Page 152 of Love Thy Brother
Another nauseous wave assaulted me. I gripped the sink and puked, acid burning my oesophagus, muscles straining. Long minutes passed before my body calmed the fuck down.
I ran the tap, cleaning up the mess as I distantly wondered if this was how Rubi felt when he got migraines. If he had one right now.
Throat on fire, I turned the tap off and switched the shower on instead. I felt disgusting, dizzy and weak.
Grimy.
I stripped and stepped into the shower, letting the hot spray take care of the mess I’d got myself into. Somehow, I washed my hair. My face. The rest of my body. And I stayed there until the water ran cold.
Schoolboy error.
I got out shivering and staggered to my bedroom to find clean clothes.
Oscar had left some on my bed. The same ones I’d washed and dried the night me and Rubi had wound up in the sea. I put them on—kinda wishing Rubi had left his behind so I could drown myself in a Henley four sizes too big—and licked my dry lips. I didn’t feel much like riding, but Rubi once told me that builder’s brew cured everything.
Downstairs, the humming noise from the boiler was louder than ever. Irritated, I punched the thermostat, but it wouldn’t turn off, and all my temper had done was jam the switch into the wall.
Genius.I moved to the kettle and filled it up, watching the water gush out of the tap until the kettle overflowed. “Fuck’s sake.”
I dried it on my T-shirt and chucked it on the counter. At this point, leaving seemed a better option before I burned the house down.
Not in a wet T-shirt, though. It was too cold to ride in damp clothes.
Oscar’s clean laundry was hanging on an airer by the living room radiator. I stole a shirt and shrugged into the jacket I’d yet to return to Cam.
I shoved my hands in the pockets on autopilot, searching for my keys, despite the fact I could see them on the coffee table where I’d tossed them last night.
There wasn’t much in Cam’s pockets. A squashed cigarette box and lighter. A handful of coins.
A tenner.
Score. Not gonna lie, I was having that.
I pulled it out and moved to the kitchen to drop it on the counter with the smokes and the lighter before raiding the other pocket.
My fingers hit soft plastic.
Then the harder seam of a rubber seal.
On any other day, maybe I’d have been sharp enough to know what it was and fuck the jacket off without looking, but I was too slow. I yanked my hand free, fingers already curling around the powder-filled ten bag, and the world stopped fucking turning.
Shit. My heart stalled, faltering to a thudding stop, before it set off again at a dull gallop, pounding in time with the throb behind my eyes. I stared at the powder, white and glittery, like damp salt, and Icravedit—the burn in my nose, in the back of my throat.
The tripped-out detachment.
The mind-numbing bliss.
God, I wanted it. Fuck, maybe I needed it to function. Leaving the house was a fucking shitshow. I could barely see straight. Couldn’t think. All I could do was stare at the special K in the palm of my hand and imagine how good, how sweet, it would feel to bang a line up my damn nose.
Idiot. You don’t even know it’s K. It could be anything.
The worst part of me didn’t care, and my hand trembled, sweat prickling my palm despite the chill still rattling my bones. I set the bag on the counter with undue care and stared at it. Opened it in slow motion and tipped the contents out, gaze flickering to the ten pound note I’d filched from Cam’s pocket.
Just a little one.
To calm me down, even though I was so profoundly fucking tired already the walls seemed to be melting.
No.
