Page 63 of Sin of Love

31

Tully, Co. Galway, Ireland

We’ve been herethirteen days.

Thirteen or a hundred.

Or I’ve been here, living in this isolated cottage a stone’s throw from the windswept Atlantic coast. I sleep poorly on a lumpy cot outside the single bedroom, buy food and basic necessities every few days in a nearby village, and spend the rest of my time journaling, drinking gallons of black tea, and watching over Deirdre.

The first week was a living hell. Sweat poured from her body, fever sparked her skin in intervals. She purged the drug like a priest purges demons—violently, messily, with shouted prayers and fluctuating hopes. I changed the bedsheets daily. Mopped messes from the floor. Held her down while she convulsed and vomited until speckles of blood dotted the linens.

No matter how I begged, she refused the morphine Liam procured for us. A few times, in the worst of it, I thought I would have to watch her die.

We are not ourselves.

Nate is the only reason I haven’t panicked and taken her to a hospital. He’s lived through the same detox, knows what to expect, how to ease her pain, and most importantly, how to tell me to calm the fuck down in a way that doesn’t make me crazy. He’s my lifeline, the only thing keeping me sane, and he answers my calls no matter the time.

Like right now, as I cradle the phone beneath the lip of my thick sweater as I step outside. The wind screams past me—the late-afternoon sky is trending black with storm—but I can’t be in the cottage another second.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she’s out of the woods,” he tells me. And he’s right, it doesn’t seem like it. Sure, she’s not puking her guts up twenty times a day, but she barely eats and still isn’t sleeping much.

“How did you survive this, Nate? It’s fucking harrowing. No wonder the majority of junkies stay junkies.”

His brief laugh is dry. “I wanted to live a tiny bit more than I wanted to die,” he says, voice thin with exhaustion and distance.

It’s 4:00 p.m. here and morning in Los Angeles, which means he should be sleeping after working all night. But he always answers my calls. Thank fucking God.

“Trust me, she knows you’re there,” he adds. “It’s helping.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

For the last three days, she’s ignored me whenever I’m in the bedroom to give her something, whether it be food, books, a puzzle… It doesn’t matter why I’m there, she won’t look at me or talk to me, and flinches every time I speak.

“I know.” Nate pauses. “How are the nightmares?”

“Same. Sometimes I’m not even sure she’s asleep. More like hallucinating. She keeps mentioning names—women’s names—and apologizing to them. And the same stuff about Maggie, and Marco not being real. Stuff about her mom, too. Fire and dolls. It’s intense. I want to help her, but there’s not a damn thing I can do.”

“I wish I could be there. For her and for you. Waiting is killing me.”

“When’s your passport coming?” I ask, hating the eagerness in my voice and the fact I ask him every time we talk.

“Two weeks. Then I promise I’m on a plane, okay?”

“And you’re sure Liam—”

“Dude, stop asking. I’m not interested in owing favors towhatever criminal organization he works for.”

“Yeah, understood,” I say, forcing disappointment from my voice. “Thanks, Nate, for picking up. I need to get back inside. I made oatmeal like you suggested, so hopefully she’ll eat some.”

“Don’t forget the brown sugar and cream. Lots of sugar.”

“Got it. Talk soon.”

I hang up and tuck my phone into my back pocket, but my feet stay cemented to the cottage’s faded red steps. I wish I had a cigarette. Or a gallon of whiskey. Anything to dampen this flickering, itching despair inside me.

Thirteen days here, and I have yet to see a glimpse of my Deirdre, only an empty-bodied shell of pain wearing her face.

“You cannot need anything from her, do you understand?”

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