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He turned looking at me with sad eyes. “You s
aved my life, Berkley. You got into a cage when everybody fled. That was bad ass. So I figure as long as you’re next me, I’ll be okay.”
I tried to contain my smile. “I think I can do that.” I paused for a moment, but the silence felt awkward to me. “I like your mom, and Leo. Your family’s nice. They really love you.”
“Yeah, I’m lucky. My dad split when I was just a baby, and Leo’s always been there for me. I know how hurt he is that I did this fight. But I’m going to figure out a way to make it up to him. To all of you.”
I set my lips into a thin line. “I just don’t understand why you did it. You didn’t have to.”
He let his fingertips gently graze my temple before speaking. “I know that now. But sometimes I just get these urges, this need to prove myself. It’s more to prove myself to me, if that makes sense. It has nothing to do with anyone else. I told you that I was dangerous.”
I turned to look at him, his fierce blue eyes shining in the fading sunlight of his apartment window. “No, you told me that you are dangerous for me, but you’re not. The only person that was in any danger was you. You have a freaking death wish.”
He laughed again but stopped short, flinching under the pain.
“You should take some of these pain meds. You need them. And the anti-inflammatory; you heard what the doctor said—if you swell up again you’re going to have to go back to the hospital.”
He nodded slowly closing his eyes. “Yeah, give me the anti-inflammatory and I’ll take three of the Oxy.”
“Three?” Clearly he didn’t know what he was saying. The pain must have been worse than he was admitting. The prescription had been very explicit: one every twelve hours. If he took three, he would be lucky if he didn’t fall into a coma. “I think you’re only supposed to take one.” I sat up and started to unscrew the cap off the pills when he started arguing with me.
“Three is the only way it will do anything. Trust me; I’ve been on enough of those.”
I looked at him, confused. “You mean when you hurt your shoulder? That was a long time ago. These are probably much more serious medications. You’re not taking three.”
“I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to try to control me anymore.”
“I’m not trying to control you. I’m looking out for your health. I didn’t just get you out of the hospital for you to go back.”
I looked at the bottle to be sure that I was right. And that’s exactly what it said. One pill every twelve hours, but then I noticed something. The doctor on the bottle for this Oxycodone was not the same doctor on the anti-inflammatory pills. And the date was all wrong; this had been filled three months ago. “Dillon are you still on pain medication from your shoulder?”
He put his hand over his eyes. “I really don’t want to get into this right now with you.”
“What the hell does that mean? Are you still taking these medications or not?”
He sighed and looked at me with an anger in his eyes I had only seen one other time. When he had kicked me out of the locker room and we’d ended things the first time. “Sometimes I use them to take the edge off. My shoulder still hurts, especially when the weather is bad or if I’ve had a fight two days in a row. It’s no big deal.”
I set the bottle down on the table carefully. “It is a big deal, isn’t it?”
He clenched his jaw and I saw the muscles in his face tighten.
“Isn’t it? Answer me! Are you addicted to these?”
He shut his eyes like I’d hit him in the face, his pained expression reaching all the way down to his mouth. “I think you should go.”
“What?”
“I don’t like to repeat myself. Just go.”
SIXTEEN
DILLON
I had told her. I had warned her that I was volatile. That I was dangerous. But she wouldn’t listen to me. And now she found out about my dirty little secret. The thing that I’d been hiding in my locker and in my gym bag for two years. I took Oxy to feel alive. And she was right, I was completely addicted.
I popped pills before every fight, and I popped pills after most fights too. Sometimes I took them in the morning just to take the edge off. Other times I would swallow them down with a nice cold beer after a win. I liked the way that they made me feel. Like my injury couldn’t beat me, like no one could. But suddenly, watching her look at me like I was some type of monster was killing me inside. All I wanted to do was snatch the bottle out of her hands and throw some down the back of my throat, but I couldn’t do that with her here.
She was so good to me. Sitting by my bed in the hospital, asking all the right questions with the healthcare providers, it was like she was my real girlfriend. But it was only a glimpse into what we could be. And I knew that. I didn’t deserve a girl like her.
