by James, Ella
I stretch out on my back. Finley sits beside me. With my eyes shut, I can’t see how close she is…but I can feel her.
“I don’t want to crowd you.” I can feel the tension around us; tension that I’ve caused by being such a fucking freak. “Can I ask you a few things? If you don’t want me to—”
I nod, because I’ll do whatever she asks. It’s not her fault she’s stuck here with me.
She leans over—too close. Before I told her this shit, I kind of liked her soft hands on my face and in my hair. But now I don’t think I can stand it.
“I just want to understand, so I can help you.” She sounds nervous. “Does the word ‘benzo’ mean benzodiazepine? Like…the sort of tranquilizers?”
I nod, taking care to keep my face impassive. My eyes are still shut.
“What about subs. Could you tell me about that one?”
“Suboxone.” I put my hand over my eyes and force myself to say it. “It helps you stay away from heroin.”
I’m not looking, but I fucking feel her shock.
You can dissolve the strips and spike them, too, if you want.
“It’s not the good stuff, but it can keep you from the bad withdrawal and…keep away temptation.” I exhale slowly, turning my face away from her. “A lot of addicts end up on it.”
“That’s what you dropped into the tub, then? Suboxone and…what else?”
“Valium, GABA, 5-HTP, Sam-e, Clonidine…”
I see her face in my head: her doe eyes widening, even as she does that thing with her mouth where she bites her lip, trying to look chill when she isn’t.
“You were taking those then?”
I almost want to laugh. Her tone is cautious—as if I’m made of fucking glass.
“It’s the subs and Valium I was coming off. When you’re quitting benzos, Valium’s just the thing you taper off. And Clonidine and the other shit is just to make it better.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“The other shit was shit to help with withdrawal.”
“It was all in the one bottle?”
“Smart, huh?” I had important shit in one giant ibuprofen bottle I could carry around when I was jonesing, and over-the-counter stuff in another one. When she walked in on me, I had been squeezing it, trying not to take a top-off dose of Valium.
Silence swims between us. Even though I’m distracted by my throbbing head, I can feel her biting her tongue. Not asking the thing she really wants to know. So I just spare her.
“Always been an addict, Siren.” I want to add since seventh grade, but I know that I could never get that out. “Started early. I can quit. That’s not the problem.”
“What is? Do you relapse?”
I nod. I’ve detoxed—big detoxes—twelve times total, but I can’t stay clean. It’s my superpower. All-star pitcher. Carnegie. Closet addict. Puts the junk in junkie.
I rub my eyes. I’m tired of my own thoughts, the endless looping track of them.
“So now you know my secret.” I force myself to look at her. “I’ll be better on my feet soon and can help you more.”
“But now?” It’s murmured. Siren’s looking at me through her lashes—one of her shy tells.
“Right now, you’re on your own, chief.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she says softly.
“Sleep will help me.”
I wait for her to call bullshit. When she doesn’t, I wonder if she’s noticed I can’t sleep…I just lie here. If she knows, she doesn’t call me on it.
Pretty soon, that drifting thing is happening again—the one where I feel like half of me is somewhere else. Like all the blood in my body is blinking. Once, when I was herding on the Alps, I ran into someone’s electric fence. That’s what this is like: like that first half-second when your muscles jerk, before the sizzle.
Still, I feel her there beside me. Blood booms in my ears, obscuring all my other senses, but I feel her worry. I wish I could tell her not to. Someone who doesn’t know benzos from subs shouldn’t have to deal with this shit. She shouldn’t be stuck in here with me.
I turn my back to her again and sink my hands into my hair.
Chapter Nineteen
Finley
I can scarcely stand to swing the hammer at the rock, despite knowing it’s the best thing. Everything in me yearns to go to him…to sit beside him, talk to him. To joke with him. Even, I realize with alarm, to touch him.
I do nothing of the sort, however. He’s made his desires clear—from the moment I hugged him beside the stream and he murmured “please don’t” to the end of our conversation, where he turned away from me. Declan doesn’t want me nearby.
I’ve spent enough time in his presence now that I can read his face. I can see how poorly he is. He’s still pale, with those poor, lost-looking eyes. He can’t stop shaking, can’t stop sweating or tossing about the covers. He must be so miserable. But he doesn’t want my comfort.
Where before, he looked at me and spoke to me to fill the hours, now when he sits up and peels open a bar, he won’t even lift his head in my direction. He chews a bit—not much, I think—and turns back on his side, away from me.
I see him writhing, hear him panting.
When I check on him a while later, offering some water, he won’t move his arm from his face.
“Hi there, Sailor. I’ve just come to offer water.”
“I had some.” The words are half groaned.
“Is there anything you need…that I could—”
He shakes his head. He’s quiet and still, and then he’s trembling again. I curl my hand into a fist and press my lips together as I look down at him. “Tell me if there’s something I can do to ease you. Do you promise?”
He nods.
I return to work, going hard until I feel delirious. As I’m swinging the hammer, I notice him get up. He walks to the stream and then back toward me, stopping a few meters away to steady himself with a palm against the wall. After a long moment, he walks to me without looking at my face. His eyes are lifted to the cave’s mouth. Standing near me, he frowns at the boulder. When he doesn’t remark on the truly massive amount of rock I’ve brought down around the rim, my stomach flips.
“Declan?”
His eyes move over me. The look is fleeting; flat. I watch as he walks behind the rubble pile to tend his business. I wait for him to emerge. When he does, he’s staring straight ahead and walking slowly. He walks halfway to the stream before abruptly stopping. He sits against the wall across from his pallet, knees raised, his hand curving around one of them.
I watch as he rubs his hands back through his hair. He appears to stare out at the pallet. I can see his shoulders rising…falling. Another few times with his hands back through his wild, dark hair, and he gets to his feet. He walks toward the cave’s rear, pacing with his shoulders heaving. Even from a distance, I can feel him working to contain himself.
Back and forth he paces.
I don’t know him, I realize. I know nearly nothing of him. Only that entrapment is his greatest fear, and he can’t bear life fully conscious. I’ve had thoughts of that myself, looking at the bottles in the clinic. They say ignorance is bliss, and numbness surely is the chief respite of any feeling person.
I wonder what kind of pain he must be in, and, once again, I ache to go to him.
I turn my want into brute force and bring down showers of stone.
Finally, he returns to the sleeping bags, this time stretching out face-down. He wraps his arm around his head and shifts onto his side…then stretches back out on his belly, flexing his legs. He’s breathing so deeply, his back pumps.
“Declan?” It’s so soft, he doesn’t hear it, so I set the hammer down and go to him. I kneel beside him, touch his back.
He moves like a viper, so fast I can’t process. I see nothing but the cave’s ceiling rocking in my field of vision; he’s on top of me, his body warm and heavy as his forearm pins my throat. I try to scream, and when that doesn’t
work, I sink my nails into the arm that’s propping him atop me.
Declan blinks down at me. He looks dazed, confused, and then his eyes pop open wide in horror. He scrambles away from me.
A sob escapes my sore throat as I sit up.
“Finley?” He looks anguished.
I put a hand out, warning him to stay away, and watch as his face crumples. “Oh Christ, did I say Laurent?”
“What?”
“Did I hurt you?”
“You were dreaming.” Even as my voice cracks, I feel calmer. I see sweat roll down his temple, and I’m quite sure that I’ve never seen his face so drawn and weary.
His shoulders start to heave as he clutches his brow. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you were dreaming.” I swallow, rubbing my throat. “What was it about?”
“If I say that name again, just get away.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t wake up.”
I wait for more words, but he doesn’t offer any. He lies on his back, drawing his knees up before shifting onto his side, tugging at his hair so hard it surely hurts.
“Jesus…” He breathes like a woman in labor. His wide shoulders jerk, as if he might weep, but he doesn’t. He just breathes, and rubs his shoulder.
“Come here.”
I’m in front of him in an instant, close enough that I can feel him trembling.
His dazed eyes peek open, lifting to mine. His hand kneads his shoulder. “Press it back…”
“What?”
He rolls the shoulder. “Push on it.” His voice is thick.
“Why?” I whisper. At that same moment, he rasps, “Please.”
I put my hand there on his shoulder. It feels warm and damp under my palm, the muscle hard and thick and twitching with his tremors. “What now?” I whisper.
He shifts onto his back, his left hand cupping my hand. “Push on it. Hard as you can.”
“I’m afraid of hurting you.”
“You won’t.” When I don’t reply, he grits, “Please.” His eyes are squinted with pain, his sweat-slick face contorted.
So…I do what he asks. I lean over him and hold the place between his throat and shoulder with my left hand, while I cup his shoulder and push down hard with my right.
“Harder,” he grunts.
I push harder, and he moans. The way his eyes and face flash open in alarm makes me let him go. “I hurt you!”
Something glimmers in the corner of his eye as his face twists. His left hand clutches his shoulder, and guilt racks me.
“I’m so sorry!”
“Wanted it.” The words are almost slurred. “That’s why…I had you do it.”
“Why?”
“Because—” His eyes blink slowly. “I don’t…feel real.”
“What do you mean?”
He shakes his head, closing his eyes again. He rubs his forehead. When he looks up at me, his eyes are more unfocused than I’ve ever seen them. “Sorry…and thank you.”
“How do you feel now?” My heart is racing.
“Okay.” But his face is drawn in pain.
I lay my hand over his heart, feeling its fast thrum. Declan’s sweaty, shaking hand comes over mine—and then, as if he realizes he’s sweaty, he lifts it, cringing.
“Sorry for…” His lips are trembling ever so slightly. Behind his eyelids, I can see his eyes moving as if he’s dreaming.
I lean in closer, stroking his hair off his forehead.
“Finley?”
“Yes?”
He looks up at me, and then his eyelids fall shut.
I smooth his hair back a few more times, hoping it’ll rouse him, but he doesn’t move. His forehead is cool and clammy. I check his pulse. There’s no question that his heart is beating more quickly than logical considering he’s scarcely moving.
As I’m leaning over him, his body twitches and his eyes snap open. When he sees me, he starts breathing hard, and then he scrambles back, wide-eyed.
“Declan?”
He holds his hands out, shaking hard. Then he looks down, murmurs something.
“Are you all right?”
He looks confused.
“It’s just Finley…here to help you.”
He looks up at me, but the terror on his face won’t dissipate.
“Sailor…you know me, right?”
I watch him swallow.
“Siren,” I say gently. “We met on the island.”
Once again, he looks around. When his gaze lands on me again, his features twist into a grimace.
“Finley…” he rasps. “Something’s wrong with me.”
When I close the distance between us, he pulls me up against him, burying his face in my hair as his big body quakes against mine. I cling tightly to him, wanting to make him feel he’s not alone.
Instead, he makes me feel that way. His hand smooths over my hair, his fingers spreading gently over my head, lightly massaging even as he shakes and pants.
“This is…just a phase of it,” he manages.
“Of course. It will fall away, and you’ll feel so much better.”
His grip on me tightens. I feel him struggling to breathe.
“Let’s lie down, darling. Is that all right?”
His eyes cling to my face as we lie on our sides. I cover him with my sleeping bag and reach beneath the blanket for his hand.
“You’re so strong,” I murmur, stroking his trembling fingers. “I’m so sorry we’re still here. I tried to get us out. I think we’re almost there.”
“It’s okay.”
He seems tired now, half asleep. I move a bit closer to him and tuck his fist between my hand and chest to warm it.
“How long since you’ve slept, my darling? Really slept?”
He blinks at me, and I push back the hair that’s fallen into his eyes.
“A while,” he whispers.
“How long?”
“Like…back in November.”
He’s shivering again, and I feel tears burning my eyes. “I think you need to sleep. Do you think that’s possible?”
“I don’t know.” His voice cracks.
I stroke his hair back, and his glazed eyes cling to mine. It’s as if there’s more he’d like to say and can’t, so now it’s bleeding out his eyes. My chest aches so sharply as we look at each other that I have to cast my gaze away.
“You’re always doing that,” he murmurs.
“Doing what?”
I look at his face and find his mouth tugged up at one side. “You don’t like…to look at me.”
“Untrue.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“No, I only worry for you, Sailor.”
“I’ll be better.” His eyes close as he exhales. His face tenses as he inhales.
“What’s happening when you breathe that way?”
His eyes open. His lips tremble.
I hold my hands out, hoping he’ll grab onto them. He flexes his fingers.
“Sweaty.” It’s more mouthed than spoken.
I wrap my hands around his wrists and draw both of his sweaty hands against my chest. His fingers are partially curled. I fold my hands around his. His eyes close.
“When we get out of here, you know, I’m making you soup.”
His lips twitch, and one eye lifts open. “Soup?”
“Just to show off.” I smile. “I make incredible turmeric soup…it’s pure perfection. Homemade bread as well. I know you’d love it.”
His eyes close again.
I stroke up and down his arms, running my nails along his damp, goosebumped skin. “Your arms are like carved marble,” I murmur, running a fingertip over the muscle. “It’s a bit ridiculous, you know.”
I spot some dot-like scars there at the crease of his elbow and, on impulse, drag a finger over one. I realize how they must have gotten there when his eyes open. Even dazed, he looks alarmed. When he shuts his eyes again, I can feel his shame.
I press my hand over the
spot. “I don’t pity you, Carnegie. You’re too pretty for that—and you’re filthy rich.”
His lips twitch. He’s trying to smile, and that’s all he can manage. My throat aches terribly.
“Tomorrow, you’ll feel leaps and bounds better. I’ll let you swing the hammer while I watch with my heels up.”
I see him try to smile again. It looks painful. I watch as his face tenses and his breathing picks up. He breaths like the air is out of oxygen, like people do when they’re in horrid pain.
With his hands still curled against the base of my throat, I draw closer to him, wrapping one arm over his warm shoulders.
“You can do this, darling. I know you’re so poorly, but you’re so strong. Every part of you is strong.” I drag my nails down his nape, and Declan makes a low sound in his throat.
“Does that feel good?”
When he breathes harder, I do it again. He groans.
Relief streams through me. Finally—something I can do. I twist my wrist a bit and start to knead his neck in earnest. He gives a low groan, his body tensing against mine.
I follow my mental map of pressure points around his hairline, and he curls closer to me. Finally, his head is on my shoulder. His panted breaths tickle my chest, making me feel warm and oddly…needy. For what, though, I can’t say.
I rub with a bit more force; his breaths come fast and heavy. My fingers find a tense spot on his neck there, rubbing hard, and he stiffens against me. I hear his breath catch. Then one of his hands squeezes my shoulder.
“Siren…” I rub harder, and his voice cracks.
“Just relax.” I drag my fingers up through his hair. “Let me keep on till you fall asleep.” I wrap myself around him, pressing his large body against mine in a tight hug.
My fingers play through his hair, then stroke gently down his nape.
He moans. “Siren…”
I feel his hips press up against me. Then his mouth catches my jaw.
For a moment, I’m suspended by his breath against my ear, his scruff against my cheek. Then it’s me who shudders, my legs shifting against his as he rasps, “Stop.”
The word leaps from my mouth before I can stop it. “Why?” My throat is tight, my eyelids heavy.
His forehead touches mine as he moans, “Feels…too good.”
