CHAPTER 11
EDEN
Isaw him the second I opened the door.
My bag slid off my shoulder and hit the floor as I stepped inside, a scream forming in my throat. “Ryan?” I gasped.
He was on the floor, curled awkwardly on his side, one arm tucked under him at a wrong angle, his whole body shaking hard enough that his teeth clicked together. There was vomit streaked across the carpet beside him, dark and sour smelling.
“Ryan,” I whispered, then louder, “Ryan!”
I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands hovering for half a second before I touched him, like my body didn’t trust what it was seeing. His skin was clammy and cold, and I watched as his eyes fluttered briefly.
“What happened?” I breathed.
He made a sound that might have been my name, and then his body jerked again, harder this time, and panic slammed into me. I fumbled for my phone with shaking fingers, nearly dropping it twice before the screen lit up.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My husband,” I said, the words tumbling over each other. “He’s—he’s shaking, he threw up, he won’t wake up. Please.”
“Ma’am, I need you to stay calm,” the operator said in a level, practiced voice. “Is he breathing?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, pressing my hand to his chest, feeling it rise and fall in uneven jerks. “Yes, but it’s all wrong.”
“Okay. I need you to look around the room,” the operator continued. “Do you see any medication bottles, alcohol, or substances nearby?”
My gaze swept the living room in a frantic blur, registering the couch, the lamp, the rumpled rug—until it caught on the coffee table, where a small plastic bag lay open in plain sight. For a second, my brain refused to process what I was seeing.
Ryan smoked weed. I knew that. I’d fought with him about it, tolerated it, and rolled my eyes about it. It had been stupid and immature and frustrating, but it hadn’t been . . . this.
This wasn’t a joint tucked behind his ear or something you laughed off with a promise to cut back.
This was white powder in a bag sitting in the middle of our living room.
My stomach dropped.
No. No, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t do that.
My eyes flicked back to his shaking body, to the vomit on the carpet, to the way his jaw clenched and unclenched without rhythm.
“Ma’am?” the operator prompted gently.
My voice came out hoarse. “There’s—there’s something on the coffee table. A bag. I think it’s . . . I think it’s drugs.”
“What does it look like?”
“White powder,” I whispered.
He had stood in our bedroom this week in clean clothes and damp hair and told me he was getting a job and that he wasn’t going to lose me.
And he had done this instead.
“I didn’t know,” I said under my breath, more to myself than the operator. “I didn’t know he was doing anything like this.”
Ryan’s body jerked again, and I flinched.
“Stay with me,” the operator said. “I need you to tell me exactly where you are.”
I rattled off the address, my eyes burning as tears streamed down my face.
Sirens came faster than I expected, red and blue light slicing through the window, washing the apartment in colors that made everything look unreal. The door burst open moments later, and paramedics filled the space.
They moved me gently but firmly out of the way as they checked his vitals, rolled him onto his back, and fitted an oxygen mask over his face. One of them asked me questions while the other worked, their voices blending together in a blur.
“What did he take?”
“Does he have any medical conditions?”
“How long has he been like this?”
“I don’t know,” I kept saying, the words tasting like failure. “I don’t know.”
They lifted him onto a stretcher and clicked the straps into place . . . and suddenly he was being wheeled away from me, toward the door, toward a future I couldn’t see past the next five minutes.
“Can I come?” I asked, already following them.
“Yes,” one of them said. “Ride with us.”
I climbed inside, my hands clenched in my lap as the ambulance doors slammed shut with a final, terrifying thud, and the vehicle lurched forward, its sirens wailing into the night.
I stared at Ryan’s face, pale and slack beneath the mask . . . and I started sobbing. Pressing my hands together, I closed my eyes and prayed to anything that would listen.
But I didn’t just pray that he would live.
I prayed that if he did, I’d finally have the strength to leave him.
The doctor stood with a clipboard tucked against his chest, speaking carefully, like each word had been measured before it was allowed out. I caught fragments at first. Elevated heart rate. Respiratory distress. Admitted in time. And then the words that knocked the ground out from under me.
“We found multiple substances in his system,” he said, “including fentanyl.”
I shook my head before he even finished, a reflex more than a choice. “No. That’s not . . . He doesn’t— He wouldn’t—”
“It doesn’t always come from intent,” the doctor said gently. “We’re seeing this more often. Laced product. People not knowing what they’re taking.”
I forced myself to look at the doctor’s face, and there it was. That softening around the eyes. That careful tone meant for people who had already been through too much.
Pity.
It slid over his expression like a filter he didn’t even realize he was using. And I knew it instantly, because I’d seen that look my entire life.
Teachers had worn it when I showed up without lunch money. Counselors had worn it when they asked if everything was okay at home. Strangers had worn it when they saw the bruises and pretended not to. Even cashiers sometimes, when my card declined and I tried to laugh it off.
It was the look that said you poor thing.
My chest burned, and I pressed my palm against it, as if I could hold the pain in—like if I kept enough pressure there, it wouldn’t spill out and swallow me whole. “Is he going to be okay?” I finally asked.
“He’s stable,” the doctor said. “We’re monitoring him closely. He was lucky.”
Lucky.
The word felt wrong . . . too light for what had almost happened.
I nodded because it was easier than trusting my voice, then turned away before the tears could fall in front of him. They came anyway, a torrent that blurred the hallway until all I could see was the beige floor and the toe of my shoe.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and forced myself to breathe. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. It was funny, I’d married Ryan thinking I’d never have to try those old therapist tricks again, and here I was . . . trying them almost every day.
When I finally pushed open the door to his room, the sound felt too loud.
Ryan lay in the hospital bed, unnaturally still, his skin almost translucent against the stark white sheets.
Tubes and wires threaded from his body, looping and blinking in ways I couldn’t decipher, as if they were writing a language I didn’t know how to read.
His chest rose and fell in a measured rhythm, and for one terrible second I just stood in the doorway, watching it, afraid that if I moved—if I breathed too loudly—it would falter and disappear.
As I watched, his eyes fluttered open, focusing slowly. When they landed on me, they filled immediately.
“Oh—” His voice broke. “Eden.”
I crossed the room and took his hand, trying not to grip it as hard as I wanted to. “Why?” I asked. The word tore out of me. “Why, Ryan?”
His mouth trembled, and he swallowed hard. “I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely. “I swear. I didn’t know it was laced. I didn’t know.” Tears slid down the sides of his face and disappeared into his hair. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t.”
I nodded automatically like I believed him . . . but I was beginning to wonder if there was anything he wouldn’t do to me at this point.
“It was a bad day,” he rushed on, like if he kept talking he could get me to understand. “The interview went awful. I messed it up. I could tell right away. They were looking at me like I didn’t belong there.”
I kept nodding, my neck apparently having come loose until I’d turned into a bobblehead.
“I was so pissed at myself,” he said. “So angry. I just wanted my head to shut up for a minute. Just one minute. I didn’t think—”
“Yes, I know,” I said quietly. “I know.”
He broke then, crying without restraint, his shoulders trembling beneath the hospital gown despite the wires tethering him to the machines. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m sorry. I can’t lose you. I can’t. You’re all I have.”
I leaned forward, resting my forehead against his chest while I held his hand between both of mine. “Just rest,” I whispered. “We’ll talk about everything when you get better.”
He started sobbing harder at that, clearly understanding exactly what everything meant.
“Please don’t leave me,” he whimpered. “Please help me.”
Before I could answer, the monitor beside him began to beep in insistent bursts. The steady rhythm fractured into something erratic. I straightened immediately, my heart slamming as the numbers on the screen spiked.
The door swung open, and a nurse hurried in, her expression shifting from routine to concern in a split second. “Okay, okay,” she said briskly, moving to the bedside. “Let’s calm this down.”
She checked the monitor, then his IV, her hands quick and practiced. “He needs to settle,” she murmured, glancing at me briefly before drawing something into a syringe. “His system’s been through a lot.”
Ryan’s grip tightened around my fingers as she injected the medication into the line. His breathing came in harsh pulls, then gradually began to even out as the drug worked its way through him.
“That’s it,” the nurse said softly. “Just let it do its job.”
The beeping slowed, returning to a steadier cadence. Ryan’s eyelids dipped, his sobs dissolving into small, exhausted breaths. His hand loosened in mine.
Within minutes, the fight drained out of him completely.
The nurse adjusted his blanket and gave me a look. “He needs rest. You need to try to keep things calm.”
Calm.
I nodded again because that seemed to be all I could do lately.