Page 32 of Antihero
Worth a shot. I roll my eyes and snatch the towel off her, scrubbing it over my wet hair.
“You did a good job,” she comments, reaching to fix a lock that’s flipped the wrong way. The loose sleeve of her cardigan slides back.
My hand has snatched out and caught her forearm before I even register what I’ve seen. The towel falls to the ground. Her breath catches, tugging back from my too-hard grip as I stand.But I don’t let go. I tug her right back, squeezing hard. I might be bruising her, I don’t know, I’m not thinking.
“What’s that?” I demand, angrier than I’ve got a right to be as her gaze joins mine on the bruise mottling the inside of her elbow, surrounding the fresh needle-wound. “Are you using?” My voice rises with the question. I grew up seeing enough marks like that, know enough to recognise it and the other tiny white scars of previous injections. But seeing it on her, it makes me feel cold, angry. Moreso than finding out about her murderous tendencies, more than seeing her seduce other men.
“Jesus, do you notice fucking everything?” Paige grunts, yanking back, but I hold on, needing the answer. “No! It’s from the doctor.”
I blink.Oh.
I shouldn’t have jumped straight to conclusions and assumed drugs. This time, she yanks free, clutching her arm around the fingerprints I’ve left. Paige seems surprised by my outburst. As surprised as me. “Sorry,” I murmur. And I mean it. I shouldn’t have reacted that way. Shouldn’t have hurt her like that. If she wanted to be doing that, it’s not my place to… I can’t finish the thought. Even seeing Eleanor struggle with alcoholism was bad enough, but I always knew she’d have the strength to overcome it one day. When she had more to live for.
But hard drugs… I couldn’t watch someone fall to that again. Cassandra got her weakness for them from our mother, the little I remember of that woman. Cass had been getting better, getting clean, when Caleb found her. I shake myself. Maybe I should let Charlotte help me, after all.
From the doctor, Paige said. I take a deep breath. But why were there so many of the clean pinprick scars? “Are you sick?” I ask.
“Are you?” she counters, still softly kneading her forearm.
My jaw tightens. “I didn’t mean to snap like that. I just… I’ve watched people throw their lives away too many times.”
Still hurt, maybe scared, Paige declares, “I didn’t think you’d care.”
About her, is what she means.
My voice low, even, I say, “Of course I care.” Paige blinks at me, seeing the absolute truth in my words. “Please,” I ask, “Tell me, are you sick?”
With a sigh, Paige crosses her arms. “Not yet.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m likely to contract some fatal illness in the future and I need to sit through tests every month to catch what will inevitably kill me, anyway. Satisfied?” she snaps the last out, turning away from me just as I see her eyes tear up.
I press my teeth together, watching her but not following. “I’m sorry. Does all that mean there’s a chance it’ll never happen?”
Paige snorts, standing by the doorway. “Yeah, that’s what they say to all the poor sods who need to get checked for tumours every two months. Actually—lucky me, this is my second blood test in as many weeks because they found something that needs further testing. So, who knows, maybe the waitisover.”
This time, I do approach her. Paige faces me, but her gaze stays trained on the ground. I lightly squeeze her shoulders, feeling how small she’s made herself, how drawn in. “It’s going to be okay.”
She shakes her head once, sniffs, then lifts her head to meet my eye. For the first time in a while, maybe even since our first date when we sat on the moors, when we were just a man and a woman who thought there might be a future together, there’s softness and vulnerability in her face. Then a flash of a frown to cover it up, and she steps back, sliding out of my grip. “Well, come on, are you gonna deny the dying girl a drink?”
Paige perches on the chair at my desk while I sit on the edge of the bed. I accept the short glass and the finger of whisky inside tentatively. I sniff it. Not unpleasant, but I wouldn’t want a lot of the stuff. Paige watches me, nursing her own. "When was the last time you had whisky?"
"Before I was Needler." Probably.
"In that case, bottoms up."
Paige downs hers, so I do the same.
Within moments, I know that was a mistake. That I shouldn’t have trusted her. It’s the taste first. The wooziness will soon follow. I've inflicted it on enough people to recognise that taste. The smell is somewhat familiar, more so than whisky. I should have spotted it.
I feel myself sway on the spot. Pushing to my feet, the glass lolls in my hand as my fingers lose their sensation first. The bed hits the backs of my legs, and I’m sitting down again, with only a vague recollection of having stood. The world spins, and Paige is in front of me, my face even with her stomach as her fingers brush my cheek.
"I’m sorry, my Prince.” With a light shove, she sends me toppling back onto the bed, my body awkwardly twisted in paralysis with my legs hanging off the bed. Then she’s lifting my legs up onto the mattress, straightening me into something like a comfortable position.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this…” her words, her face are on the edge of my consciousness as the blackness closes in, “…but I might not have much time.”
***
