Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Ludo
My bedroom is a nice place to wake up. When the bipolar charity found a tenancy that would suit my needs, they sent an art therapist over to help me decorate.
The walls are white, and the ceiling is sky blue.
If I’m lucky, when I open my eyes, it gives me a moment to forget whatever chaos I might face elsewhere.
This time, though, I wake with aching limbs and wet cheeks, and I know that somehow, the precious bubble of domestic bliss I’ve found with Aidan has come to an end.
I roll over with a suffocating sob building in my chest, bracing myself for a cold, empty bed. It isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever woken up to, but it’ll hurt the most, and I don’t know if I can bear it. But…
I’m not alone.
My flailing hands touch warm, solid flesh, and the world realigns.
He stayed.
I blink a thousand times. Pinch myself. Make myself bleed. But nothing changes. Aidan is stretched out beside me, face tight with pain, hand clamped on my shoulder, as though he can only sleep if he has me safe in his grasp.
Safe. I turn the word over in my fuzzy head. Try it for size, and it fits. I don’t know what I’ve done to carve worry lines into his handsome face, but with him next to me, I don’t feel safe—I just am.
I can’t hide from his obvious pain though. I sit up, noting that I’m dressed in boxer shorts and a T-shirt that doesn’t belong to me. It’s big and black, which seems fitting, but it smells so wonderfully of Aidan that the lingering yellow in my brain prevails.
But my surge of happiness doesn’t last long.
I lean over Aidan—he’s still in the shorts he wears to work and Bernard’s company polo shirt—and study his leg.
His knee is swollen, as if there’s a giant blister under his skin.
I touch it, and it seems to pulse beneath my fingertips.
Aidan flinches. A sharp sound escapes him, and suddenly he’s wide awake.
“I’m sorry—”
Aidan is on me before the sentence completes. He bolts upright with a low growl and snatches my hands as I start to cover my face.
“Look at me,” he demands.
I obey, and his stormy gaze bores into me, flaying me open and examining every part of me he can reach.
“How’re you doing? Do you feel okay?”
I don’t know how to answer that question, so I kiss him, gently, a brush of lips that smooths some of the worry from his face.
He smiles a little, but his intense stare remains. “Talk to me,” he whispers. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Whatever you need.”
“I need you to be okay.”
“I am.”
I flick a glance at his inflamed knee. “You’re not. And I reckon it’s my fault.”
“How do you reckon that?”
“You’re passed out fully clothed in my bed, and my blood feels like someone spiked it with electricity. There’s a needle mark in my arm, and I can’t decide if I want to cry or go and have breakfast at that pub that does fry-ups the size of my whole living room.”
I’m wittering by the end of it, speaking so fast I can’t catch my breath. It’s at odds with the sedative-laced fuzz behind my eyes, and I hate myself so much I can’t catch the fresh tears that roll down my face.
Aidan wipes them away. “The needle mark is from some medicine your, uh, CPN—Rita, yeah, Rita gave you. And there’s nothing wrong with crying into your bacon sandwich, if it makes you feel better.”
“It doesn’t. And I haven’t got any bacon.”
“Yes, you have. I saw it in the freezer when I was looking for a bag of peas.”
“Peas?”
He eyes his leg. “My knee blew up last night.”
Something clicks in the tiny part of my consciousness that isn’t utterly self-absorbed. I spring from the bed, stumble, and steady myself.
Alarmed, Aidan reaches for me, but I evade him. “I’m fine. Just wobbly. I’m going to make breakfast.”
“Ludo—”
“Please. Let me, okay? I need to do something normal.”
Aidan clamps his mouth shut. I take my chance and flee the room, and downstairs I find my house neatly rearranged to the point where if I hadn’t already lost my mind, I’d be flinging it out of the window.
I open three kitchen cupboards until I find a pan to cook the bacon I’ve chucked in the microwave to defrost. Two cupboards in search of the plates. The only thing I find on the first try is the olive oil, and that’s only because it’s still in its spot by the stove.
My thoughts are scattered. It takes me a while to recall that Aidan mentioned a bacon sandwich. Do I even have bread?
Apparently I do. I butter six slices and dig out the ketchup.
Then, remembering that Aidan’s northern, go back for the HP sauce.
There’s mushrooms in the fridge—why?—tomatoes, and eggs.
The temptation to cook enough for twenty is strong, but I push it down and make two triple-decker sandwiches, cramming extra bacon into Aidan’s as a compromise.
Turn the gas off.
I turn the gas off. Double check it, then unplug the microwave for good measure.
It’s safe. Everything’s safe.
Plates balanced in one hand, I leave the kitchen, checking Bella’s food and water bowls on my way to the stairs. She’s on her back in her basket, tongue out, eyes open just enough to let me know she’ll be in the kitchen sharking for scraps the moment my back is turned.
I’ve left her a rasher on the kitchen table.
Aidan laughs when I tell him so, though he sounds more relieved than amused, as if he’s been holding his breath the entire time I’ve been downstairs.
He takes the sandwich with the brown sauce. “Did you turn the gas off?”
“I did. And I checked. Do you think I should check again?”
“Nah. Trust yourself. Never left it on before, have you?”
He’s so sweet. And stoic. He eats the sandwich like it’s the best meal he’s ever had, then gives me a hug, focussed entirely on me and not the throbbing pain I see pulsing in his knee.
I take the plates downstairs and retrieve a bag of frozen peas from the freezer and a tea towel to wrap them in.
When I get back to the bedroom, Aidan is lying on his back, grimacing, face grey. I drape the makeshift ice pack over his knee and lie down beside him. “Is it really bad? I don’t keep painkillers in the house, but I can go out and get some?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a crap liar.”
“That ain’t a bad thing, mate.”
He’s right. But his obvious discomfort is getting under my skin. I need to crawl inside his bones and heal the cracks and fissures, but I settle for combing my fingers through his hair while he closes his eyes to the pain racking his leg.
I’ve had enough broken bones of my own to know how much they can hurt long after the doctors have lost interest. My wrists, my ankles, my pelvis, they all throb in time with Aidan’s heartbeat against my palm, and my teeth start to itch.
There’s nothing I want more than to be the rock for him that he’s been for me, but I’m not as strong as him.
I’m weak.
I watch over Aidan for as long as I can, but by lunchtime the unnatural energy rising in me is irresistible. My mind jumps so fast I can’t catch one thought before it snowballs into another, and I need to move, damn it.
“You’re vibrating.”
I glance down at Aidan. His eyes are closed, but I feel his gaze all over me. “How can you tell?”
“I can feel it. Has the injection they gave you worn off?”
“Yeah, but the mania is wearing off too. I’ll be normal soon, I promise.”
Aidan’s eyes fly open. “Don’t say shit like that. As if I’d ever want you to be anything different. And there’s nothing abnormal about being unwell.”
I know that. Of course I do. When I’m well I’d never dream of using such nasty words about myself or anyone else who has bipolar, but the frustration building in me is spiked, and it makes me say stupid, unfair things I can’t take back. “I’m sorry.”
Aidan makes one of those low sounds in his throat—the ones that tell me he’s either annoyed or horny. Given the context, I’d imagine he’s annoyed.
He sits up and pulls the soggy bag of defrosted peas from his knee. “Don’t be sorry. You’ve been looking after me all morning . . . don’t you think I want to be normal too?”
I concede his point with a shrug. Aidan kisses my cheek, then stands and limps to the window. “It’s raining.”
“So?”
“So . . . we need to go to the pharmacy and get your prescription.”
“We don’t need to do that. I can go on my own.”
“I know you can, but I need to feed the cat, so I was hoping you’d come with me. Maybe we can get some ibuprofen too?”
I’m not convinced that he can walk to the end of the road, let alone across town to his bedsit, but Aidan is as stubborn as me when I’m stuck between yellow and black, waiting to fall. He’s not going to let me go anywhere without him.
We compromise by getting an Uber into town and going to the pharmacy first. He picks up the smallest pack of painkillers ever. I snatch them out of his hand and put them back on the shelf. “Jesus Christ. As if six tablets is going to be enough. Get the big pack.”
“But—”
“No,” I snap. “I’m not going to off myself with your anti-inflammatories, okay? Just get what you need.”
I stomp to the cluster of chairs to wait for my name to be called. After a minute Aidan follows me, a larger box in his hand. He drops into the seat beside me.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not very good at this, am I?”
“Good at what?”
“Being there for you without pissing you off.”
“You think it’s you pissing me off?”
“I don’t know what’s pissing you off, to be honest, but you’re cute as fuck when you’re angry.”
A genuine, belly-warming laugh bursts out of me. It’s so unexpected that I don’t know what to do with it. “I’m not cute. I’m a pain in the arse.”
“Ain’t we all?”
The woman behind the pharmacy counter calls my name. I pluck Aidan’s ibuprofen from his hands and go to fetch my prescription. When I come back, he’s on his phone, texting furiously.
I’ve never really seen him text before, unless it’s something rude to his boss, and I’m not in the right place to distinguish curiosity from jealousy. I bite my tongue, but naturally he hears my unspoken question anyway.
“My cousin.” He holds the phone up. “Turns out he works in some crisis care team at the hospital. He found Rita for me yesterday when I flipped my shit.”
“You flipped your shit?”
“For real. You think I had a fucking clue what to do?”
I have no idea what went down yesterday, and I’m all too aware that my ability to ponder it is manufactured. That if I don’t take the pills I have at home and the extras I have clutched in my hand, that I’ll regress to that blank space where I don’t care about myself or anyone else.
Dread fills my heart. I need to care about Aidan. About Bella. I can’t handle a world where two souls who’ve given me so much of themselves don’t get anything back.
I turn on my heel and go back to the counter. By the till is a display of pill organisers, identical to the several dozen I’ve owned and lost over the last few years. I buy three. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Aidan
Ludo is tired and racked with guilt and anxiety. The diazepam dulls his desperation for frantic activity, but it doesn’t dull the pain.
He sits on the couch, curled up in a ball, gaze fixed on a spot on the wall. I bring him all the medication he has in the house and the pill organisers he bought from the pharmacy.
“Come on,” I say. “Help me set this up.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Help me then.”
He sighs and leans forward, reaching for the diazepam bottle first while I claim the lithium and rattle it with a question.
“Is this the stuff you didn’t want to take in the hospital?”
“Yeah. But I don’t mind taking it. It’s the higher dose I objected to.”
“Did they ever lower it?”
“No.”
“And what happened?”
Ludo sighs. “Same as always. It worked and I felt good, so I forgot that I needed it to stay that way.”
That makes sense. And it rings true with the million articles I’ve read online about drug compliance. “You think you’ll find it easier to remember if you can see straight away if you’ve missed a dose of something?”
“Definitely. It won’t stop me cycling through being manic and depressed, but it happens less often when I take the pills, and it’s less severe. Believe it or not, I think I only missed a couple of doses, and what’s going down right now is pretty mild. I’ve been way worse in the past.”
I don’t want to think about that, but I have to.
The bottle in my hand is heavy. I study the label and read Ludo’s full name—Ludovico Giordano—and try to convince myself that every horrible thing happened to him and not my Ludo, but it doesn’t work, obviously, cos it’s bullshit.
“I’ve got to work tomorrow,” I say. “You can come with me if you want?”
“Come with you?”
“Yeah. I’m going to Ashbourne to have a look at some willow trees. They’re young and short, so I can assess them without climbing.”
I want him to say yes almost more than I want anything else, because the thought of leaving him alone is killing me, and he keeps me waiting a lifetime before he slowly nods his head.
“Okay. I’ll come with you.”