Again, I laughed out loud. His height and build never intimidated me, but based on the way he’d spoken to her before, I understood her reluctance to talk to him again. “He’s a big teddy bear. Really.”
A shadow of doubt crossed her face. “He was more like a grizzly bear last night.” Catching herself, she added, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. How is Jason doing?”
“Heart-wise, he’s doing brilliantly. Cocaine-wise... he’s okay. A bit jumpy and down in the dumps but it’s to be expected after what he went through. We’re going to move him out of intensive care this afternoon and up to a ward where there’ll be people around all the time. Hopefully being in a room with others will help a bit.”
Depressed Jason was not the best person to be with. I wondered how much of his mood was actual withdrawal, and how much was him tormenting himself over what he did.
“Thanks, Nata
lie.”
She gave my arm a comforting squeeze before heading away to check on her other patients, and I took a deep breath and opened the door to Jason’s room.
He sat, propped up by pillows, his head turned to one side, and his eyes closed. He wasn’t asleep; his fingers drummed on the mattress. He was still hooked up to a couple of machines monitoring his heart rate, but the picture was a lot less horrifying than the one I’d witnessed a few hours earlier.
“Hey.”
Jason’s eyes sprung open, fingers halting the rhythm they’d been pounding. He didn’t say a word, surveying my face for some indication of whether I was going to hug him or slap him. Before I’d opened the door, I hadn’t figured out the answer myself. But, dammit, he was here, he was alive.
I ran my hand across my forehead, easing away an ache that erupted from nowhere. Maybe I was still undecided.
Feelings are never straightforward when an addict is involved. When someone you care about does something so damaging, it changes the way you see them. Not completely, because you cling to the hope they’ll sort themselves out, and you hang on to all the memories you had of them before they changed. In the end, that was what always drove me mad. Seeing those glimpses of the real Jason; him playing on them as a way to gain some understanding before he stole money from my purse, CDs from my collection, and a necklace my grandma gave me before she died.
I knew this was different. A different time, and a different... meaning, I guess. But the damage had still been done. He’d found a reason to use, and it almost killed him.
Moisture formed behind my eyes, and I shook my head, keeping my focus on him. Happiness and disappointment, and that awful, nagging guilt crashed over me, pulling me in so many different directions. I wanted to curl up into a ball and wait for it all to pass so I didn’t have to deal with it. Didn’t have to be the one in the middle, trying to cope with everyone else’s feelings as well as my own.
“Come here.” Jason reached out to me.
My feet carried me towards him though my brain wasn’t quite sure. As his fingers closed around mine, I sank onto the bed, resting my head in his lap as tears dripped onto his blankets.
“Ellie, I’m so sorry.”
Words lodged in my throat as I tried to tell him never to scare us like that again. He seemed to understand. I felt his tears falling on me. Eventually, I straightened up so I could look at him.
“I’m supposed to yell at you.”
Jason nodded, his eyes lacking their usual sparkle. In fact, looking at him closely, everything about him was missing its shine. His purple streaked hair was lifeless and faded. On a normal day, he oozed charisma, but this was far from an ordinary day. It was as if a switch had flicked off, snuffing out his drive to succeed. A broken soul.
“You should yell at me, I deserve it. What I did last night was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
“So why did you do it? And where did you get the drugs?”
He shuffled awkwardly in his bed. “I called the bloke from the club and got him to meet me before we left London.”
My eyebrows shot upwards. “You kept his number?”
A small nod answered my question and I stood up, head pounding from dehydration after all the tears I cried. “You said you had no intention of using again! Why would you keep a dealer’s number if you weren’t planning to use? Was everything you told me a load of crap?” I asked, pacing the room.
“No.” He lowered his eyes. “When I told you I wasn’t planning to use, I meant it.”
“But you still had his number! If you’d wanted my help, you’d have let me delete it at the same time I flushed the drugs he gave you!”
“I thought I could do it myself, okay? I thought once the coke was gone, I could take the next step alone. But then... after arguing with Drew and being at your parents’ house...” he trailed off.
I clenched my jaw. If he’d dared to lay the blame for his slip-up at Drew’s feet, I would have swung for him.