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“I hope this day off is worth it,” is the last thing Mum says before she slams my bedroom door, taking Cecilia with her.
I can’t breathe. My nose is blocked. The air won’t go in my mouth properly. I’m sucking in faster and faster but it feels like something in my chest is going to explode.
I’m scared.
And I’m on my own.
Cecilia.
Mummy.
I heard the knock on my bedroom door, but I didn’t make any attempt to answer it. When I heard the handle twist, I closed my eyes, feigned sleep.
“You’re still alive, then?” Ezra said, and I could just imagine his father-like stance as he chastised me. Arms folded across his chest, head tilted, eyes judging. “Surprising, after the amount of whisky you put away yesterday.”
My eyes remained closed. “I was thirsty.”
“Ah, we got jokes today, huh?” His voice was loud as he ripped the duvet off my body.
The change in temperature attacked my skin as if he’d taken me from a sun-kissed beach and tossed me into an ice bath. I shot upright, muscles tightening. “What the fuck are you doing? Don’t fucking touch me!”
“I didn’t. I touched your blanket.”
Back stiff against the headboard, I brought my knees to my chest, rubbed at the goosebumps mottling my flesh. “Get out.”
“No.”
“Get the fuck out, Ezra!”
One, two, three, four…hold…one, two…
“You need to get up. Shower. I have a doctor coming to see you in an hour.”
No. Fuck.
One, two, three…
“Don’t make me bring Helen in here. She’s seen enough already.”
Helen…
Shit.
“Come on, brother. Stop that.”
I didn’t look up, couldn’t, but I felt Ezra’s presence growing nearer. I became aware of his shadow in the corner of my eye, felt the mattress dip beside me.
“I’m gonna take hold of your wrists, all right?”
What? It was only then, when I felt Ezra’s strong fingers curl around the base of my hands and uncross them, did I notice that my nails had been digging into my forearms, drawing blood.
“Fuck,” I breathed, throwing my head back. I’d had enough of being a screw-up. I was tired of being unstable, of letting people down. “Is she angry with me?”
“She’s worried,” Ezra said.
It made me sigh. They meant the same thing. My mum worried about me. That worry made her hate me in the end.
“You need help, Hugo. You know that, right?”
I nodded. I might not have been sure it would work but I did know I needed to try. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“So…you gonna get your ass in the shower?”
I had an en suite just across the room, ten paces at most, and it felt so far away. My muscles cried at the thought of all the movement involved, the bending, stretching. So much repetition. Then I’d need to dry. That would hurt today. So much effort. Still, I sucked in a breath and nodded.
“Good,” Ezra said. “I’ll come back up in fifteen.” He stood to leave, paused by the door. “This will be over soon. You’ve survived a hundred percent of your toughest days so far. You can do a few more.”
I rolled my neck, glanced up at him. Ezra looked at me with kindness, tipped his chin in a way that felt like encouragement. He didn’t feel like my bodyguard then. He felt like my friend. The same friend who’d been through this with me before, in New York last time. Italy, the time before that. I wondered how many more times he’d have to drag me out of a bed, force me to shower. At least, this time, he hadn’t needed to seize me in his long arms, pin me down to stop me hurting myself.
“Yeah.” A lie was all I had.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C.S. Lewis. I remembered that quote playing in my mind the first time I’d read it. It made no sense to me. I’d never feared death, and I still didn’t as I watched mechanical metal arms lower my mother’s coffin into the ground. She’d had demons, my mum. Me being one of them. She was safe now, tucked away in the dark. Alone. I wasn’t afraid. If anything, the only emotion I could decipher was envy. It must be so peaceful in there. Calm. Quiet.
I felt something warm my hand. Looking down, I saw Helen’s small fingers wrap around mine. I appreciated it, and her. I liked to think my mum would have, too, given no one else surrounded her graveside today. I hadn’t been personally involved with the planning. Drew had taken care of that. Think Helen had some input. There hadn’t been a service. My mum had never been religious and I had no way of knowing if that’d changed. The entire thing was pretty much a dump ‘n’ go, though Drew had made sure she had the best coffin and Helen had told me she’d picked a nice headstone.
