Love/Fail

Chapter 15

The result might have been comical if I wasn't so stressed. Rupert immediately shot upright in bed, shrieking, "Owie!" and rubbing the side of his head. "What in the bloody hell...?"

"Oh my god, you're okay!" I said, throwing myself against him.

"'Course I am! Why wouldn't I be? Did you bite my ear?"

"Yes, but-"

"Mia love, you know I love it when you're feeling kinky, but that really hurt." He yawned, his eyes still half-lidded despite his rude awakening.

"I couldn't wake you," I said. "I was really worried."

"Aw, my little cumquat – you were worried about moi? You know, the prince normally kisses the sleeping beauty without using so many teeth."

"Don't make fun!" I punched him lightly. "You scared me. You were practically comatose, and your breathing was really shallow."

"Ow! Alright, you violent woman! Go easy!" He waved a heavy arm towards the little pill bottle. "It's just the stuff I take to go to sleep. They knock me out pretty hard."

"That's what these are for?" I picked up the pills and studied them. "But I've seen you take these before and I've never had a problem waking you up any other time."

Rupert shrugged sheepishly. "I'm supposed to take one a night, but it's a bit like tequila, init? You know you're not meant to drink too much, but sometimes one shot just doesn't cut it."

"Rupert, you can't equate tequila slammers with prescription meds. How many did you take?" I was feeling angry, but not at him. Annoyance at my own self-centred ways flared at the back of my skull, guilt at knowing about the pills but being too absorbed in Cody drama to check in with the guy I was actually dating.

"I can't rightly remember," he said, pulling away from me. "Sometimes they work better than others, and last night was a bad night."

"Why?"

"Because you weren't here. I told you, I sleep better when you're with me."

That stopped me. "Rupert... I didn't know."

"It's not like I'm an addled druggie," he defended. "I just have a very active mind, like there's always twenty voices chattering away in my head, writing songs, arguing with each other, trying to convince me that I should Tweet inappropriate messages to Hilary Clinton about my junk, you know how it is. Then I try to sleep, and my brain wants to keep partying."

"So you take these. Do they help?"

"Sometimes. They stop working if you take them too much, so I try to only take them when it's really bad, but since Jade..." He wiped his hand across his eyes as if he could wipe away the pain. "I just go around and around in bat-shit crazy circles, thinking about how things were, or how they might have been different, you know? So I take a few more than I'm supposed to. It gets me through."

I wrapped my arms and legs around him, as if I could absorb his pain and drain it away. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Mia love, you've saved me these last few weeks." He tipped my chin back and kissed my nose. "You and your Dad and those chickens and us having sex... It's been the best it's been for a long time for me."

"I hope sex helps more than chickens."

"It's a pretty even split. Don't make me choose."

"Fine. Well, you don't have to go without me again for as long as you're in town, I promise. We'll spend every night together, okay?"