Love on the Lake (Lakeside 2)

And now, she’s starting to remind me of myself after Devon died. But I drowned myself in alcohol and punished myself through work. This isn’t the same, but it also doesn’t seem that different.

I see her nearly every day. I know the contours of her body, the curve of her hips. She has bruises on her arms and a few scratches that look fresh. It makes me question whether she’s lying about whatever happened with her car. If it were an isolated incident, I might not be too worried, passing her reaction off as embarrassment, but there are too many other things piled on top of that sundae for me not to be concerned.

I carefully slip a pillow between me and Teagan and slide out of bed. I grab my phone and wait a full minute, watching her back rise and fall, before I pad across the loft to the bathroom. I close the door with a quiet click and turn the lock before I open the medicine cabinet. I’ve looked in here a few times in the months I’ve slept over, noted her prescriptions and the random over-the-counter medication. None of it seemed like a red flag, mostly allergy meds and painkillers. I took an ibuprofen once because I’d stupidly missed a nail and hammered my finger. It was throbbing pretty good. That was probably a month ago.

Since then the cabinet has been filled with a slew of bottles. What I do next is something I’m not particularly proud of. I’ve already looked up her prescriptions. One is for attention deficit, which I already knew from talking to Dillion. Teagan has never mentioned it to me, but then maybe she doesn’t feel she needs to. There are two other prescriptions. The Valium is for anxiety and says take as needed. There’s also a warning about driving and drowsiness. The third prescription is a sleep aid and is the one she always takes before bed. But there are other prescription bottles in here. One is a painkiller that belongs to her dad and is two years old.

On top of the prescriptions are a bunch of over-the-counter medications, some herbal, some not. There are bottles of NyQuil and other over-the-counter products that cause drowsiness, and there are also over-the-counter sleep aids. Those seem like a bad idea for someone already taking prescription sleeping pills. And then there are the caffeine pills. Those, combined with the energy drinks and her constant coffee habit, aren’t a good sign. This is a recipe for crashing and burning.

And I can’t believe I haven’t put it together until now. I want to be wrong, but I worry I’m right.

I’m afraid of the possibility that she might reach for something stronger when the pills she’s taking stop doing their job. I count the pills in the antianxiety prescription. It was filled a little more than two weeks ago and is already missing most of its contents and is supposed to be a use-as-needed medication. It has one refill left on it. Which means she’s taking these often, on top of all the other things.

I take a seat on the edge of the bathtub and drag a hand down my face. I can’t ignore this. It’s more than a few red flags. It’s verging on an entire minefield waiting to go off.

Teagan has always been very open about the fact that she takes medication, that she has trouble sleeping. In a lot of ways, she normalized the behavior until I accepted that she was comfortable with me and wasn’t ashamed that she sought medical treatment to help her manage her mental health.

After Devon died, I took over-the-counter sleep aids for a while. And for a short time they worked. But this seems bigger. Much bigger. And possibly more serious. She has an arsenal of medication that she takes regularly. And she’s drinking on top of that. I don’t even know how much or how often. I don’t think there has ever been a night that she’s been with me that she hasn’t taken something or multiple somethings.

I drop my head in my hands.

What if I’m in love with an addict?

I may not be an addict, but I know what it’s like to fall down that rabbit hole, from when I numbed the pain of losing Devon with alcohol. Though I didn’t have an addiction, it was still hard for me to change my habits. Alcohol trumped everything else, including the people I cared about. I couldn’t see past myself to what I was doing to the people I loved and who loved me. I saw a therapist to help me get back on track and quit drinking altogether.

I don’t want this to be Teagan’s road. I want to help her see that we’re all here for her. That whatever is going on, we can get through this.