Fading (10 page)

“Lilly.”

I try to groan but the pain is too intense, instead a low growl comes out of me.

“What’s wrong?”

I manage to turn my head enough to look at Jason. How the hell did he get in here?

“How’d you get in here?” I mumble and push myself up into a sitting position. I’ve been sweating so much that my face peels away from table in a slow, sticky move that makes me wince.

“What do you mean? I’ve been upstairs with Cal and Nate moving your dad’s things.” He frowns and runs his eyes over my face.

“You have?” I frown back at him. “Right. You have.” I try pushing myself up to standing but everything starts going black and I fall back down into the chair. “Ouch.”

“Lilly.” He calls but he’s right next to me looking into my eyes again. Why is shouting?

“What?”

“What have you done?”

I swallow loudly when I see his expression and I know he knows. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit. What have you done?”

“Nothing.” I repeat and wince when my stomach cramps again.

“What’s wrong? Something’s is wrong. I need to know what you’ve taken so that I can help you.”

“No.” I try once again to stand and this time make it without falling down. “I don’t need help, I’m fine.”

“No you’re not, you’re-”

My retching cuts him off and making my head spin even more than it already is, he lifts me, cradling me in his arms and then we’re moving. I stay silent and focus on not throwing up on him as he takes me to the bathroom adjoined to my bedroom upstairs with ease.

“Thanks,” I grumble ungratefully when he places me on the floor in front of the toilet and within seconds I’m dry heaving again.

I know what I need to do but I don’t want him to see.

“You can go now.” I dismiss him.

“No.”

“Jason. Go. Leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Fine.”

More out of a need to stop the cramping than as an act of defiance, I push two fingers into my mouth and down the back of my throat, thrusting them in and out until I feel the sick rising and when I know it’s time, I remove my hand and proceed to empty my stomach contents into the bowl, loudly.

“Jesus.” I hear from somewhere above me and then my hair is being pulled behind my back and held there.

“What’s going on?” I vaguely hear mid-heave followed by a “Nothing, you go on. I’ll see you later.”

Once there is nothing else to expel from my body, I slump against the cold porcelain and let my eyes drift shut.

“Oh no you don’t.” I’m being lifted to my feet again but this time he makes me walk to the sink where he passes me a toothbrush loaded with paste and waits expectantly.

I close my eyes once again as I mechanically brush my teeth and rinse. “Bed.”

“No.”

“Go home, Jason.”

“Nope.” He walks us into my room and stops at the foot of my bed.

I don’t care that it’s the wrong end and neither do I care that I don’t have a pillow nearby, I collapse onto the soft sheets and curl into a small ball.

“What happened?” He demands once again.

“Nothing.”

“Lilly, tell me what the fuck you did to yourself. I’m not leaving unless I know you’re okay.”

“If I tell you, you’ll go?” I ask just above a whisper.

“Sure.” He agrees easily.

I sigh long and hard. He knows anyway, why he’s making me say it, I don’t know. “I took some pills but I must have gotten the times mixed up and took a small overdose. I’ll be fine. I’ve thrown up, all I need to do now is sleep and when I wake up, I’ll be fine except for a monster headache.”

“A little overdose?” He asks incredulously. “A little fucking overdose. Are you completely insane?”

When I don’t answer, I hear him sigh.

“This isn’t the first time it’s happened.” It’s a statement, not a question but I answer anyway.

“No,”

“What pills did you take?”

“You can go now.”

“No,”

“You said that you’d go if I told you.”

“I lied.” I feel the bed dip beside me but don’t have the energy to look back at him. “How long have you been taking them?”

“Typical.” I grumble “When I need to stay, you go and when I want to go, you stay. What’s with that?”

“Lily, I need to stay. Taking pills? That’s not you. You don’t do stuff like that. You know better.”

I laugh, once. “Really? Because it’s been me for the last five years.”

Probably shouldn’t have said that.

There’s a long silence. One I know that is because of shock on his end and I don’t know what comes over me, but the sudden need to push him away takes over me. So I do with words.

“That surprised you? You think you know me so well, how did you think I was dealing with everything? You thought I’d be okay on my own? That I’d know how to handle this kind of thing? Well, it shows how much you know. This is how I’ve managed the last five years. I take pills and I take them because I can. Because they’re there when I need them. They make me feel nothing, they make it possible for the hurt to go away.”

“No. I don’t believe you. You don’t do this. Not you.”

“Jason. This is me. I’m not that little girl who used to live next door to you anymore. I have problems just like everyone else. I make mistakes too. This is who I am now and I like to be this way on my own, so if you would just leave, I’ll get back to my way of dealing with things.

“You think I’m going to leave here like this?” He asks. “You think that you can tell me something like this and I’ll just walk away as if it never happened? I don’t think so, Lilith.”

“Can you just go,” I curl up tighter into myself when the need to cry comes over me but I just don’t have the energy to give into it. “Please, just go.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Tell me how it started.”

“It won’t work,” I mumble. I know he’s trying to keep me awake by making me talk but I’ve felt this kind of exhaustion before, there’s no fighting it. “I need to go now.” I whisper and the last thing I hear before the black consumes me, is a quiet but hard, ‘Shit!’

“Good morning.”

“No.” I groan and roll over to bury my head in my pillow. I try not think about the fact that I fell asleep at the bottom of the bed last night and now I appear to be at the right end. And under the covers.

“Lily, we can do this the easy way like adults and you can sit up, open your eyes and drink this coffee that I’ve made for you, or we can go back ten years and do this how we used to when we were children and I can pull you out of bed by your feet, which would be amusing, but unnecessary.” The star of my nightmares explains from somewhere above me.

“You wouldn’t da… did you say coffee?” I flip over so fast that my eyes don’t have time to adjust to the light from the open curtains, a sharp pain by my left temple tells me that today is going to be another long one.

“I knew you’d be an adult about this.” He smiles proudly and hands me a fresh cup of steaming coffee.

I accept the coffee and place it on my bedside table with a smile. “Of course, I’d be an adult.” I say and throw one of my pillows at his head. “Thanks for the coffee by the way.”

He catches the pillow before it hits his face. “I’m going to ignore that.” Taking the pillow, he seats himself on the bed next to me, which is when I notice he has his own mug of coffee on the bedside table on the other side. “How’s your head?”

“It’s fine.” I lie.

“So you don’t need one of these right about now?” He holds up a small purple pill bottle.

Son of a bitch.

He found my stash.

“Where did you get that?” I ask keeping my eyes on the bottle.

“Taped to the bottom of the cupboard under the sink.” He cocks an eyebrow at me.

“Oh.”

“So you must be in pain right now, right? You need one?” He shakes the bottle.

I’m not ashamed to admit that when I hear the pills rattling, my heartrate speeds up and my stomach flips in excitement. “Three, I need three.”

“THREE?” He shouts, making my brain shake in pain. “Shit, Lil, I know what these are now and you only need to be taking one.”

I shake my head, still not looking at him. “One won’t work, if I take one nothing will happen. It won’t touch me.”

“How long did you say you’ve been taking these?” He lifts the bottle so he can read the label but when he sees that my eyes follow the movement, he sighs and shakes his head. “Too long. I’ll give you two but only because you have a headache.”

“How do you know I have a headache?”

“You told me last night that you’d wake up with one. I have to say that I’m not happy that you knew it in advance, but I’m going to help you.” He pops open the bottle and shakes out two pills which he then hands over to me.

Without wasting anytime I swallow them with a gulp of still-scolding hot coffee. “Thank you.” I sigh blissfully and lay back on the bed, shifting until I’m comfortable.

“Don’t thank me. I can’t believe I gave them to you. I feel dirty. Like I’m your dealer or something.” Even though his words are negative, he settles deeper into the bed next to me, which can only mean that he’s here to stay.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I get them from the doctor, I don’t have a dealer. Besides, I don’t trust you enough to ever buy anything from you.” I shrug, not really caring if my words hurt because he’s both said and done a lot worse to me over the years.

“I know where you get them from. Your prescription is taped to the bottle. Only it’s not your prescription; it’s your dad’s.”

“Why are you still here?” I ask him moodily.

And why haven’t they kicked in yet?

“I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying to help you.”

I turn to look at him. Well, I just turn my head, I don’t need to move much. “Help me with what, exactly?”

“With your addiction.” He says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“I don’t have an addiction, Jason. I just take them when I need to.” That was another lie.

Wow, I’m really racking up these bad habits.

“You told me last night that you’ve been taking them for about five years, that’s not taking them when you need them. Do you know how addictive they are? That’s why you can only get them on prescription.”

“So what are you going do? You’re going to keep coming back here to make sure I’m not taking them?”

“No. I’m going to stay here with you to make sure you don’t take them. It’s not going to be easy to quit them, you’re going to need someone to help you.”

“Okay, maybe, just maybe, you might have a point. But what makes you think you’re the one who can help me? I don’t want you here. I don’t like you, Jason.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why won’t you just accept it?” I ask.

It’s something that’s been bugging me for a couple of weeks now. Why is he pushing this all of a sudden?

“I don’t accept it because it’s not true. You don’t dislike me, Lily. You just don’t want to like me.”

“And you know this because you know me so well?”

Seemingly encouraged to make his point, he moves so that he’s no longer sitting side by side with me but instead moves so that he’s sitting by my knees, facing me. “No. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I know you, not after I told you that you don’t know me. What I am going to do is say that I used to know you better than anyone else in the world. We were friends once, Lily, hell, we were more than friends and you know it. It’s never just been friendship between us. But for us to go forward, I think we need to go. We need to figure out where it went wrong.”

I look at him for a full two minutes before I even think about saying something. He must be joking. Unless he’s forgotten, I certainly haven’t.

“We don’t need to figure out where it went wrong, Jason.” I tell him and I know I’m probably glaring at him now. “It went wrong when you took my virginity and never spoke to me again until a couple of years later.”

“Lily…” Jason winces but I’m not going to let him off the hook. If he wants to visit the past, that’s what we’ll do.

“No. I’m just saying it how it is.”

“How it was,” he corrects.

“It’s not a good memory.” I admit.

“I know, but to go forward, we have to go back first.”

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

I look up from my drink at Jason. We’re sat on the sofa in his front room, the only ones left from the party he threw because his mum is out of town. “What do you mean? Nothing is going on with me.”

“Something is, you’ve been quiet all night. You didn’t even argue when Gavin and Cal insisted that you and Lexi lost that game of beer pong.” He cocks an eyebrow at me.

I roll my eyes at him. “You know we didn’t lose. We never lose. Those guys suck so badly.”

“Of course I know that, everyone knows not to go up against you two. But seriously, what’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Lily.”

“Jase.” I mock. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t try to distract me by being cute.”

At the sound of him calling me cute, butterflies swamp my stomach. It’s not just because it’s a boy calling me cute, it’s because it was this boy saying it. I sigh. It’s going to have to be now or never.

“Okay fine. I’m not sure I can carry on as I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been friends a long time, right?”

“Thirteen years,” He nods and flashes me a grin.

There’s those butterflies again. “Right. Well, that’s a long time.”

“It is.” He agrees easily.

“Well, the thing is, is that lately, I’ve been thinking and … I don’t want to lose you. You’re my best friend, Jase. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t in my life.”

“Hey,” He shifts so that we’re closer and wraps his arm around my shoulders. “Where is this coming from? You’re not going to lose me, Lily. You’re my best friend too.” He clinks his beer bottle against mine and takes a gulp.

“I’m in love with you, Jason.” I blurt.

I watch as if in slow motion as his eyes widen, his pupils dilate and then time smacks me straight in the face again at the same exact moment that the beer he just spat all over me does.

I’m just glad my mouth wasn’t open.

“I can’t believe you spat your beer in my face when I told you I loved you. That has to be the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.” I cock an eyebrow at him.

“I didn’t mean to. You surprised me. Besides, I redeemed myself. Do you remember what I told you after when you were trying to run away?”

“I did not try to run away.”

“You did.”

“Okay fine. But I wasn’t going to run… I was planning on a very slow walk of shame.”

“But I stopped you.” He smiles clearly remembering it.

“You did,” I agree and think back once again.

I stand from the sofa, slowly as mortification floods me.

I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Of course he doesn’t love me back, why would he? He probably thinks of me as a one of the guys or even worse, a sister.

“Lily.”

What was I thinking? I should have kept my mouth shut. He’s never going to talk to me again now because it’ll be too awkward and I’ll never be able to even look at him again without wanting to die of embarrassment.

“Lilly.”

I look up at Jason. Or, well, I look at his nose. He has the smallest scar on the bridge that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it. Or you happened to be there when he got it falling off his bicycle.

“What?” I ask his nose and belatedly register that he’s holding me in place with his hands on my shoulders.

“I…uh…”

“What, Jason?”

“I don’t know. I was just trying to stop you from leaving. That’s as far as I got.” He shrugs.

Despite the complete shame I’m feeling, I chuckle. “Always in the moment, never a step ahead. This is why eighty five percent of your half-arsed plans don’t work.”

“Yes… but what about the fifteen percent that do? They’re the ones that matter.”

I smile at my best friend. Maybe things will be okay after all.

“There,” He smiles back at me and using his thumb, he wipes away a tear that I didn’t even realise had fallen. “Much better. Now, about what you said...”

“Can we just forget it? Can’t we just pretend that it never happened?” I ask and try to show how I desperately I want this with my eyes.

“No.” He shakes his head slowly to back up his words.

“But…”

“No, we’re not going to forget and we’re not going to pretend it never happened. I know you probably want to but you have to understand something first. I don’t want to lose you Lily, you’ve always been there for me, and you’ve been a part of my life longer than anyone else. If I have a problem, it’s you I talk it out with, you know more about me than anyone else and you’re still here. I don’t know why, but you’re always there for me and I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t in my life anymore. I don’t want to do anything to screw this up. I need to know that you’ll always be in my life. I need you. Do you understand that?”

“What was with all that crap you told me anyway?” I demand with a frown.

“It wasn’t crap.” He actually looks offended.

“No? Well you had a funny way of showing it.”

“I know. I know I messed up that night. What happened next never should have happened. We weren’t ready.”

“You mean what you did next, and then again after that. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You could have stopped me.” He looks me dead in the eye. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

I shrug and give him the only answer I’ve ever come up with when I’ve asked myself the same question a million times over the years. “Because I didn’t want to. I loved you. I wanted it just as much as you, if not more. Jason, you need to understand that I don’t regret anything that happened that night. It wasn’t a mistake, the only mistake was how you handled it.”

“You must be remembering it differently.”

“I don’t think so…”