Fuck that. Nobody who ever detoxed would do it twice in a week.
Yet with each new wave of nausea, my determination splintered. I really do need a little something for the pain, my idiot brain suggested. Never mind that they’d given me industrial strength ibuprofen. My body was craving that floaty feeling I’d woken up with. I wanted to drift on sweet numbness again.
And I couldn’t.
So when Sophie burst into my room, I was right in the middle of the worst of it. At least I hoped so. I was lying on my back in a pool of my own sweat, my broken arm throbbing, the wound in my side burning. I was trying to stay quiet, but it wasn’t easy. Sometimes my teeth chattered, and sometimes I could swear there were bugs crawling over my skin.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered, her slender hand landing on my good elbow.
Instinctively I turned my head away from her. “Not now,” I said through a clenched jaw.
“Who did this?” she gasped.
Me.
“Please. Tell me what I can do?” She put a hand in my nasty, sweaty hair.
God. I reached up and pushed it off. “Please go,” I said, my voice like gravel. I knew I was being an asshole. But I did not want her to see me this way. This right here—this was the reason I’d hid my problem in the first place. She was the one person in my life who thought I was somebody worth knowing. I never wanted to show her the truth.
And now a new wave of nausea threatened me. Bile rose hot and bitter in my throat. I choked it back, and Sophie touched my face. “Jude?”
My stomach lurched. “GET OUT,” I hollered. Then I used my good hand to push her away from the bed. I grabbed the shallow little plastic tub the nurse had left beside me and I gagged over the edge of it.
“Oh,” Sophie gasped. “Poor baby.”
The nurse—Angela was her name—ran into the room, and stepped on the button that elevated my bed a little bit. “Are you choking?” she asked me, and I shook my head. We’d done this a few times already. She turned her head over her shoulder. “Wait in the hallway, sweetie,” she said to Sophie.
I spit into the little tub. “Don’t let her in here,” I bit out.
Angela looked me over with worried eyes. Then she offered me my cup of water. “Rinse.” After I spit again, she carried the tub away and washed it. When she came back, she sponged off my face with a cool cloth until I shivered. “This can’t go on,” she whispered. “I’m worried for your stitches.”
“They’re fine,” I mumbled.
She moved my sheet down and pushed the fabric of my gown aside to see my bandage dressing. “Okay. How’s your pain?”
“Who knows?”
Angela sighed. “I don’t like this. You’re in too much distress.”
“Not your problem,” I said, flopping my head back on the pillow.
“Actually, it is. Try to sleep?” she suggested. “Can I pull the blinds?”
“Why not?” I didn’t know if it mattered. Nothing mattered. I was surly to Angela because I was pissed off at the hospital. Which made no sense.
But nothing did.
I closed my eyes to try to nap a little. Even if I only got fifteen minutes, it would be a blessing.
*
As always, my sleep was fitful. The crawling sensation kept returning, which meant I did a certain amount of thrashing around. But I locked my eyelids down tightly and tried to sleep. What I wanted to do was curl up in a ball, but I couldn’t roll onto my right because of my broken arm. And I couldn’t roll left because of my surgical incision.
I was in hell, pure and simple.
When I next opened my eyes, there was someone sitting in my darkened room. Sophie? I lifted my head to try to see.
My visitor cleared his throat, and it was definitely not Sophie. It was, of all people, Denny from the church. Sophie’s coworker.
I flopped my head back again. I’d told Sophie to leave, and I’d meant it. But I was still disappointed. The heart wants what it wants. And mine wanted both Sophie and opiates. An impossible combination.
Denny got up and came to stand beside me. “Hi. I know I’m not the person you were hoping to see.”
“There’s nobody I’m hoping to see,” I said, my mouth dry. I didn’t want him to give Sophie the all clear. Because I was never going to be all clear.
He grabbed the styrofoam cup off the table beside me and angled the straw toward my mouth. I needed water, so I took a sip even though I had no idea why he was here.
“Sophie cares about you,” he said.
“Really?” I rasped. “You’re here to chew me out for refusing to talk to her before?”
He shook his head. “No, although that would be fun.” He set the cup down again. “I’m here because it’s my job.”
“Oh.” Now I felt stupid. He was a social worker in this hospital, and so was Sophie. And now I knew how she’d figured out I was here.
“Yeah. You’re my case.”
“Lucky you.”
He shook his head. “I told Sophie that you’d relapse.”