Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aidan
Ludo jumps. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know, mate. It’s your house.”
He huffs, irritated, and stomps from the room to answer the door. If it weren’t so terrifying, it’d be cute.
Voices filter out of the hallway. Female, and then the deep tones of a man that ain’t Ludo. I tense and take a step, but a woman bustles into the living room before I get any further, towing Ludo behind her, and I drop my fight stance. “Rita?”
She nods. “Aidan. Nice to meet you. Ludo, take a seat, sweetheart.”
Ludo pulls a face, his expression a conflicting mix of bemusement, insolence, and affection. “What are you doing here? And why did you bring him?”
He jerks his head at the tall man standing by the door with an NHS ID hanging around his neck, stance every bit that of someone who means business.
My heart turns over, but Rita smiles. “Ludo. You know if you miss an appointment and give me reason to be concerned for your welfare, I always have to bring Dr Dennis with me. He’s no trouble, though, is he? Give him a break.”
Ludo blinks. “Hmm?”
“Never mind.” Rita meets my gaze and subtly inclines her head to the door.
I get the hint. She wants me out so she can talk to Ludo on his own.
Get his side of the story. I kind of regret tidying the house up now, but I have to have faith that she’ll see the same false energy in Ludo that I have.
That she’ll know what to do to help him and protect him until he comes back to me.
Ludo doesn’t notice me leave, he’s too busy peeling varnish off the coffee table as I slip past him and into the hallway.
Lacking any better ideas, I limp upstairs and finish cleaning the bathroom.
Then I retreat to the bedroom and find clean sheets to put on his bed—he wouldn’t let me last night.
“You don’t like duvet covers. If you did, you’d have one. ”
I’m buttoning the pillowcases when Rita comes upstairs.
“I think it’s an episode of hypomania,” she says. “Do you know if he’s missed any medication doses?”
“You asked me that already. I really don’t know, I’m sorry. I think he keeps pills in the top drawer of the dresser, though. If that’s any help?”
Rita opens the drawer and retrieves medication I’ve never seen. She shakes a pill bottle and holds it up to the light, frowning. “It’s hard to tell when he stores them like this. He used to have a tracker box, but I’m assuming he’s lost it.”
My leg is throbbing and suddenly feels like it can’t hold me up a moment longer. I drop the final pillow on the bed and sit. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
“I don’t expect you to know, Aidan.” Rita puts the pills back in the drawer and shuts it. “I’m thinking out loud. And I’m glad you’re here. Moving forward, it gives me more options.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hypomania doesn’t last as long as a true manic episode. A few days, usually. If you can stay with Ludo, I’d be more comfortable letting him remain at home.”
“Where else would he go?”
“A residential unit, but he’d have to consent or be sectioned, and we have the added difficulty that the local facility is full. The nearest bed right now is a hundred miles away, and I’d rather not put him through that if we can avoid it. So can you stay with him?”
I’m unfairly surprised that she’s even asking me. Not because asking me to stay with Ludo is unreasonable, but because there’s no fucking question that I won’t. “I can stay. I was going to anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him.”
Rita nods. “That’s what I thought, and I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Ludo is such a sweet soul, he deserves to be loved.”
“I know.”
Rita gives me leaflets and internet links and drills me on what to expect over the next few days. “We’ve given him an injection to calm him down and a prescription for a few doses of diazepam. Can you get to a pharmacy?”
My leg groans, but I nod. “Yeah.”
“Good. If he’s been marauding around for a few days, the shot should get him to sleep, but I’d prepare for a crash pretty soon after that. In the meantime, do your best to keep him fed and watered, and clean if you can. It’ll be awhile before he’s worried about things like that.”
I nod slowly. “Is that just him, or is it something that happens to everyone with hypomania?”
“There are some typical symptoms, but I’m quite familiar with Ludo’s nuances. He’s been stable a while, but blips like this are, unfortunately, inevitable. We just need to keep him safe until it passes.”
“I’ll keep him safe.”
“I know you will.”
Rita takes me downstairs and explains what’s happening to Ludo. He listens, but I don’t think he hears. Already, his lightning fast gaze has slowed, and he’s glancing around the living room as though he can’t remember where he is.
I move closer to him, within arm’s reach if he needs me. After a moment, his arm snakes around my leg and he rests his head against my thigh. I weave my hand into his messy hair and stroke the back of his neck.
I’ve got you.
Rita and Dr Dennis—who, to my knowledge, spoke less than three words the entire time he was here—leave. I shut the door behind them and return to the living room.
Ludo is sitting on the floor, still filthy from his forest adventures. “I’ve fucked it up, haven’t I?
“Fucked what up?”
“Everything. I never wanted you to see me like this.”
I want to crouch in front of him, but my leg won’t play, so I sit on the coffee table instead. “You’ve seen me with a tube in my chest, throwing chunks all down myself.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“You were hurt. It wasn’t your fault.”
“This isn’t your fault, mate.”
“It is. I think I missed some lithium doses.”
“So? That might’ve been because you were getting sick and you didn’t know. I’ve got leaflets, and it legit says that can happen in one of them.”
I’m deadly fucking serious, but something I’ve said makes Ludo smile . . . just a touch. A tiny flash of light in the shadows of his haunted face. “Leaflets?”
“Yup.”
He blinks slowly. “I feel like I had half an orgasm and I’ll never get the rest.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I like being manic and coming down is the worst thing in the world.”
“Injection kicking in?”
“Maybe.”
I didn’t expect it to happen so soon, and I’m not na?ve enough to believe that one shot of sedative will tumble Ludo down from his destructive high, but there’s a twisted comfort in watching the energy drain from him. Even if it comes back when the drug wears off, maybe he can rest awhile first.
But before any of that can happen, I need to somehow wash the dirt and grime from his skin. Brush the leaves and twigs from his hair. Dress the blisters on his feet.
“Come on.” I hold out my hand. “Let’s go upstairs.”
I run Ludo a bath and help him undress. He shivers and I shut the bathroom window. The sun has gone down, and the chilly front the weather bloke on the radio has been wittering about all week has moved in.
As ever, my eyes are drawn to the scars on Ludo’s skin from the past and the fresh bruises and scrapes from right now, but I try not to contemplate how this could’ve turned out if he’d been on his own. There’s no point—he’s not on his own, and I don’t plan on him ever being again.
“Aidan?”
“Yeah?”
Ludo comes closer and knocks his head against my chest. “Why do you think you’re a horrible person?”
“I don’t think I’m a horrible person. That takes effort.”
“Apathetic, then. Same thing.”
“No, it’s not. If I was horrible, I’d care enough to be nasty. As it is, I’m nasty by default because I don’t care.”
“Care about who?”
“Anyone who isn’t important to me.”
Ludo taps his fingers on my abdomen, a hyperactive rhythm that threatens the odd calm the bathroom seems to have cast on him.
I still them with my own and pull back a touch. “I’ve always found it difficult to get emotional about things that don’t directly affect me. And even then, sometimes it’s like there’s a big black hole where my heart should be.”
“Have you always felt like that?”
“No. Michael thinks living with my dad sucked the life out of me.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“Not until I met you.”
Ludo tilts his head sideways, and I know that even with the kaleidoscope of colours blasting through his mind, he understands. Because he always does.
He gets me.
And I’ve got him.
I coax him into the bath and sit on the floor next to it. He’s filthy, but I don’t want to wash him unless he really can’t—or won’t—do it himself. Instead I focus on examining the cuts and bruises littering his body in case he needs actual medical help.
He doesn’t as far as I can see, but I can’t help imagining what the fuck he’s been up to in the woods to get in such a mess. So I ask him, naturally, cos I’m sure it’s super helpful right now.
Ludo frowns at the grazes on his arms. “I can’t remember. I think I’ve gone a bit magic.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah. Manic is magic, baby. Didn’t Rita tell you?”
He smiles . . . like, really smiles, and despite my worry for him burning a hole in my gut, I can’t help grinning back. “No, she didn’t mention it. I googled it, though, and I’ve got leaflets, remember? Seems like a good time, for a little while, at least.”
“It is. Kind of. But it’s lonely because no one can keep up, you know?”
“I don’t know, Ludo. Tell me.”
“You won’t understand.”
“Do I need to? Or can I just listen?”
That seems to stump him, and he doesn’t speak for a while. I give in and reach for a sponge to wash the dirt from his skin, and he pays me no heed as I rub soap over his shoulders and shampoo into his hair.
“Your hair’s full of leaves,” I say.
He hums. “I think I thought about flying but it was easier to roll down the hill.”
My heart stills. “Flying?”
“Yeah, I went to the railway bridge.” Ludo turns in the bath, sloshing water over the side.
His cheeks are stained pink from the heat, and his eyes are starting to droop from whatever concoction Rita and her pal have shot into him.
“I always go when I need to remember why I didn’t die the last time I jumped from there. ”
I cup water in my hand and pour it over his head, smoothing the shampoo out. The railway bridge is high and craggy and has been on my horizon for as long as I’ve been alive. Another fissure in my heart cracks open. “You go there to remember you can’t fly?”
“Something like that. I think. I go there a lot when I’m okay, and Rita says I shouldn’t go when I’m manic, but I didn’t try to fly, Aidan. I didn’t want to.”
“What did you want?”
He winces. “I can’t remember.”
“Probably doesn’t matter then. Next time, though, why don’t you wait for me to come with you? That way we can figure out a way to get down that doesn’t get you all dirty.”
“I like being dirty.”
“I know, mate, but this ain’t the good kind.”
“Do you still want to do the good kind with me?”
I stare at him, curled up naked in the bath, vulnerable, confused, and trusting me so completely my heart feels like it’s gonna fucking explode at any moment. “Always.”
“It would be okay if you didn’t.”
“Well I do, so I don’t give a shit what would be okay if I didn’t. It’s not fucking relevant.”
“I need to feed Bella.”
“You fed her already.”
“When?”
“You brought her home between marathon hikes.”
It’s Ludo’s turn to stare, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. What he’s feeling. And I hate that most of all—the possibility that he might be scared and I don’t know it. That he might need me more than I’ll ever know without realising how much I need him too.
I push his wet hair back and squeeze water from the ends. “You told me you loved me yesterday. Do you have any idea how much I love you too?”