“Aidan. Please, just come on. You need to stop, it’s a problem. I will help you, but you have to stop.”
“I’m fine.” His words are slurred, and he is so jittery.
“No, you aren’t, Aidan!” I cry out.
“Why do you even care?” Aidan looks down.
“Because, I love you.” I walk to the other side of the room and look around.
“I don’t deserve it; you and I both know it.”
He fell asleep a couple minutes later, and it is a sad sight. Sometimes he has fits of crying out gibberish, other times it is words, but it is more along the lines of him crying and begging. I don’t know which is more painful to hear.
I sit there for the night, occasionally checking my phone for a message from Willow.
“Alex.” I hear a quiet voice.
I look over and see the blue eyes that I fell in love with all those years ago staring at me.
“Yea?” I ask.
“I missed you.” Aidan mumbles.
“You need to go to sleep, Aidan. You need to just go rest an-and you’ll feel a bit better. For now, just go to sleep, please.” I choke out, holding back tears.
“You didn’t miss me?” His voice sounds... hurt.
“I did, I missed you. I’ve changed, I got out of the business, stayed clean...”
I page for another sitter, who relieves me to take my break.
“I have to go.” I rush as soon as she comes in.
I walk out, covering my mouth to stifle the sobs, and get Willow. She comes nearly immediately and looks at me.
“They assigned you, I tried to get you a new assignment, but they wouldn’t allow it. I’m so sorry Alex, I truly am.” She wraps her arms around me, and I start to cry.
“What happened to him?”
“I can’t tell you; you can ask him, he’ll tell you. I’m not supposed to say this but... he was tested for other drugs… he was clean… just fentanyl in his system. He was sober despite everything.”
He got sober.So, he did end up doing that... but why? He wasn’t planning on getting sober when I was with him, so what changed?
“You need to relieve her, she has her break up in 5 minutes.”
I nod and walk back to the room. He is a bit disoriented, the pain meds are probably kicking in.
“Alex.” He whispers.
“Hm?”
“I got sober, after you left... this wasn’t a purposeful OD... it wasn’t me... I swear.”
“You were assaulted, weren’t you?”
He nods weakly, and I sigh, “You should’ve stayed with me, oh my god... I’m so sorry... I wish... I don’t even know...” I finally just give up.
“Did you forget about me?” Aidan mumbles.
I stare at him for a moment, a brief silence and mood drop happens during this exchange. I see another tear fall down his face, and I feel them threatening on me too.
“How could I?”
ns 15.158.61.42da2
