Page 32 of Lessons in Desire

She nods, eager. “Yes.” And, like the tempting devil she is, she begins to crawl, her fingertips dragging down my boxer shorts. Only, just as she’s about to take me in her hand, to put that pretty little mouth on my cock her phone rings.

I groan and she grins, picking the phone up, I see the name Bree, her best friend, flashing.

Her brow furrows. “I should answer. If Bree is up this early, something has got to have gone on.”

Slipping on my cotton shirt, she sits up, curled under my arm and I feel the world shift into place. Now this, this is perfect. Before I met her, I thought my life was complete. I thought that I was bored and that’s why I wanted to try my hand at teaching, but it wasn’t that.

I was missing her, and I just never realised.

“Hey Bree.” She says, her voice still dark from sleep. She listens for a moment and then, “What do you mean?” Horror is creeping into her tone and a bad feeling sits in my stomach. “Oh my god.” A tear falls and she jumps out of bed. Her eyes meet mine. “My dad’s been taken to hospital. He—he had an overdose. Her—heroin. Asher I—”

I slip out of bed and hold her face. “Calm breaths, Evelyn. I’ll get the car; we can drive there.”

She nods, the tears falling silently. She lifts the phone to her ear and then whispers. “Bree’s coming too.”

I nod. “We’ll pick her up on the way.”

And then we’re gone, the happy ease with which we woke up with dissipating in an instant. Evelyn clutches my hand the entire way to the car, never dropping it for a moment.

Chapter Nineteen

Evelyn

Bree is staring at Asher and I wide eyed and very, very confused. Which I really can’t blame her for when I’ve let her believe that I’ve been staying at Jake’s for most of the week, but I also don’t have the energy to explain.

The only thing on my mind is my dad.

It all makes sense now. The erratic behaviour, the anger and violence, the weight loss; it was all a sign that I stupidly missed. I bite my tongue against the fresh wave of tears that threatens to break. It just doesn’t make sense. He’s been an alcoholic for years and not once has he made a motion to use anything harder.

A warm hand takes mine, squeezing with surety.

Asher smiles. “It will be okay.”

“We don’t know that.” I whisper and catch Bree eying me in the mirror. I turn to her, still clutching Asher’s hand. “What exactly did your mom say?”

“That he … it was bad, but that he’s in a stable condition now.” Bree’s hair is pulled up into a bun atop her head, her silk bonnet still there from the sleep she was pulled from by the phone call.

I lick my dry lips. “Thank you, Bree. For coming.”

She nods and smiles. “I’m here for you. Always.”

Turning back, I rest my head against the car window and watch as the world zips by.

He looks awful and suddenly I wish I had waited for Asher to park the car before heading in just so he can hold me up. I take a tentative step forward towards my dad, and then another, and another until I’m rushing over to him. Tears drip down my cheeks and splash onto the pillow beside my bed as I lean over him, taking in his awful complexion. He’s lost even more weight than last time, the skin falling gauntly against his cheeks, his body barely even a husk.

A nurse is checking his vitals and I stumble over my words.

“Is he okay?”

She smiles kindly at me, fiddling with a machine. “He’s doing as well as can be expected. We’ve flushed his system as best as we can and now it’s up to him.” She walks over to me, squeezing my shoulder. “If it’s something, he’s definitely a fighter. He had enough heroin in his system to kill a horse.”

After she’s gone, I sit in the seat beside my father, watching and counting the breaths that rattle through his chest. It’s so strange, to watch someone you love ruin themselves. When we see it happen to others it’s so easy to say that you’d stop them, that you’d find a way, but that’s very rarely the reality. My father’s been a drunk for so long, I don’t even know who he would be without the alcohol.

There’s a knock at the door, and Asher walks in, his eyes softened as he takes in my father. When I see him, the tears fall harder. He rushes over, holding my face in his hands and whispers soft words into the crown of my head.

“I didn’t know.” I say helplessly.

“He didn’t want you to know.”

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