Page 91 of No Safe Place
‘Scott.’ Lily shook her head. ‘What were you giving me?’
‘Beta blockers,’ he said, in monotone.
The heat of the morning hung between them, charging his confession.
‘Is that all?’ she asked. ‘Nothing else.’
‘Diazepam, just the last few days. First two milligrams, then five.’
Her stomach swooped again. He turned his face away from her, his palms on his knees, staring blankly at the remote on the coffee table.
‘It’s my job, isn’t it?’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘Making people better.’
A beat.
She had to get away from him.
Lily walked to the bedroom, on legs that were steadier. She pulled on a pair of jeans. Scott followed her, babbling an explanation she wasn’t listening to. She spotted her rings on the bedside table and slipped them onto her fingers, then looked around for her bag.
‘Please don’t go.’ Scott dived in front of her, arms wide, blocking her from leaving the bedroom. ‘Let me explain.’
‘What is there to explain, Scott?’ Lily’s voice was calm, the same deadly tone her mother had used when she was a child. ‘Youdruggedme. You gave me drugs without telling me.’
He shook his head, his face screwed up in pain but no tears falling.
‘Scott, let me get past.’ She wasn’t asking – would never ask him for anything again.
‘You don’t understand.’ Scott took a step towards her, and Lily backed away.
He looked at her in sheer disbelief, backing away, before collapsing to the floor of the bedroom and clutching the back of his head. ‘You don’t get it.’
Lily stayed still. Now she knew what the nausea and weakness were caused by, it was easier to stand up, easier tomake herself move. She looked down at Scott, curled up and crying, and felt nothing but cold fury.
‘I was trying to help,’ he said, still turned away from her. ‘That’s all – I thought it would help you.’
‘Fourfuckingyears – that’s how long I was on and off meds. Do you know what it’s like to be out of control of your own body? Have you ever had a doctor make your decisions for you?’
She looked around the room. The vomit-stained white rug, the bare walls. The hardback non-fiction books he claimed to have read, with brand-new-looking dust jackets. And Scott crouching in the middle of it – snivelling.
He looked up at her from the floor. ‘You can’t see how ill he’s making you. How much you need help. But I saw it, and I knew you’d never leave that house unless you couldthink.’
Of course it was about Callum.
‘He manipulates you, Lily. You’ve been in it so long you don’t realise, but he does. He says things to make you feel shit about yourself. You’re just as trapped in that house as he is.’
‘Youdrugged mebecause you were trying to get me away from Callum?’ Lily threw her arms wide. ‘You wanted to be in control.’
‘Control?’ Scott’s voice was a shriek. ‘When I have been in control of anything? When we first started dating, I hadno idea– no idea how fucked up the two of you are. How far back this co-dependent bullshit really goes.’
She took a step away from him. ‘I only told you about my OCD two days ago …’ Lily paused for a beat as her thoughts caught up. ‘But you’ve been giving me that shit for weeks.’
Scott ran a hand through his hair.
‘You accessed my medical records, didn’t you?’ Her stomach sank. ‘When?’
‘Last month,’ he said, voice hollow.
She had felt soguiltyfor not having told him yet. She’d felt bad, when all along he’d read her notes. The write-ups from her teenage GP visits, the list of symptoms her despairing mother had reeled off while begging for them to hospitalise her, so Lily would be out of the house.
