Dr. Sato also looks younger, though very old to my child-self, her Asian features smooth and pronounced, her white coat and stilted accent forever the same. "You not get it all the time. Only every three months. It vitamin. It make you strong and healthy. Make you feel good."
I struggle to slip into her thoughts, but they're all mumbo-jumbo, the sounds foreign and harsh to my young mind. I haven't yet learned many other languages, just one or two common ones. Her Japanese dialect is not common, and no amount of mind reading will change the fact that I cannot understand her words. Trying only gives me a headache.
Then it's okay. I don't mind not knowing, not hearing her thoughts. All is well.
Time slips forward and again I'm in a hospital bed, only this time I'm older... and unconscious. My legs are spread. My sleeping form does not move.
A male doctor I've never seen sticks something inside me—
I scream. And scream. And scream.
No one hears.
***
"Sam. Sam!"
Fingers dug into my shoulders, pulling me from my dream fragments. Ghostly hands clawed at my mind and tried to carry me back into my nightmares, but Drake's hold on me didn't waver. His mind probed mine; my consciousness had no choice but to wake up and take control.
My throat cracked when I spoke. "How long have I been asleep?"
He sat at the edge of the bed and kissed my head. "A few hours."
"I feel worse than before I slept, like I ran a marathon with a hangover."
The right side of his lips curved up in his signature half grin. "You've never had a hangover, so how would you know?"
I smirked. "I don't have to get drunk to know the aftermath doesn't feel so great. Intelligent people learn lessons without having to make all the mistakes. Unlike some, who think that chugging beer through—what do you call those things? Beer hats?—is a genius thing to do."
"That's the last time I tell you any of my secrets."
"Uh... I can read your mind."
"True. Speaking of reading minds... yours was screaming at me while you slept. Then you actually screamed. What were you dreaming, Hon?"
Only bits and pieces of my dream remained–the terror, the invasiveness–but no real details. Something nudged at the back of my memory, though, an important piece of the puzzle that my subconscious mind needed me to remember.
"I think I'm hungry. Or thirsty. Or... something." What? What did I need to feel better? I resisted the urge to scratch the skin off my restless legs, but it was so hard. Everything ached. Everything had a wrongness about it.
Drake left to get me food. I forced myself out of our Queen-sized bed and made my way to the bathroom we shared with Brad. Sharing a bathroom with two men was not the highlight of my new life, but we were lucky Brad had a place for us at all. He'd even kept all of Drake's stuff when he left their old apartment and rented this one. I would forever be grateful to Brad for standing by Drake the way he had all these years.
I wiped down the sink with a piece of toilet paper, erasing evidence of men who brushed their teeth like children, and splashed warm water over my face. My symptoms were all so muddled—pregnancy and illness duking it out for supremacy in my miserable body. Dizziness. Restless legs. Nausea. Anxiety. Shakiness. Those all seemed new. Well, not the nausea, but what had once been run-of-the-mill had turned into a Code Red vomit fest. Not normal.
Time for Google.
When Drake returned with a turkey sandwich, a salad and water, I sat propped-up in bed with the laptop on my legs.
My search results revealed a lot of random diagnoses. Adrenal insufficiency. Environmental allergy. Hormone imbalance—very likely, all things considered. Unknown pathogen—thank you, Google, that's very useful.
The one diagnosis that kept popping up again and again was the one that scared me the most, and made the most sense.
Drug withdrawal.
Chapter 27 – Drake
St. Michael's Catholic Church occupied the entire corner of Naples and Coeur D'Alene Avenue in a quaint neighborhood of Venice, where kids played ball on the street and women sold Tamales from their pushcarts on the corner. Typical Southern California.
The church had been Drake's fifth foster family's contribution to his life. He didn't remember the family all that much—they all blurred together after awhile—but he did remember this church and Father Patrick. It had been too long since Drake visited the old priest. Now he needed him more than ever.
Sam and Drake escaped the clutches of Rent-A-Kid just over a month ago, and for the last two weeks, Drake had stood by and watched as Sam suffered. She'd grown gaunt and pale, and lost too much weight, especially with their baby growing inside of her. She shook all the time, and cried when she thought he wasn't looking. Drake had seen people come off meth... and that's what Sam looked like.