The unbidden—and definitely errant—thought brought me back to the present. I sat up in the passenger seat in the van. Apparently I’d missed the drive home. I glanced at Gus’s house. My temporary bedroom had become a sanctuary, but despite the earth-shattering throb in my shoulder, I was hungry, and I knew the fridge was bare. Gus ate a lot but never shopped, as if he expected food to fill his plate by magic. Or he spent all his time on Just Eat, which I guessed was better than the imagined life I’d created for him on Grindr.
I turned my attention back to him. He was thumbing through his phone, lips twisted in a faint grin that did odd things to my empty stomach.Imagined. Yeah right.I dropped out of the van without answering his question and drifted inside. Grey was waiting for me. I fed him the last pouch of Felix in the cupboard, hanging it out while I waited for Gus.
But Gus didn’t come in, and eventually the van rumbled away.
I couldn’t decide how I felt about that. On the one hand, I was in enough pain to crave solitude so I could suffer in peace. On the other, I longed for Gus’s company so bad my head spun.
Or maybe I was just hungry. Either way, everything was fucked.
I trooped upstairs and searched my bag for the black market morphine pills I saved for emergencies, but the bottle was empty, like it had been for weeks, and I lacked the funds or facilities to get any more. Gus’s bathroom contained an empty box of paracetamol and I couldn’t decide if that was better than trying to dull this pain with a mouthful of OTC meds, or worse than the fact that my thirty-seven pence wasn’t enough to buy any more.
Damn, I was eight pence short. Story of my fucking life.
I could’ve pinched some. Would’ve, if I’d been anywhere else. But on my vodka-buying expeditions, I’d struck up a rapport with the Indian dude who’d taken over the nearest shop, and I only stole from people I didn’t like.
It didn’t leave me many options. I took a hot shower and drank all Gus’s French beer—a bad idea on an empty stomach. It didn’t stay down long, and when I was done throwing it all back up again, I lay on the bathroom floor, knowing the cold tiles would make the pain worse, but unable to make myself move.Masochist. Maybe, but probably not. I didn’t like pain, but sometimes I needed it to stay alive. Without it, I was a coil of insensible apathy, and somehow, that hurt more.