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18
Sky
Early afternoon,and I’m as exhausted as if I’d been up all night. Following the onslaught of Jem and Dylan when I woke up, the trip to Bristol, and then returning to the intensity of the atmosphere with Jem and Liv I’m ready to sleep.
After an awkward hour where little is said, Jem and Liv finally leave, and I head back into Dylan’s room to retrieve the items I left last night. My tired head aches and without thinking, I open drawers in Dylan’s bathroom, looking for painkillers.
Most cupboards and drawers are empty; some have towels folded inside. A drawer next to the sink has a pile of items that must be Dylan’s inside and I pause before closing it. Razors, half-empty bottles of hotel gels. Packets of something. I pick one up. Condoms. Disappointment grips, and I tell myself he just came back from the States and these have probably been here a long time.
I’m not distracted for long, because next to the packets is a small plastic bottle. Hesitating, I pull the bottle out. Underneath is another rectangular cardboard box. The container rattles and on the side, a printed label readsDylan Morgan - Diazepam.The disappointment trickles away, replaced by worry as I pick up the second box.Dylan Morgan - Xanax. Placing both on the counter next to the sink, I push around the drawer. There’s several other boxes, all different medications and all are half-empty. What worries me the most is they’re dated close together, between June and December, but all with different doctors’ names.
Dylan is worse than I thought; how long has he been like this? The container in my hand is dated early June, before I met him. No wonder he ran and look at what he went back to.
He’s screwed up—all of this is. Dylan needs to change. Memories of news stories, stars dead before their time through overdoses and suicide, crash into my mind. Not just Dylan, but Jem too. Does Steve know? Or care?
“Everything okay?” asks Dylan from outside, shaking me back to reality.
I begin shoving the boxes away, debating when to talk to him about this.
The door to the bathroom opens and Dylan appears in the doorway. The boxes are spread across the sink and I have one in my hand. Dylan stiffens and I wait for his reaction, unable to read the closed off expression.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I was looking for something for a headache and I came across these. Sorry.” I shove the box into the drawer. No. Wait. We confront this. I turn back to Dylan. “There are a lot of different things here, are you sure you should be mixing them? Whatever these are doing, they’re not helping. Look at you.”
“Look at what?”
I sigh and lean against the sink. “When I first met you, I knew there was something wrong. As I got to know you over that week, I heard what was wrong, how trapped and unhappy you were. I thought maybe you’d dealt with some issues and were happy to move on.”
“I don’t sleep, Sky. I need help sleeping. And some days I need help coping with the stress. Isn’t this better than what Jem’s doing to cope?”
He believes that? “Is it, Dylan?”
He turns his blue eyes toward mine, and this is the answer to how distant they’ve been. I wish if I held him that would be enough take away some of the pain because this is killing him. I never saw when we met last time—never realised how fucked up he is.
“What else are you doing to change things?” I ask.
“I’m living day to day at the moment.”
I straighten. “You need out, Dylan. Time out and more than a few days at Broadbeach. If my job were doing this to me, I’d leave.”
“Didn’t you hear anything I told you before? I can’t just leave.”
“Says who? Steve? You’re a person, Dylan, not a product.”
His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “No, not just Steve. You don’t get it.”
Tears push into my eyes. “Yes I do! The person I care about more than anyone else in this world is drowning. There’s nothing wrong with using medication to help you get back on your feet, but using this stuff, and making no changes to your life just numbs what’s inside until you can’t remember how to feel. You’re not happy, and this won’t fix the situation.”
For a moment, Dylan’s eyes register what I’m saying, but he turns and walks toward the door. I follow and take his arm before he can leave. This strong man, the guy who turned my life on its head then sent everything spinning out of control isn’t who I thought, not because of his past or the dubious treatment of Lily, but because he’s spiralling down as fast as his friend is.
“Dylan, don’t walk away from this.”
“I don’t want to see you cry,” he says softly without turning.
“I don’t want to see you give up.”
“I’m trapped. I don’t know what the fuck to do,” he says hoarsely. “I know I sound like some bullshit star whining about how bad his life is but I can’t do this. And I need to.”
