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I’ve never been this close to my dad before. We’ve never talked about our feelings to each other, or embraced, and I’ve never told him how much I love and appreciate him. I know I should; Iwantto, but the words just lodge in my throat. It’s something I should have said years ago, and now it seems too late, a bit like opening a message and forgetting to reply and then you never can because it’s been weeks and now it’ll look weird.
I let him know I love him with gestures, though. I make him a tea when I have one, and I cook him dinner, and I clean the house. I wonder if the poison of my mum’s toxicity has seeped into the walls of this house; if I have breathed in the contaminated pores and let it change me into someone cold and distant and incapable of sympathy.
I clear my throat. ‘I think you should go see a doctor,’ I say.
‘I’m just not fast enough on these crutches—‘
‘Regardless, you should be able to hold it.’
I didn’t even notice he’d wet himself in the supermarket. I’d been too busy thinking about stupid Archer.
He winces. ‘I can’t get comfortable. The only time I sleep is when I’m on my back, but I keep waking for a wee.’
‘Have you run out of painkillers?’
He mumbles something before he says, ‘I have paracetamol.’
I purse my lips as a thought strikes me. I want to shut it down, because it’s absolutely absurd, but I have to do this for my dad. I can’t have him in pain like this.
Ten minutes later, a red Ford Fiesta pops and bangs to a stop outside my house.
I hug my cardigan tighter around myself as I lean against the window.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Sorry it’s so late.’
Archer wordlessly hands me a cylindrical black object. I squeeze it and the lid pops up.
‘This is definitely zapain?’ I ask.
My dad takes zapain anyway, but he’s allowed only one prescription box per fortnight. With the agony he’s in, they don’t even last a week.
I wonder if that’s why he went to the pharmacy yesterday, to see if he can scrounge another box.
Archer fixes me with a blank look. ‘No, it’s mandy.’
I’m not sure what that is, but I can’t be dealing with this right now.
He must see my frustration, because he nods to the object in my hand. ‘They’re what you asked for.’
I let out a relieved breath. ‘Thank you.’
‘This is what I do. Don’t thank me.’
I’d known it that night at his party, when he’d been out for hours prior to it, when I’d seen him throw that bag of powder to his friend. I just didn’t want to believe it, and I feel selfish for encouraging his occupation, but this isn’t about me.
It’s about my dad.
Archer doesn’t even look bothered what I think of it. He just waves a dismissive hand as I fish out notes.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says.
‘Really?’
He smiles a little. ‘You’re my girl,’ he replies, as if that answers everything. ‘I got you.’
The tyres screech against the tarmac, and then he disappears, the pops and bangs growing more distant.
My girl.
