AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anna nodded. “No, I get it. He seems different. He seems like a good man.”
“No, I mean it literally Anna. He’s not one of them. That’s the other reason we’re here. He’s come to meet his real parents. The Thorns stole him as a baby. Him and his younger brother, Hector. They’re not Thorn blood.”
Anna’s eyes rounded. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. And Rupert has been fighting the pharma business since it first began. He’s able to grow the red tops on organic matter now, on a different island. He hopes to start production within the year. We can get Peggy the pain relief she needs, Anna. We just have to get her through the next few months.”
Anna glanced warily at Peggy’s sleeping form. “She seems desperate all the time, Vivi,” she said, sadly. “Even when she’s talking to us normally, it’s like she can’t focus – her mind is elsewhere, trying to seek the next opioid hit. It’s frightening really. The methadone helps a little, but it’s like there’s something else missing.”
I swallowed, holding back the need to physically collapse with guilt and regret. “If I’d never gone to Crow, Peggy wouldn’t be in this state,” I said, quietly.
“No,” Anna replied, firmly, the grip of her fingers suddenly bordering on painful. “If you hadn’t gone to Crow, Peggy would be dead.”
I sucked back a shocked breath.
“I know it sounds extreme, Vivi, but you were blinded by optimism, whereas I’d just been through cancer treatment. I’d stared mortality in the face and could see that in the expressions of others. She wanted to die, Viv. The pain was just too much for her. You gave her a new lease of life, if only for a few months. It was enough to remind her what life could be like again. It reset her. At least now she knows what good feels like. Normal good, that is, not artificially high good. Though, I never saw her looking high as such, more mellow. She doesn’t need opioids to obtain that mellow feeling again.” Anna winked slowly. “Thanks to the friends I made through treatment, I have knowledge of and access to some pretty potent alternatives. I just don’t want to introduce her to anything until she’s back to herself.”
“What did the doctors say?”
“She has very low levels in her blood, which means her chances of recovery are good. The methadone drugs are super-low dose. She’s lucky. They have every confidence she’ll come out the other side of this a stronger person.”
I pressed a hand to my chest feeling my heart race beneath it. “Thank God.”
The ruffling of a blanket turned my eyes to Peggy. Her arms stretched out above her head and a satisfied smile crept across her face. When her eyes peeled open slowly, she bolted upright, panting.
“Vivian?”
I rushed over and flung myself around her. I hugged her more tightly than I’d ever hugged anyone in my life. “I’ve missed you. I’m sorry. I love you. It’s going to be okay. Forgive me…” The words tumbled out of my mouth, along with every tear I’d bottled up.
“Vivi,” she sobbed into my ear, “you’re the best sister I could have hoped for.”
We rocked each other from side to side and minutes passed. I didn’t want to let her go. But then she stilled and stared ahead, prompting me to turn and follow her gaze. Rupert stood in the doorway to the living room with Richard right behind him.
“Oh,” I started. “Pegs, this is Rupert. Rupert, this is my sister.”
Rupert’s face had drained of colour and he didn’t move from the door. Peggy’s body felt rigid next to me. Each of them was battling anger and pain.
I spun back to face Peggy. “Rupert didn’t know about the opioids,” I rushed out. “And he’s got new Bas growing on a different island. We can get you the pain relief again. I promise.”
Peggy replied in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. “I don’t want it.”
Rupert’s gaze dropped and I spun back to my sister. “It’s not his fault,” I whispered.
“No,” Peggy said, her gaze transferring from me to Rupert. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
Rupert looked up through devastatingly thick lashes, making my stomach flip, even in this heated moment.
“I don’t want any more pain relief,” she said.
She must have read the worry on my face because she rushed to explain. “I want to be normal again, Vivi. It’s what I want more than anything. I’ve experienced pain-free life and it’s… amazing. I’ve experienced the high of drugs and I don’t ever want to need that at the expense of everything else. For the first time in my adult life, I feel clear about something. I just want to be me again.”
I stared at my sister, stunned. “What?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “The same me that was taken advantage of. The same me who grieved the death of our mum for so long, and still grieves her now. The same me who spent so many years writhing around in pain and missing out on life. I accept all of that girl, and I want to give her the best shot at having as normal and as happy a life as possible.”
My eyes were wide with awe. I’d always been the one to lead us both, to take care of us both and to be the adult for us both, but here Peggy was, stating something so mature she sounded like Mum. My eyes began to fill and she smiled.
“Okay so I might be a little weird for a while, I’m not going to deny it. I have this strange hunger inside me for something I’m denying myself. I have mood swings and I can be a prize bitch sometimes, but I’m working on it. I really am.”
