t used for more than a year. He’d told me a hundred times to call if I needed anything. We’d never been close enough for me to believe that he’d meant it, but I didn’t believe anything anymore. How could I when I couldn’t trust my own mind? The beauty in it was that it left me nothing to lose.
I pressed the button and made the call.
* * *
Dom wasn’t in London, and it was two days before he could get to me. He rang every few hours, trying to persuade me to let someone else into the room to help me, but I couldn’t do it. I’d hurt the only soul on earth I truly trusted, and until I was well enough to fix the mess I’d left behind, there was nothing else.
He made me leave my room and meet him in the underground car park beneath the hotel. Wearing dark shades and hidden by his blacked-out windows, he looked like a roadman, but his gaze was warm when he revealed himself. He gave me a hug, a gesture that would’ve sent me to my knees if I hadn’t already been there.
“You look wired, mate. Anything you want to tell me before I take you to my house?”
“Like what?”
“Like, are you clean? Pockets empty? I can’t have that shit around my family.”
Super. Even Dom thought I was a lost cause. “I haven’t got any shit. I haven’t been near it since last year.”
