Time apparently passed slowly in Matlock Bath. Jamie spent the weekend hiding in the bedsit, remembering how much he hated the cold, and bemusedly accepting deliveries of soft furnishings he’d never dream of buying for himself. Cushions, duvet sets, and thick woollen throws for the angular IKEA couch the bedsit had come with. He assumed they were from Liam, but a note arrived with the last parcel that put him straight.
To keep you warm. Come and see me soon...
I miss you—Zac x
Jamie stared at the familiar scruffy handwriting, and his heart clenched. Zac had been his best friend—hisonlyfriend—for a time in his life too messed up and hazy to measure, and Jamie missedhim more than he could ever say, but hedeservedthe ache in his chest. Zac was better off without him.
He kept all the stuff, though, because as much as he’d craved the bite of the British wind while he’d been gone, he’d forgotten how cold England could get in January. Even with his puny storage heaters cranked full blast, on his second day of living as a hermit, Jamie couldn’t get warm. After an uncomfortable night shivering on the couch, lost without the soothing sound of Marvin snoring in the next room, his Monday morning appointment at the local hospital came as a relief.
At least until he sat down in front of a surly junior doctor and realised that an NHS addiction clinic was nothing like the cushy therapy sessions that Sea Rave had bankrolled in Cali.
“You were referred by your GP?” the doctor said without looking up.
“Not exactly. I’ve just moved back from America. I paid privately for this appointment.” His parting gift from Sea Rave, as Marvin and Liam both had seemed to know that Jamie wouldn’t consent to them funding any more of his recovery than they already had. “The lady on the phone said you could refer me to the Frank Centre in Belper?”
“The list for Belper is full,” the doctor said dully. “I can refer you to Ripley, but you didn’t need to come here for that. They accept self-referrals. Can you travel to Ripley if I request an appointment there for you?”
Jamie frowned, his knowledge of the Derbyshire Peak District still limited to the bedsit and the short walk to the chippie in Matlock Bath. “Um... I s’pose so?”
“Good. Your appointment should come through in ten to twelve weeks, but it may be longer. When you go, take these forms with you, and they’ll add you to their waiting list.”
The doctor handed over a stack of paper and turned back to her computer screen, a clear dismissal if Jamie had ever seen one.
Dazed, he took the forms and stood, drifting to the door, until the numbers in the barrage of information sank in. He turned back with his hand on the door. “Ten to twelve weeks? But you don’t even know what I’m addicted to.”
The doctor glanced up briefly. “Is there something else you want to talk about?”
Was there? Jamie had no idea. He’d been clean for more than a year, but he’d had enough meltdowns in California to know that he wouldn’t last ten weeks without a halfway decent safety net, especially while he didn’t have a job. There was only so much wanking he could do before he counted himself into a nervous breakdown.
The doctor had already turned back to her work. “There’s some local support groups you can try, and an emergency hotline if you find yourself in crisis. The information is in reception.”Now fuck off.
She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. Jamie left her to it and meandered back to the reception desk, wondering if he’d ever have the nerve to tell Marvin that the three hundred quid he’d paid to get Jamie a fast-track appointment had been a complete fucking waste of time.
He made his way outside with wobbly legs and a fistful of leaflets, his veins twitchier than they’d been in months. Sometimes he could go days without thinking about junk, but others he couldsmellit, and the only remedy was a hit or a meeting. With neither of those an option, he settled for heading to the bus stop, waiting for a ride home so that he could lock himself indoors and blast some music until the monster simmered to a dull roar.
I need a job.But his choices were as limited as his skills, and were narrowed further by the extensive criminal record that Sea Rave had made a conscious decision to ignore.“We can find you some work,”Liam had said. But Jamie had refused. Leaving California meant leaving Sea Rave. It had to. Or he might as well have stayed put and taken up yoga.
The rumble of the bus caught his attention. He glanced up and his heart sank a little. Despite a growing urge to get home, the thought of being stranded with his own company again seemed almost as bad as loitering outside a building that was stuffed full of mouth-watering opiates.“You get kinda cranky when you’re on your own too long.”
Cranky. Right. If only. Jamie scratched his arms in rhythmic sets of four, like he had any hope of easing the disquieting itch in his veins. The one that no matter how far he ran, or how many bullshit meetings he showed up to, he could never entirely escape. Perhaps he was wasting his time. Delaying the inevitable that only Liam’s intervention had prevented last year. Matlock Bath was still a mystery to him, but there were junkies everywhere, and it wouldn’t take long to sniff them out.
And where there were junkies, there was junk. Andfuck, if Jamie couldn’t use a fat hit of—
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
Jamie jumped a mile and spun around so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. The gravelly voice was that of a stranger, and yet beautifully familiar all at the same time, but nothing on earth could’ve prepared him for the sight of the tall, rugged figure who stood behind him. An errant ray of sun made the man appear like a seraphic apparition, and Jamie could hardly believe his eyes. “Marc?”
* * *
“Um... I guess so?” Marc leaned heavily on his crutches, cursing that Jamie seemed doomed to cross his path in his worst possible moments. “I feel like crap today, so I’m not altogether sure. Wasn’t expecting to see you, though. What are the chances that you’d wind up at this shithole?”
Jamie laughed, though he seemed as stunned as Marc felt. “This isn’t the worst place I’ve ever been.”
“Me neither. Do you live around here?”
“I do now.”
Jesus.Marc had half convinced himself that Jamie had been a figment of his morphine-addled imagination, dreamed up by a subconscious that knew all too well that he could only function when his attention was fixed on someone else’s problems. But here Jamie was, leaning on a bus stop outside Chesterfield Royal, clutching a leaflet on community care for drug and alcohol misuse. Marc pictured the scars lettering Jamie’s slender forearms and joined the dots.He’s a junkie.