Page 69 of Glitterland
“Yes, Darian,” I said with sharp-edged patience. “I really want to medicate my medication with medication.”
“Suppose not,” he said. “I remember finking you ’ad a lot of pills first time I stayed over.”
I gaped at him. “Wait, you knew all along?”
“I knew you ’ad summin going on, but I wouldn’t pry, babes. I fought you’d tell me when you wonnid.”
“And you still slept with me? Wanted to be with me?”
He shrugged. “Course.”
“You’re a strange man, Darian Taylor.”
“Takes one to know one, babes.”
He made me smile. Just a little. And, in return, what could I give except ugly truths? “I don’t want to take more pills than I have to. It’s taken years to get this close to stable.”
And, for the most part, it worked. Yes, depression dogged my footsteps and the promise of hypomania glittered sometimes on the horizon, but I hadn’t been manic for a long time. I didn’t know whether it was the ECT, the medication, the counselling, or the very fact of being appropriately diagnosed, but it wasn’t something I dared to question, in case I broke the spell. I wouldn’t have called myself a superstitious man, but when it came to the intricacies of my biochemistry, the complexities of my illness, I was as helpless as a frightened child who prayed to a god called science.
“They’ve tried to fix the anxiety,” I said, “but if you take this, you have to take that, or stop taking the other, and the whole bloody awful cycle begins again. They did find something that helped a bit. But I stopped taking it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. The side effects…I…got fat, okay? And I know it’s shallow, I know it’s irresponsible, Niall’s told me a thousand times, but, honestly, I’d rather be anxious than fat.”
“I’m wif you, babes.” Darian sounded suddenly about as serious as I’d ever heard him. “Also, right, if you fink abaht it, it’s stupid to ’ave medication what’s supposed to be for stopping people being depressed what also makes ’em fat. Cos that’d be well depressing.”
I shook my head. What manner of idiocy would lead someone to put their vanity above their mental health? And what manner of idiot would support such a choice? But I couldn’t help liking that he did. Accidental or not, it was the first flicker of understanding I’d ever received that I had the same right to be just as shallow and stupid as everyone else. That I did not have to be grateful to simply roll from day to day as a bloated, mindless zombie.
“Then,” I said, “we’re both shallow and deserve each other.”
“Naw, naw, it’s not abaht what you look like, it’s abaht being happy wif ’ow you look. And if you ain’t happy, then you ain’t gonna look good whateva.”
“Deep.”
He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, frowning a little. “I know what I’m talking abaht, okay? I was a bit of a chubber when I was growing up. What wif being gay as well, it wasn’t a mayja laugh.”
Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine him as ever being less than beautiful.
“And don’t fink,” he added, in a more playful tone, “this means I’m gonna let you get away wif not going to your mate’s fing.”
I gave a hollow groan. “But I could be consoling you for your minor childhood wounds. Healing you with my sweet, sweet loving.”
“Shuh up. And stop…like…stalling. Cos getting married is important.”
“Is there any way I could convince you it’s an outdated, heteronormative construct that has no place in a secular society?”
“I fink it’s totes romantic.”
“Oh, dear God.” I dived back under the covers.
“Come on, babes,” he said, tugging on a toe I’d accidentally left out in the cold. “It’ll be ahwight. Want me to go wif you or summin?”
I stuck my head out. “Would you?”
“Course. I love weddings, me. I’d get to eat cake and meet all your mates.”
Oh, fuck, I hadn’t thought of that. Spending hours, and days, fucking and laughing with Darian in the privacy of my own home was one thing. Introducing him to all my Oxbridge friends as my…what? boyfriend? was quite another. Nobody would understand. And I couldn’t blame them—I hardly understood myself. People would smile, of course, but I would see the question behind the smile: has Ash finally completely lost it, has his self-esteem plummeted to such depths that he’s trawling Essex for totty? And, anyway, surely it wouldn’t be fair on Darian, having him stand around, being charmingly bewildered, while everyone talked over his head and laughed and speculated behind his back.
