-7-

Ash made a dash for the house and the bedroom the moment they docked back at Spook’s place. He’d had plenty of time to stew and make plans on the journey home, and none of those plans involved sitting down for some circle time with the guys. They might be his best mates in all the world, his family in a sense, but this wasn’t the sort of issue that was going to be solved by a chat. His health was his responsibility, and right now that meant saying no to all the shite he’d been handed recently. He wasn’t buying into it any longer.

He was vaguely aware of Ginny on his heels, at least until they reached the house. Then she got entrapped by the tangle of limbs in the lounge. Ash refused to be tripped or snarled or otherwise enmeshed. He headed straight through. They could all sit around and talk later, laugh and reminisce about how close they’d come to the end of everything once he’d fixed things—fixed himself. That started with taking charge of his own care. He banged his way into the en suite bathroom. Ginny had unpacked all his medication into neat little rows on the shelf above the sink, alongside a laminated list of when he was supposed to take each pill. Ash swiped at the horrid brown bottles, sweeping them from the shelf and sending them flying in multiple directions. They tasted like shit and they were doing shit. The only thing that mattered was being able to play guitar, and not one of the vast array of pharmaceuticals here was capable of making that happen, therefore there was no point in them.

He’d never wanted to take any of them anyway, but there’d been no avoiding it in the hospital. Not when they stood over you until you fucking swallowed. It wasn’t just the crap he’d gone through post Connie he was reliving as he snatched up the first of the pill bottles from where it had landed in the sink and upended its contents into the toilet bowl, it was dozens upon dozens of old wounds. Watching the woman who’d brought him into the world swallow shiny white smarties every morning at daybreak, and again in the afternoon. The sweet, tart taste of medicine doled out on a plastic spoon the moment his pyjamas were on. One for you. And one for his big brother. Sleep well, my little princes.

Ash retrieved the second bottle from the bottom of the bathtub, and then the third from off the floor under the towel rail. He mixed them all into a nice effervescent cocktail that steamed like something Mr. Potter or one of his friends might make.

The fourth fucker, he couldn’t get the lid off thanks to his shitty fingers refusing to co-operate, so he slammed the whole damned thing down the crapper and flushed.

When the water stilled again, it had only removed a fraction of the white nightmares, and the unopened bottle bobbed on the surface, mocking him like the sort of enormous flinty graveller you got after a three-day music fest. Lord knows why they floated, but they always did.

“Ash. I know you don’t want to, but I really think we ought to talk?” The bathroom door smacked against his back, jolting him forward so that he bit his tongue and nearly plunged head first into the bowl with all the shit. “Sorry.” Ginny squeezed through the gap between the door and the frame to stand beside him. It wasn’t a big space, even once the door was shut again, so she was near skin to skin with him. “What are you doing in here?”

It took her about thirty seconds to work it out.

Ash watched her reflection in the mirror, as her mouth dropped open and horror made the whisky-gold of her eyes brighten. Check. Nothing on the shelf. Check: Nothing in the bin. Check… She bent over towards the toilet. “Oh Jeezus, no! You have got to be fucking kidding me. All your medication! Everything?”

“Yeah,” he replied, unable to stop a smirk from curling up the corners of his mouth.

Ginny’s expression scrunched into one of confusion. “Ash, what are you playing at? Why would you do this? You need this stuff to help you get better.”

But he didn’t. All the pills did was numb him. They provided a mask, not a cure by blocking the receptors that told his brain it hurt. The other shit was more of the same.

“They don’t help, and I’m not fucking taking them.” He was so done with blindly obeying medical practitioners. They didn’t know him. They didn’t care to know him. Therefore, how could they possibly know what was in his best interests? All they did was make sweeping judgements and sign open-ended cheques to the drug companies.

“Christ!” She covered her eyes with one splayed hand. “This is madness, Ash. I just don’t understand… I mean, I do. I get it that you’re upset. You’ve had some shitty news right on top of what was already a grim situation, but this,” she waved towards the toilet. “This is self-sabotage. Don’t you want to be well?”

Of course he did. That’s exactly why he was taking matters into his own hands.

Ash flushed the toilet again, before Ginny got any ideas about trying to rescue stuff. “Ginny, all the pills do is switch off parts of my brain. I happen to think there’s enough of it not working properly already.”

“But what about the icicles in your fingers? What happens the next time you have the sort of spasm that leaves you curled up in agony?”

“I’ll deal.” He’d only swallowed a fraction of the number of pills she’d thought he’d taken anyway. “Ginny, I’m not interested in being numb.”

He’d been there before, and he wasn’t going back, not when rock bottom was right around the corner. It didn’t matter how many times Spook and Xane reassured him otherwise, he knew his days with Black Halo were numbered if he couldn’t fix himself. Six months would pass in the blink of an eye, and in reality it was closer to five. If he couldn’t tour, then they’d cut him from the line-up. That, or the band would break up. Regardless of which scenario it was, he’d end up stuffed. The other guys would move on to new bands and new projects, but he’d probably have to go crawling back to academia and become a professor or something. That was the only other possibility besides guitarist he could do with his set of qualifications.

And honestly, he didn’t much fancy it. He liked life on the road, and touring, and being screamed over. He was pretty sure no one would do that over a study about some obscure bit of social history.

“I still say this is insane.”

“Why is it insane not to want to fill my body with crap?”

She was still eyeing the brown floater. Ash slammed down the lid and planted his arse on top of it. He hit the flush again.

Ginny shook her head. “I’m not convinced you’ve thought this through. You’ve had a shock and you’re just reacting.” She speared him with her gaze. “Maybe the doc was right, and you do need to speak to someone.”

Spook had obviously relayed the whole encounter.

“She only said that because she thinks I deliberately overmedicated. Are you saying that’s what you think too?”

Ginny covered her mouth, and turned away from him, as though she intended to pace, only there wasn’t space. Half a step and she was by the door. Her hand stalled upon the handle, and she looked back at him over her shoulder. “No, that isn’t what I think. I know Iain was responsible. Anyone who knows you knows the truth. No one thinks you’re a druggie, Ash.”

Except for the half of the world that absolutely did. They’d read it was so in the newspapers.

Ginny turned, putting her back to the door. “Look, is this what this is about? Do you imagine we’re all judging you? That’s not the case.” Her expression softened. “All any of us want is for you to recover.”

She rubbed her hand across her face as if consumed by sudden weariness. Then she went back into the bedroom. Ash followed after a couple of seconds had passed. He found her sitting on the edge of the daybed, staring out of the window at the middle-distance.

“I can look into other means of controlling the spasms,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“And I can work at the guitar. It’ll be like when I was first teaching myself, and I was trying to convince my folks to send me for proper lessons.”

She nodded, but it was crazy obvious that she didn’t put any faith in his plans.

Ash hung back from the bed a way, not sure what to do or say to make her understand. This was the only option he had. He had to take control of the situation, instead of drifting along, being told what to do by one person after another. Black Halo was his life. Without it, he was nothing, and that meant he’d cling on as hard as he possibly could. Why couldn’t she grasp that’s what his actions were aimed at accomplishing? They weren’t simply a by-product of rage.

It took a couple more minutes for him to realise that she only had half the story. Crazy that two people could be in a relationship for months and not be aware of the critical aspects of a person’s life. He guessed that highlighted how shallow their relationship was. He could pinpoint every pleasure-point on her body, but he couldn’t tell you her parent’s names, or the name of the guy she’d been the most serious about in the past. The one who’d abandoned her.

Likewise, her knowledge about his past was also lacking.

He just didn’t enjoy talking about that stuff. Only sometimes…sometimes, you had to offer people a glimpse so that they could grasp the bigger picture.

Aw-shit! He didn’t want to, but he guessed they had to do this now.