“Liam?”
Liam covers his face with my hand and his. I watch the man’s eyes widen slightly as he realizes Liam feels too bad to talk.
His gaze meets mine. “What’s this?”
I recount what happened on the horse and what Liam told me about migraines. When I say that particular bit, his eyebrows narrow.
“I’m Doctor Burns,” he tells me as he turns the bedside lamp on. His eyes sweep the room, lingering on the table by the bed. He picks up the drink and has a swallow.
His mouth is tight as he motions me away from Liam, who’s lying on his back now. The doctor takes a stethoscope and listens to Liam’s pulse and shines a flashlight into his eyes.
“Fuck,” Liam groans, recoiling.
The doctor’s gaze moves from Liam to me. “What’s he had?”
“You mean like—”
“Drugs.”
“Um, nothing. Nothing that I know of. We didn’t…”
The doctor doesn’t even look at me as I trail off; he fishes in his bag, eventually pulling out a blood pressure cuff. Liam’s eyes remain shut, his face still and pale, as Dr. Burns wraps the cuff around his bicep and presses a small, black button on the attached box, making the cuff inflate.
Liam shifts as it gets tighter. “Lucy?”
“I’m right here.” I gently touch the hand in the cuff. “Oh wait… This is his right arm! He fell off his horse and landed on it.”
“He fell off a horse?”
I nod. “Yeah. I told his cousin that. It was like he passed out.”
“What time was that?”
“Earlier. Um, maybe five or six hours ago. Or seven.”
The doctor takes another swig of Liam’s drink, and I’m kind of surprised he’s drinking on the job.
When the blood pressure cuff beeps and deflates, I look at the number, even though I know it’s nosy—and am stunned to see the reading: 220/111.
I can feel my mouth hang open. “That’s really high, right?”
The doctor’s face is set, his brow rumpled, his mouth pressed into the thinnest line.
“How long, Liam?”
I frown down at Liam, clutching his head with his free hand, the cuff still around his bicep.
“How long?” the doctor asks again.
“Maybe April.”
I frown. It’s the first week of September. What are they talking about April?
“Did you sign the castle NDA?” the doctor asks me.
I nod on impulse, sincere in my intentions if not honest.
His blue eyes move from Liam to the nightstand, and finally back to me. He picks the glass up as he looks into my eyes. “It seems Liam here is in alcohol withdrawal.”
THIRTY Liam
“Who’s that man, Mummy?”
“What man, my love?”
“The one with long, brown hair.”
My Mum smooths the duvet over my chest, my star-shaped lamp lighting up her pretty face in the partial dark of my bedroom. “Did you see a man with long, brown hair, darling?”
I nod. “The one last night.”
“Where did you see him?”
“I got up to get some water.”
Mum’s eyebrows scrunch up like caterpillars. “Last night?”
“Yeah… I saw him walk into your room. Drucilla Gibson’s father.”
“I don’t think you saw Drucilla Gibson’s father, dear. Not here.”
I nod. “I know it was Drucilla’s father. Every time I see him, he gives me a yucky look.”
My mother’s mouth is tightly shut, so I can see her frown dimples. “Ronald Gibson is a family friend, Liam. He’s one of your father’s best friends. He wasn’t here last night.”
I pull the covers over my head. I don’t want to see my Mum’s face when she looks upset like that…
“I know I saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“Saw the man. The man with long brown hair.” I feel a cool hand on my forehead, feel her fingers stroking. “Where is he? They let her in… Supposed to be…my party.”
“It’s your party. It’s okay.” I think I smell her: Lucy. I feel her lips against my cheek, and it feels so good. Almost quells the fear pinching my chest. I reach up for her, but my shoulder screams in pain. It makes me gasp.
“Remember what the doctor said?” she whispers. “Try not to move your shoulder, okay? That’s why he’s got it like this, wrapped up. Remember how he said you dislocated it?”
I squint up at her. “I saw the man.”
I smell her. I can smell how good she smells. Vanilla.
“I know you did,” she whispers. She’s got soft hands, too. I feel them in my hair. Why is it so long, I wonder.
“Lucy?”
“I’m here.”
A groan I don’t expect pours from my lips—because it hurts so bad. “My head hurts,” I pant. “Can you…cut my hair?”
“Cut your hair—right now?”
I try to sit up, grunting from the pain in my shoulder. I brace myself against her shoulder—Lucy’s lying against me—and look around. The room is dark. Confusing.
“Cut my hair,” I tell her. Every word, my every move, hurts so damn much. “I just want…no more long hair.”
“Liam, are you sure?”
“Please, Lucy… Cut it, please.”
I feel her hand against my cheek. “Dr. Burns will be back soon with some medicine for you. Remember what he said?”
I try to open my eyes, despite the awful pulsing in my head. “I don’t look like him. It was his. That one was his, that baby was…” My eyes are closing, but I see her worried face. My mother’s face is white and dead. My Lucy’s face is puzzled.
“I don’t know the baby,” I try to tell her in my cracked voice. I never met my mother’s baby, my sister, because she died.
I’m going to die, too. I can feel it.
“Lucy… Will you hug me?”
“Sure. Of course. Poor Liam.” We’re lying down again, and Lucy’s holding me. “My headache—it hurts…really bad.”
“He said it’s because your blood pressure is high. The doctor gave you something for it. Do you remember? It’s been almost an hour since you took it. He gave you a shot of pain meds too. So the headache would ease up.”
“Not eased,” I mutter. Her hand strokes my hair. “That, though…” What she’s doing makes me feel better. My Lucy.
“He’s coming back with something to help you detox.”
“Detox…”
“He said you have to take it for a little bit, maybe a few days, and then you could taper off. Don’t worry. It’ll help you feel better. Come here…” She wraps herself around me, urging me to rest my cheek against the softness of her neck.
*
Lucy
Seeing Liam like this—shaking, gripping his head, murmuring nonsense—is so much harder, so much stranger, than I ever would have known. It’s not as if I’ve known him for a long time, but in the time I have known him, I guess I’ve gotten used to his easy smile, the careful way he held himself apart from me the first day I was here, before we gradually tugged together like a pair of magnets.
Before the doctor left the first time, he chastised Liam, saying, “You might have tapered off.”
Liam, whose eyes were shut, clenched his jaw and shook his head—and I know why. I know why he quit drinking cold turkey.
“I’m prescribing Librium. For a few days, if not longer. We’ll see how you do,” Dr. Burns told him.