“Not like that. Not how he did today. He was staring at you because he didn’t know who you were. He couldn’t see you under the cloak of sedation. You’re becoming a zombie, and your addiction to painkillers is the cause of that.”
I stuff my hands under my arms. “You’re over exaggerating. Maddox was looking at me with love. Perhaps you’ll understand that more once you fall in love.”
My hands shoot out to brace the dashboard when he slams on his brakes. While grumbling that he never gets the chance to woo anyone because he’s always babysitting me, he yanks his car off the freeway. I’m not scared about his aggression. We had a similar argument after I told him about my uncle’s offer to lower Maddox’s debt. Saint wanted to accept it. It took Caidyn backing me up to get him to see how that would be a huge mistake. It was a massively heated debate that saw the three of us exchanging words we didn’t mean.
Things haven’t been the same since.
I can see today’s argument following a similar path when Caidyn swings his eyes to mine and says, “If I’m exaggerating, you won’t have any issues giving me your prescription.” When I balk, he adds, “You sprained your anklemonthsago. Your claim that it still hurts is no longer valid.”
When he does a two-handed clap, wordlessly demanding my prescription, I act as if my heart isn’t racing a million miles an hour. “Fine. Take it. I don’t need it.”
Caidyn snatches the prescription out of my hand, scrunches it into a ball, then tosses it out of the window. I’m not ashamed to admit it only takes half a mile before I commence contemplating ways to find a ball of paper on the side of the freeway, but I am ashamed to admit if those efforts fail, I’m reasonably sure I am not above taking much more drastic measures.
I’ve reached a point I’m not even sure Maddox could fix me now.
16
Demi
Butterflies take flight in my stomach when I peer down at the final oxycodone stamped pill in the bottom of my canister. I had a private stash Caidyn didn’t know about. It only had a dozen pills in there, but it was better than the none Caidyn thought I had.
I’ve only taken them when absolutely necessary the past couple of days—before my meeting with my uncle, when Saint took a beating so severe he was forced to pull out of his last two fights this week, and today, because it’s the first time I’m going to see Maddox after he supposedly ripped Caidyn a new asshole for my overfriendly demeanor.
It’s scary contemplating the fact that Maddox and I have been apart more than we’ve been together the first year of our relationship, and it appears as if that will get worse long before it gets better. Owen is lost on where we can go from here. Maddox is out of appeals, and despite me scouring every boxing gym within four hundred miles of Hopeton, I’ve barely made an indent to the one million dollars remaining on Maddox’s debt.
Feeling too edgy to ignore, I swallow my final tablet without water before spinning to face my bedroom. Nerves aren’t something I handle well anymore. They make me so anxious, I have to give myself a mental pep talk every day just to leave my room.
My steps into the living room are super sluggish, although they have nothing on the groan Caidyn releases when he attempts to stand from the couch he’s been crashing on the past couple of days.
“Are you okay, Caidyn? You sound like I need to take you out to the woods.”
I shift my frown into a smile when Caidyn gets my sick sense of humor. “Don’t tempt me. With how tired I am, I might take you up on your offer.”
While dragging his bloodshot eyes down the dress I wore on my double date with Sloane, Saint, and Maddox last year, he attempts to stand from the couch. I say attempt as the usually simple task sees him almost falling over the coffee table.
He isn’t drunk.
He’s sick.
The number of used tissues dotted around the sofa exposes this, much less the fact he left the dinner I cooked for him last night untouched.
“You’re burning up,” I announce after a quick check of his temperature. He’s so hot, I need to check my hand for scorch marks. “When was the last time you took Tylenol?” I cock my hip when his lips tug at one side. “You won’t be laughing about me sounding like your mother when I call her to tell her you’re sick.”
That swipes the smile off his face.
After licking his bone-dry lips, he mutters, “An hour ago.”
“Only an hour ago and you’re still this hot! You must have a fever.” I make a beeline to the medicine cabinet in the only bathroom in the residence. Once I have a bottle of ibuprofen in one hand and cough syrup in the other, I fill a glass with water, then re-enter the living room. “I would have offered you one of my painkillers if I had any left, they would have knocked your fever on its ass, but since you were adamant I had to give them up, you’ll have to stick with the good old cough syrup and ibuprofen ass-kicking.”
The heaviness of Caidyn’s eyelids does little to deter his stubbornness. “I can’t take that brand of cough syrup. If I do, I can’t drive.”
“And?” I ask, missing the point.
He drags his hand down my body like his eyes did only moments ago.
It doubles the annoyance on my face. “You know I can drive, right? I have been capable since I was sixteen.”
“Maddox would—”
