Page 87 of The Art of Drowning

There were two of everything, which made my head swim, but that meant that there were two of him. Which meant that one was fake. I frowned at fake Damien, or was the other one fake Damien?

“You good?” he asked. “Because we need to cross the street. But I got us a ground floor unit, so no stairs.”

“Good. I’m tired.” I wanted to fall into his arms and let him take my weight, but the last shred of rational thought inside me knew that I needed to get into that hotel room before I collapsed.

With a bit of struggle, Damien shepherded me across the street and unlocked the door with one hand while he kept me upright, which was no easy feat. The room had a single queen-size bed, a small rickety-looking desk and a chair tucked away in the corner by the window.

I dropped down onto the bed, or maybe Damien dropped me onto the bed, but it was soft and comfortable, and being horizontal made the room spin in the other direction.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” I said after a long moment of trying to breathe through the spins.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” The danger had passed.

Damien tugged at my feet, and I tried to move them away from him, but then I realized he was just taking my shoes off. “You’re really nice.”

This made him laugh, but I wasn’t sure why. I wanted to laugh along with him, but when I opened my mouth, a whimper came out instead and, to my utter dismay, my face crumpled.

“Oh, Callum, sweetheart.”

Damien climbed onto the bed and gathered me into his arms. Sort of. I was half on his lap, half in his arms. He ran his fingers through my hair, shushing me as the dam burst.

Maybe it was the fact that I was shit-faced, or maybe it was just all too much, but once I started, I couldn’t stop and Damien held me, combing fingers through my hair, rocking me, shushing me until I was all cried out.

By the time I was done, my head throbbed, my eyes hurt, my throat burned. It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

Damien didn’t ask what was wrong or try to get me to talk about it. What was there to say? My brother was dead, my parents weren’t my parents. I was suddenly alone in the world. Untethered. Damien washed my face, then stripped me down and made me drink a bottle of water. He tried for another, but I shook my head. My stomach would revolt if I even thought about drinking anything more. He cut me a break and tucked me into bed, moving the wastebasket near my side of the bed. Just in case.

The next thing I knew, muted sunlight filtered through a crack in the curtain. Dust motes danced in the light. I closed my eyes again. Or maybe they closed on their own. In my head, a sledgehammer slammed into my brain with every beat of my heart.

“Are you alive?” Damien asked and I winced at the sound of his voice.

“Unfortunately,” I whispered. Eventually, I’d have to get up and take a piss because my bladder was going to explode soon if I didn’t, and though the world had stopped spinning, everything in it felt too bright, too sharp. It made me want to stay curled up in bed.

“What time is it?” Even the sound of my own voice was hell.

“A little after two.”

“In the afternoon?” I was flabbergasted, but my surprised statement made me pinch my eyes shut as I tried to breathe through the worst of the acute stab of pain.

“It’s a little bright to be two in the morning.”

“Bathroom,” I pleaded quietly and the bed shifted around. Then Damien was at my side again, helping me to my feet.

“Are you going to be sick?”

“I better not, because if I puke, my entire brain is going to leak out of my ears.”

He helped me shuffle into the bathroom, and when I insisted that I could take care of everything, only then did he walk away.

I took a piss that went on forever and eyed the shower, but decided that I wasn’t steady enough for that yet. Though I did turn the sink on and dunked my head under the faucet. I still felt mildly intoxicated, and I was desperate to sober up. Anything to make the pounding in my skull go away.

I returned to the room a few minutes later with a splitting headache and a sense of dread I couldn’t shake.

“Are you good?” Damein asked, his eyes full of sympathy.