Between Here and the Horizon(41)

The hangover to end all hangovers.

That’s what they were going to have to put down on the cause of death section of my death record. Because this hangover wasn’t just a hangover. It was brutal. Vicious. Personally wanted me to suffer. And boy, was I suffering.

“Here. Take these.” Rose held out two small white pills, and I tossed them back without even asking what they were. She wasn’t the type to keep random, unmarked pills in her purse, so I knew they couldn’t be too bad. Chugging the glass of water she handed me to wash them down, I felt my gag reflexes stretching their legs again. I’d already thrown up once. I wasn’t really looking forward to doing it again. I lay back on the bed, the back of my hand resting against my forehead like some medieval damsel in distress, and Amie snickered under her breath. I cracked an eyelid open.

“What are you giggling at, you little monster?”

She grinned, burying her face into the mattress next to me. She was sprawled out on her front beside me, wearing an oversized t-shirt of Ronan’s that scraped the floor whenever she stood up. “You,” she informed me. “You’re making funny noises.”

She was referring to my groaning; every few seconds it felt very necessary to groan as loud and as long as I could manage. “I’m not feeling well. I’m allowed to make funny noises.”

“She had too much to drink,” Connor added. Slowly, in tiny increments, Connor was coming back to life after Ronan’s death. He still played the part of angry little boy very well, but he actually responded when you spoke to him now, and this morning he’d voluntarily followed Amie into my room and parked himself in the chair by the window, book in hand. Rose had stopped by to return some salad bowls I’d loaned her from the house for the party and found me miserably trying to make them breakfast. Packing me back off to bed, she’d fed the kids and brought me some dried toast, though I hadn’t touched it. Just the smell was making me feel nauseous.

“Daddy drank too much sometimes,” Amie said.

“He’d go running in the park,” Connor added. “He said it helped him feel better.”

The prospect of walking anywhere, let alone running, made me want to retch. “I think I’ll just wait here until the room stops spinning if that’s okay with you guys.”

Amie patted my hair with a sticky hand. “You want pancakes? Pancakes always make me feel better.”

“I don’t think pancakes are gonna cut it this time, monster.” Amie looked horrified, like she couldn’t imagine a reality where this might possibly be true. Rose, on the other hand, looked like she sympathized all too well. I reached out and took her hand in mine. “Thank you. You drank twice as much as me so I have no idea how you’re functioning right now, but I’m very grateful.”

“You’re welcome. What with the crappy weather and the short days, we’re all professional drinkers here. Stay too long and your tolerance will go through the roof, trust me.” Rose gave my hand a squeeze and smiled. “All right, you two. Let’s give Ophelia an hour or so to sleep, and we’ll go see if we can find any cool games to play in the cupboards. How about that?”

Amie squealed with excitement. Connor kept quiet, but he got up out of the chair, hugging his book to his chest, and dutifully followed after Rose as she exited the room. He paused in the doorway, looking back at me over his shoulder.

“Dad used to drink coffee with a raw egg in it, too. He always said that helped.”

The advice was almost enough to send me rushing to the bathroom, hand clamped over my mouth, but I smiled and thanked him instead. A very short time ago, he would have said something scathing and enjoyed the fact that I was feeling shitty. Deflecting his anger toward Ronan onto me, and anyone else around him, had been a coping mechanism for him for so long. Dr. Fielding had said to give it some time, and there had been days over the past month when I thought he was never going to soften towards me, but gradually, slowly, it looked like Connor might be letting people in again.

Sleep wouldn’t come. I tried to get comfortable in the bed, but it was futile. I felt like my bones were locked in their joints, my skin prickly and uncomfortable. After spinning around, getting tangled up in my sheets for what felt like a ridiculously long time, I gave up altogether and reached out for my nightstand—for Magda’s journal.

Again, the need to read it was tempting. If I just gave in and read the entries in the journal, I’d have a direct line into the past. I’d know exactly what went down between Ronan, Sully and Magda, and I’d finally know why.

But still…

It just felt wrong.

I finally dozed off, holding the journal in my hands. An hour later, Amie screamed with delight downstairs, waking me from fuzzy, uncomfortable dreams, and the guilt began to sink in. I was the shittiest guardian ever. If Sheryl knew I’d gotten drunk while Connor and Amie were being taken care of by a babysitter, she’d have them bundled up and on that boat and back to the mainland in a heartbeat.

Never again. They were my responsibility now. I might not be able to take care of them for longer than six months, and I might not be able to persuade their uncle to take care of them, but I owed it to them to take care of them properly while they were still my wards. No more drinking. No more lying in bed, licking my wounds.

I threw back the covers and proceeded to get dressed, all the while trying to shake off the conundrum that was Sully Fletcher. He was an enigma that I couldn’t afford to waste any more time on right now. Or at least for today. However, as I ran down the stairs, feeling marginally better than I did when I woke up, his face was still front and center of my mind.