Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Ludo
Aidan: do u fancy a swim?
I glance at the message, distracted and bemused. The closest swimming pool is seven miles away and probably laced with dysentery. It will take more than Aidan to get me to dip a toe, and that’s saying something.
Ludo: What are you talking about?
I flip my phone face down and go back to the reality I’ve spread out on my bed. Pills, all the pills, separated into heaping piles that I’ve counted sixteen times and come up with the same number: two doses too many.
You’ve skipped days.
But when?
I fish out the diary I’m supposed to use to avoid exactly this, but the pages since I started seeing Aidan are mostly blank. While my head has been full of him, I’ve let a bunch of things slide.
Angsting, I pack the pills back into their bottles and return them to the drawer. Missing doses of my medication is always dangerous, but never more so than right now—when I’m the closest to happy I’ve ever been.
The little voice in my head has already stepped up a gear: you don’t need drugs, you don’t need drugs, you don’t need drugs.
Lucky for me I’m grounded enough to ignore it, but I have too many scars to believe it will last, and what then?
So it’s better to ditch the drugs now and get it over with?
No.
No.
Drugs keep me together, and I’m not ashamed. I hate them because I need them, but I love them because they work. Most of the time. If I take them correctly.
Fear is a constant band around my heart, some days tighter than others. When I’m with Aidan, it’s like the elastic has worn out, and I start to dream that it might slip away altogether, but then he goes home—or I do—and the tension comes back.
Throat aching, I go downstairs and make chamomile tea, but my kitchen, flooded with sunlight from the garden, is too hot for me to contemplate drinking it, so I abandon my mug and take my phone outside.
My garden is unrecognisable from when Aidan started working on it.
Gone are the weeds and thistles that took up most of the space, and in their place are young herbs and shrubs, tiny and full of promise.
He says I can use the stronger herbs—rosemary, bay, and thyme—straight away, but I’ve yet to pluck a single leaf. I can’t, they’re too perfect.
I sniff them, though, about ten times a day, more when he’s not here. The lemon thyme is my favourite. I rub the bright leaves between my thumb and finger, releasing oil onto my skin, then I retreat to the upturned plant pot that comprises my entire collection of garden furniture and sit on it.
Aidan has replied to my message.
Aidan: do u trust me?
Ludo: Yes
Aidan: are u sure?
Ludo: No. I don’t trust anyone. But if I did, it would be you. Unequivocally you
I send my response and immediately regret how verbose and ridiculous I sound. Aidan doesn’t need a fifteen-word text message to understand what I mean. Sometimes he doesn’t need any words at all.
Aidan: meet me by the gate at 4. bring bella if you want . . . and a towel
I’m laughing before I know why.
“There’s nowhere in these woods I don’t know about.”
Aidan snorts and grabs my hand. He tugs me through the gate and doesn’t let go. We’re not exactly strolling hand-in-hand like lovers, but it’s close enough that I brave a furtive glance around.
He catches me, naturally. “Are you worried someone might see us?”
“No. I’m more curious how you’d react if they did.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know how out you are.”
“Out?”
“As in queer. The only person you ever talk about is Bernard. Does he know?”
“Dunno. But I wouldn’t tell him if I had a girlfriend either, so I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
Girlfriend. Does that make me his boyfriend?
Wow.
I’m not set up for this conversation today, but the dog in me perseveres. “Everyone around here knows I’m queer. I was sleeping with the bloke who worked in the chip shop last summer.”
“How does that mean everyone knows? Did you write it on each other’s heads?”
“No, he put it on Facebook when I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore.”
Aidan grunts. “Good job he fucked off back to Scotland.”
“You knew him?”
“Vaguely. Before you came along I spent a lot of time in the chip shop.”
And the pub. And the working-men’s club, hanging out with the blokes from the construction sites in the next town over. It’s hard to imagine he was open with any of them about his sexuality.
Aidan trails to a stop and sighs. He fixes two rough fingers under my chin and draws my gaze from the forest floor. “What are you, like, actually trying to ask me? If I’m gay, or if the world knows?”
“The second one.”
He snorts. “Well, I am gay, and I’ve never hidden it from anyone. As for who knows, I couldn’t tell you, cos I’ve never cared, but I’m lucky that I can kick the fuck out of any knobhead who squares up to me about it. At least, I used to be able to. That goes a long way in a town like this.”
“You’ve never left?”
“‘Course I have. I ran off to live with Michael’s parents when I was twelve, but they were done with me by the time I was sixteen, and then my dickhead dad got himself terminal liver disease, so I went back to live with him.”
“Thought you didn’t care?”
“I don’t anymore. He’s dead.”
“Did he know?”
“Yes.”
“Was he okay with it?”
“I never asked.”
I never asked my parents if they were okay with me being queer either, but I didn’t have to. Their faces when my aunt told them I kissed Angelo on the lips over afternoon calzones were enough.
Aidan sighs again and releases my chin. He rubs his palms up and down my bare arms. “Look, if you’re worried I’m going to get embarrassed about being seen with you in public, then you can shut that down now.
I’m a private motherfucker, but that’s all.
I don’t care who knows whatever they know about me, and I’ll murder anyone who ever gives you shit. ”
I believe him. Aidan is gentler with me than I deserve, but the beast in him is fierce. I’d only fight him to protect him.
From who? Himself or from you?
Dammit. I shake my head to clear it. “Sorry. It doesn’t even matter, I just suddenly had to know, and I couldn’t move my feet until I did.”
Aidan’s only answer is a slow grin as he pulls me forward, coaxing my feet into motion again. He tosses a stick for Bella, and life, as it always seems to do when we’re together, moves on like the balmy summer breeze.