Paint with Me Among the Shadows (Book One, the Salvation MC Series)

12. Sleeping Pills?

By now I'm almost twenty four hours without my sleeping pills and it's starting to affect me. Amber stands from her seat and gets into the bed with me like she senses my discomfort and I snuggle with my twin. It's weird how we're almost complete strangers yet she comforts me in a way no one else can. It's almost like we're back in our god-awful mother's womb helping each other grow.

"Can I have a moment alone with my daughters?" Dad asks, disrupting the awkward silence.

Everyone gets up and walks out the door. Once dad hears the click he stands up. He digs into his pocket and the sight of my orange bottle of sleeping pills causes my heart to hit hard against my chest. They sound like a dangerous jar of skittles as he sits them on the moving tray at the foot of my hospital bed.

"What's going on Georgie? Ace found these in your bag when she was getting your stuff together."

I try to swallow down the dry rock caught in my throat. "I have insomnia issues."

Dad's eyes are rimmed with the same deep hue of blue and purple that I have almost every day. "Who prescribed these to you?"

Amber doesn't stop snuggling with me as her deeper blue eyes stare at me with concern. "Was it mom?"

I know better than to try to jog my memory with a minor concussion at this point. "I have no idea. All I know is that I've been taking them for a long time."

Dad's brow furrows. "Georgie, I looked at the pills and asked one of the nurses who found out for me. These are Quetiapine and are used for schizophrenia. These aren't sleeping pills."

I can barely hear him. He sounds like he's in a fishbowl. "What?"

"Dad!" Amber shouts as I start panicking and my chest moves up and down so rapidly I'm about to hurl.

"Amber go and don't say a word to anyone," Dad demands as he does his best to try to calm me. "Georgie, baby, tell me what's going on. Why are you taking these?"

He gathers me to him and brushes my damp hair out of my sweaty face.

"I don't know. I don't know." I repeat frantically. I was told they were sleeping pills." Everything hurts and my stupid brain pounds against my skull. "Why can't this stupid brain remember anything." I start whacking my head viciously with my good hand.

"Georgie." My dad grabs my hand and pins it to the bed gently. "Stop, you're going to hurt yourself."

My dad. The man with his wrinkles now permanently between his brows, wearing a black bandanna over his white blonde hair, who's a big muscular man that could probably take anyone on and has only few people he's probably afraid of, if any... is looking at me in terror.

He's afraid of me.

My eyes dart to his hand that's older than I remember, wrinkled and barely able to hold any moisture because they've dried so much from age and probably from riding his bike.

"I'm schizophrenic then?"

My crinkled curls fall in front of my face and dad pushes them away. "No, you aren't. I know you've been through a lot tonight and this is hard on you, but understand you aren't schizophrenic."

"How do you know that? You haven't been a part of my life long enough to know that. Why am I taking these pills? Why do I have episodes and why am I hallucinating?" I reveal too much and clamp my mouth shut.

Dad takes a deep breath. "I can't explain, baby, but just trust me okay? Promise to stop taking these. See what happens when they wear off and leave your system."

Looking in his eyes with those aged wrinkles at the corners and his mouth set in a firm line I whisper, "Dump them."

Dad kisses my forehead and whispers against it, "Thank you."