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"Lazarus," I called when I thought he was going to leave me with just that.
"Yeah, sweetheart?" he asked, turning back, his head cocked to the side.
"Wear a helmet."
"What?" His brows drew together; his smile went a little confused.
"Last night when we went to Hex and after... you didn't wear a helmet. Wear a helmet," I implored, folding upward, my knees going to my chest, my arms around my legs, and resting my chin on my knees.
"You're worried about me, huh?" There was pure masculine delight at the idea, making his shoulders move back and his chest widen.
"Yes." It was a strange thing to admit, making me feel a little vulnerable. But the smile he gave me was blinding and worth the discomfort at admitting I cared about his well-being.
"I like that," he said, nodding.
"Promise." I didn't even care that I was being demanding, a little nagging. I wanted his brains in his head and his body in one piece so he could come back to me. Maybe that was selfish, but somehow I was okay with that.
"I promise, sweetheart. I'll even try to stick to the speed limit," he moved out with that, not wanting to draw out the goodbye which was proving painful enough for me. "I'll call you when we stop," he added and the door closed. The sound seemed to reverberate through my chest. My hand went up and rubbed there, not wanting to admit how much it was hurting to say goodbye.
Too soon, my heart.
Two days, my head.
Neither of those were a comfort as I climbed up the bed and yanked the covers over my head, moving into his spot that smelled comfortingly of him and, despite not thinking it was possible with everything I needed to think about, drifting off to sleep.
I woke up restless, as I perhaps had been expecting. It was how I used to feel when my mom was in the hospital, when I could do nothing for her. The adrenaline and uselessness had me pacing up and down the hall, hands clenching and releasing, needing a release for the extra energy.
I climbed out of the bed, showered, took some Advil, went through a morning routine, but instead of going into my own clothing pile, my hand reached for the knobs on his dresser, pulling it open and reaching inside for one of his worn, soft white tees and slipping it on. No one would see me. No one would be there to judge me for being such a sap, such a girl about everything.
The TV held no relief from my swirling thoughts and anxious body. I jumped back up, pacing for a long minute before going into the kitchen, pulling half of the contents of the refrigerator out and stacking it in a haphazard pile on the table.
Then I went ahead and peeled and chopped, comforted by the familiar sensations, glad to have something that kept my hands busy.
Unfortunately, it did not stop the swirling-the endless cyclone of thoughts that had been the reason I first reached for those pills in anything other than the pain in my back- just to have a couple minutes of not being driven half-crazy by my own mind.
And after six months of numbing it all, pushing it all away, each singular thought raced forward, fighting for attention, crashing into one another and trying to make me focus on them. There was my mother's sickness, my father's infidelity, my sister's selfishness, my own almost blinding grief that was enough to nearly bring me to my knees after being able to numb it for so long.
Beyond that, there was, perhaps for the first time, the truth about what I had done to myself, to my life.
I had dived into bottles of pills after bottles of pills.
I had barely come up for air.
Because the air was toxic. It was full of truths, truths I didn't want to face. If I tried to breathe it in, it choked me.
And as I stood in Lazarus' kitchen stirring soup on the stove, there was nothing I could do to filter it, to make it easier to take in.
I was a drug addict.
I had taken a coward's way out.
I had stopped fighting.
I had chosen to numb everything, to try to pretend nothing bothered me, to be invincible.
Where had that gotten me?
Wrapped up with Chris and Sunny and their boss.
Literally sicker than I had ever been in my life.
And for what?
The pain was still there. The grief was a stitch sewn into my very fabric. It would always be a part of me. The only way for it to be less tight, less abrasive to my touch was to wear it, to wash it, to learn to live with it until it loosened its hold, until its threads softened. It would take time, like all things.
