Chapter 12
TWELVE
Aidan
It’s not often that I sober up to find my dreams have come true. Usually I’m face down on the carpet having rolled off my bed in the dead of night or, more recently, in the middle of the day.
This time, I come to my senses in a cosy kitchen I don’t recognise, but it feels so fucking familiar, I can’t help wondering if I’ve been here before.
Ludo doesn’t say much. He mostly keeps his back to me as he makes hot chocolate—despite his promise, he actually doesn’t have any tea—and rummages in his fridge for something to eat.
“You don’t have to do that,” I protest weakly. “I’m not hungry.”
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.”
I don’t argue. How can I when I’m ravenous for anything that allows me to see his face?
Beneath it all, I’m so fucking embarrassed I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole, but Ludo is here, and nothing else matters.
So I sit at his kitchen table as if I haven’t downed a bottle of whisky and stumbled into his life like a pisshead loser.
Ludo cooks pasta with cherry tomatoes, and basil grown in a pot on his windowsill. Spiked with olive oil and garlic, it’s so delicious I hoover it up in ten seconds flat, leading him to reload my plate with the kind of smile I wish he wore all the time.
I clear my plate for a second time, then flop back in my seat and survey my surroundings. With a full belly and the sugar from the hot chocolate working its way through my system, everything seems clearer, and I take a nosy glance around Ludo’s kitchen.
It’s small, chaotic, and lovely. The appliances are old and battered, the wooden table chipped and weathered, and despite the fact that he’s probably younger than me, it suits him. Until this moment, I’ve never seen Ludo look as if he belongs somewhere.
He catches me staring. “What?”
I shrug. “I like your kitchen.”
“Why?”
I consider voicing the thoughts that have just passed through my head, but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out, and I shrug again.
Ludo has never pushed me to answer questions. I reckon it’s a defensive measure because he needs me to give him the same space, but it’s hard when all I want is to know absolutely everything about him.
It’s my turn to speak, but I settle for running my gaze over him, absorbing the changes that have taken place since I last saw him—not that I can truly remember much of that.
But I do remember his dark circled eyes and painfully thin frame.
The terrified shadows haunting his gaze, and the way he was so shrunken into himself it was as if he wanted to die.
Or maybe I don’t remember it and it’s more that in comparison with the Ludo in front of me now, it’s so fucking obvious.
Ludo leans on the counter, unfazed by my scrutiny. It’s almost as if he expects it. I wonder why, but the thought is too complicated for my bleary brain, so I don’t pursue it. Instead I give way to my craving for a better look and beckon Ludo closer.
He smirks and pushes himself off the counter. “Having trouble with your hearing again?”
“Eh?”
“In the hospital . . . you made me come over to you because you couldn’t hear me.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Probably for the best. You were in a lot of pain.”
I get what he’s saying, but the idea that I had conversations with him I can’t recall upsets me in ways I can’t explain. My Ludo bank is already too low, and I’ve given up contemplating what it says about me that it even exists. “I can hear you fine,” I say. “I’m just hoping you’ll sit with me.”
Ludo drops into the nearest chair. “I thought you might want some space. I haven’t been drunk in forever, but the end game always lands me feeling claustrophobic.”
Claustrophobic. I turn the word over, trying it on for size, but it’s impossible for me to feel like that when Ludo is this close. I file it away for later, when I’m trapped in my bedsit again with just my miserable self for company. “Are you allowed to drink . . . I mean, with your, er, bipolar?”
“Were you going to call it a disease, Aidan?”
“What? No, course I wasn’t. I’m just a fucking mess and can’t find any fucking words, let alone the right ones.”
It comes out as a slurred mess. Perhaps I’m not as sober as I feel. But Ludo smiles faintly and finally—finally—lays his magic hand on my arm. “It’s okay. I was taking the piss . . . out of myself, and you. I don’t care what you call it.”
“I’m not calling it anything.”
“I know.”
“So . . . are you allowed to drink? Or does it make it worse for you?”
“Depends.” Ludo sketches a picture on my forearm. “I can technically drink with the medication I’m on, but I have to be super careful, and when I’m in the mood to drink, it’s usually when being super careful isn’t at the top of my list.”
I don’t know jack about bipolar. A few lonely nights have driven me to google that shit, but every article I read was different, and I’m no wiser than I was when we met. “I wish I didn’t drink.”
“Are you an alcoholic?”
It’s not the first time I’ve been asked that question. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not physically addicted—I didn’t miss it when I was in hospital—but it didn’t take me long to get back on it once I was home.”
“Hmm.” Ludo draws another picture. Scribbles it out and tries again. His fingertip on my skin is giving me goosebumps but somehow feels so normal I can almost ignore it.
Almost.
“I’ve always been a caner,” I say when Ludo doesn’t speak. “My dad gave me my first beer when I was ten and I lost my stop button somewhere in my teens.”
“How old are you?”
“How old are you? I can’t work it out.”
Ludo snorts. “Twenty-five, but I got asked for ID buying cigs a few months ago, so maybe I don’t look it.”
“You smoke?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is it like the drinking thing? You only do it in self-destruct mode?”
“Something like that.”
“They told me not to smoke after surgery. Said I’d get gangrene or some shit. So I haven’t.”
Ludo reclaims his finger and stands. He sweeps my plate and mug from the table and carries them to the sink. “You smoked a lot before?”
“Like a fucking chimney.”
“Then you do have willpower.”
Turning tthe tap on, Ludo fills the sink.
I wonder if I should go or help him with the dishes, but I don’t move.
I just watch him, tracking every movement in his slender body.
Yeah, cos despite the fact that he’s gained some weight since I last saw him, he’s still a skinny mofo.
He’s lost the blond though. His hair is now as dark as mine and almost as long.
He has a silver nose ring too—it suits him.
And I’m digging his clothes: slouchy ripped jeans and a faded black tee with the sleeves rolled up, revealing pale skin with more ink than I remember, though I can tell it’s all old.
He’s barefoot too, which is my fucking kryptonite, but I shove that vibe down.
Ludo does things to me no one else ever has, but I haven’t had a sexual thought in so long that I no longer know what to do with them.
I draw my gaze away from his perfect feet and back to the pale skin of his exposed arms. The masochist in me searches for his surgery scar, curious if it’s as macabre as mine, but I stop short before I get to his wrist.
Jesus.
In the hospital, Ludo wore huge T-shirts, and on the isolated occasion he didn’t, I was too fucked up to scrutinise him too hard before I gave him my own.
Now, though, I wish I had because it would mean that the white lines covering his biceps and inner arms wouldn’t be brand new to me.
That the shock sluicing through me would’ve already happened, and the churning in my stomach and the scraping sensation in my heart would be in the past.
I shove my chair back, on my feet before I truly know what I’m doing. Six months ago I’d have crossed the kitchen in one stride, but I’m clumsy now and weak, and Ludo hears me coming.
He turns as I reach him. “Aidan . . .”
But his words die on his lips as I seize his arm and gently extend it so I can see every inch of his brutalised skin. The white lines are everywhere. The only punctuation is the thick pink line from his surgery. “What—” I stop. Take a breath. Try again. “How many of these do you have?”
Ludo turns his bottomless gaze on me. “How many what? Scars in total? Or by my own hand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you shouldn’t ask.” He twists his arm out of my grasp but makes no move to get away from me. “Either way, I stopped counting a long time ago.”
“Do you, uh, still do it?”
“Cut myself? Don’t be coy, Aidan.”
Coy. There’s a word I haven’t ever heard in real life. “Sorry. Okay. Do you still cut yourself?”
“No. Not at the moment. I’d imagine it’s like your drinking—a security blanket when I forget any other ways of coping with life. Most of those marks are years old, but I can’t promise I’ll never make any new ones.”
It makes more sense than I want it to. I take Ludo’s arm again and examine a particularly grisly scar on the underside of his bicep.
I rub my thumb over it, as though I can push it back inside him and spare him the pain, but of course I can’t.
I can’t do anything but wish life had been easier for him.
For both of us so we weren’t huddled in his kitchen on this balmy evening, trying desperately to understand each other.
I let his arm drop. I want to know where else he has scars, but in this moment, I vow that I’ll never ask. That anything he shares with me is because he wants to, not because I’ve backed him into a corner and taken what I need. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because life is shit and you deserve better.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Convince me you don’t.”
“Works both ways.”
“Does it?”
Ludo shrugs. “I think so.”
It’s enough . . . for now. And I know it’s time to go. I nudge our shoulders together. “I should get home.”
“Got someone waiting for you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re not enjoying your own company as much as you thought you would.”
“Psychic bastard.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
I laugh. Ludo does too, and it wakes his dog who’s been sleeping by the back door. She gets up and pads over to us, shouldering her way between us. I take it as my final cue and back off.
It takes me a minute to get my bearings and find the front door. Ludo follows me to the hallway. “Have you got far to go?”
I don’t want to think about how long it will take me to get home. I grunt, non-committal and vague, my very best qualities. “I’ll be okay. Thanks for the food. It was great.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ludo doesn’t sound convinced, so I turn to face him. He’s leaning on the doorframe, a worried frown marring his face.
“It was. Whatever your fretting about, forget it.”
“How do you know I’m fretting?”
“Intuition.” I turn back to the door and open it. I have one foot outside when Ludo calls my name. “What?”
“Just so you know,” he says. “I’ve never cooked for anyone, and I hate having people in my house.”
“What’s different about me?”
He smiles, just a little. “Everything.”