“Painkillers?” I summarized.
He nodded.
My eyes drifted toward the IV drip again.
“Which is exactly what they’re trying to give you here, I’m guessing. So now that you’re clean you don’t want to take them. Were you ever on any of the harder stuff?”
In the quickest movement I’d seen him make yet, he immediately nodded his head.
“Didn’t. Want. High. But… Escape. Forced.” Although his words were still extremely simple, he spoke each with great care to make sure I understood. “Just. Wanted. No. Pain.”
“You wanted no pain, to escape,” I repeated his words, mulling them over. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re in pain now, but does that mean you were in pain even before?”
This time, Mia didn’t answer me right away. His expression turned distant as a memory I couldn’t see played out behind his eyes.
A solid minute passed before he spoke again, carefully prodding at his own chest like he had no ribs, and he feared he would jab right through his own heart.
“People hurt me. The drugs… helped. But I… clean… don’t want anymore.”
It was an improvement. His words were still very broken and stilted, but he was almost talking in sentences.
He’d been found in the remains of an abandoned warehouse that was apparently known as a common shelter for the homeless population of the city. There were many reasons a person could become homeless. It didn’t have to be anything nefarious but combined with his statement ‘People hurt me’I couldn’t come to any good conclusions.
Mia didn’t owe me his life story. He wasn’t a criminal I was interrogating, or a witness I needed to interview for information about a case. I should have just left it alone and let whatever demons lurked behind the man’s eyes stay silent and unspoken.
But I couldn’t.
I knew myself well enough to not even try to stay out of it. I was the kind of person who, once committed to something, saw it through, no matter what. Somehow, without meaning to, Mia had become one of my commitments.
Moving very slowly, so that he could easily pull away if he wanted, I reached out and grabbed his hand, stopping him from jabbing at his chest. “You said people hurt you,” I reiterated. “So, I have to ask, are you in danger now?”
At first, Mia started to shake his head, but then he stopped.
“I don’t think… I… I can’t remember.”
I wanted to demand what he meant, but I didn’t have to. Mia let me keep his one hand in my grasp, but the other flitted through the air like a butterfly looking for a place to land. He seemed to be trying to snatch the right words right out of empty space.
“Not sure if… memories or dreams. It’s… fuzzy. I think… there were bad people, but… gone now.”
Those three sentences were the most words he’d spoken all at once. It taxed the limit of his throat and he started coughing. The sound was painfully dry, each cough practically shaking his whole body.
I fetched him water from the tray sitting near the bed, but his hands trembled so much he couldn’t hold the cup. Instead, I had to press it to his lips for him and tip it just enough for smallamounts of liquid to pour into his mouth at a time. His throat bobbed with each swallow, until finally he managed to stop coughing.
“Thanks,” he said as he lay back against the propped-up bed.
Being thanked so earnestly for such a small amount of help made me feel unbalanced, like another weight had been added to the debt I already owed the world. Clearing my own throat, I turned away to place the cup safely back on the tray.
“It’s nothing. So, you can’t remember anything?”
When I turned back, I found him watching me with his surprisingly clear eyes. His expression was somber, but not unhappy. It was more like the gaze of someone just beginning to understand the secrets of the universe and they were still processing the depths of their new realizations.
“Bits and pieces,” he eventually said. “It’s all jumbled, like… broken puzzle. I’m not sure what’s real.”
“Well, you said your name is Mia. I’ve tried looking it up, but without a full name, I couldn’t find any information about your identity. Can you remember your surname?”
Mia visibly thought for a second, his brow wrinkling under the bandages that partially covered his temple, but then he shook his head.
“Then, is there anything you can remember?”