“It doesn’t matter; I’ve barely unpacked as it is. My suitcases are on the floor.” Morgan paused to squint at Nimble, blurry-eyed and pale. “Do I need to take my pills?”
Morgan looked very much like he wanted to rest his arms on the table and lay his head on them, and would have, except for the fact that the bag of groceries was exactly where Nimble had put it—where Morgan had asked Nimble to put it—and was in the way.
“Think you’ve already taken them,” Nimble said slowly.
Nimble was in this man’s house and invited to stay on account of a blizzard. Morgan had been through a wringer, was currently wiped out from climbing the stairs, and had a bad knee. He was offering shelter, a hot shower, and food.
And, in spite of his grumpy complaints, he’d given Nimble the run of the store. He now seemed to be giving Nimble leave to explore the entire apartment, which went the length of the shop below, with windows on either side, wide to the storm, where the blizzard swirled and danced, as if trying to get in.
Nimble glanced at the bottles on the table. The empty glass.
Maybe Morgan had closed the bottles and finished the water in the glass. Simply that. Or maybe he’d taken more pills than he should have. But how many?
Silently, Nimble thought back. Morgan had taken his pills before Nimble had started bringing the rest of the groceries up the stairs. And, based on the now-closed bottles on the table, maybe he’d taken a second dose. Or even a third. Ormore.
“Morgan?” Nimble asked in a cold, clear voice that didn’t sound like his at all. “How many have you taken?”
He moved close, close enough that he brushed up against Morgan’s bent knee, the right one. The left one was stretched out. And shaking.
Morgan stroked his thigh as though to soothe it, and when he looked up at Nimble, his face was a horrible pale shade, his blue eyes glassy. Hair stuck to his sweaty forehead, though the rest of his face was dry.
It struck Nimble hard that, in the middle of this storm, Morgan was alone. Had Nimble not shown up, Morgan might have taken a dose, then another dose, forgotten, and taken another—with no one there to notice. Or maybe he would have taken a bunch of pills onpurpose. To end up on the floor of this bright kitchen with nobody to look after him.
To die there while a blizzard raged outside, early in October.
Nimble had cared about Blue and Star. They’d all looked after each other as they hopped freights and scrabbled for food.Hadbeing the operative word, because he’d not been planning to care about anyone else after how they’d let him down. However, the man in front of him seemed to be holding on with the weakest shaking grip, and only Nimble was there to save him.
He could, of course, take a shower, get something to eat, and let Morgan take care of himself. But that felt as wrong as being left behind by his two supposed best friends, and he did not have it in him to turn away.
“Morgan.” Nimble grabbed one of the amber bottles, the one that said Percocet, and knelt down—clumsy in his still-damp jeans and boots and leather jacket—in front of Morgan. “Morgan?”
Morgan’s chin had dipped to his chest, shoulders slumped inside his blue robe, breath thick, neck flushed. Up close he smelled of sweat, as though he’d not showered that day, or maybe for several days.
Nimble drew his fingers across Morgan’s cheek, then cupped his face. He gently shook the bottle to get Morgan’s attention, glad to hear there were still many pills inside, and he breathed deep, gratitude racing through him.
“Morgan?” he asked again. “Can you look at me? Can you tell me how much you took? How many pills?”
Morgan seemed surprised to see him there, blinking as though looking through fog. “Nimble?” he asked. Then he placed his hand over Nimble’s, pressing it more firmly to his face. “Don’t go. I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been.”
The words were mumbled, but at least he recognized Nimble, though Nimble didn’t know what Morgan was sorry for, except perhaps that his life was a mess and only Nimble was there to witness the disaster it had become.
“Not going,” Nimble said, doing his best to be cheerful and quiet at the same time. “Can you tell me how many pills you took?”
When Morgan blinked again and leaned his cheek into Nimble’s hand as though Nimble’s touch were his last bulwark before he was roughly pulled out into a black and angry ocean, Nimble asked again, “How many pills?”
“Trying to space ’em out,” Morgan said slowly, like he was at the beginning of a very long story. He licked his dry lips and closed his eyes, like a man calling up memories that might very well hurt him. “So, when you started. When you were carrying the groceries. One each. Then. Just a little while ago. One each.”
That meant Morgan had taken six pills inside of an hour. Nimble glanced at the Percocet bottle that clearly said one pill every four to six hours. Percocet was potent, even he knew that, but if Morgan had only taken two of those?—
He stood up and put the Percocet down to look at the other bottles. Which meant that he was moving, and Morgan dropped his cane to grab at Nimble, fingers hooking into Nimble’s waist, tugging at his leather belt.
Normally Nimble would have shaken him off.Let go of me. But his hand was still on Morgan’s face, and Morgan was shuddering slightly, like he wanted to stand but couldn’t. So Nimble stayed still, as close as he could, and let Morgan cling to him.
“Hang on,” Nimble said. He looked at the first bottle.Rivaroxaban. He held the bottle in front of Morgan so he could see it.
“What is this for?” Then he realized Morgan couldn’t focus, so he read the label out to him and asked, “What is DVT?”
“Blood thinner,” Morgan said, barely moving his mouth. “Twice a day.”
