Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
When Finn just looked at me, I continued. “He loved mountain biking. A few months after Nicky was born, he had an accident. Went over his handlebars on a downhill and shattered his collarbone.”
I barely remember that time. Nicky still wasn’t sleeping through the night, and Oliver needed constant care. Those months had passed in a haze of fatigue, my heart swinging from the joy of Nicky to terror as Oliver fell further and further away from me.
“Lydia moved in. Oliver’s mother. I was grateful for her help, but in the end—” The backs of my eyes prickled, but I didn’t allow them to form into tears. No. I was done crying for him.
“He was taking too many pills. I tried to stop him. His doctors wanted him to switch to ibuprofen, but Oliver said the pain was too much, and Lydia backed him up. It took months longer than it should have, but eventually he was functioning again. He got off the pills, and Lydia went home.”
I fell silent, caught in memories. I’d hoped once Lydia was gone, Oliver would jump into parenting with me. We had this amazing little miracle of a baby, and he’d missed most of his first year.
Looking back, I’d never been lonelier than the first two years of Nicky’s life. Hoping, always hoping things would change. Hoping I’d get my husband back. Hoping he’d be the father he’d always planned on being. But I wasn’t telling Finn that part. I could barely think about it, even after all this time.
“And then?” Finn prompted.
“And then he had another accident on his bike. His collarbone again. There were multiple surgeries. More pills. So many bottles of pills.”
I sighed. I still flinched when I saw an orange bottle with a white cap. I hated the sight of any prescription bottle. They’d stolen my husband, one little white pill at a time.
“At first they were his pills, prescribed by his doctors. When they refused to give him any more, Lydia took him to her orthopedist, who wrote him prescriptions for a while. And then there weren’t any more prescriptions, but the pills kept coming.”
“So she enabled him, and he OD’d?” Finn’s face was blank. No compassion. No judgment.
It was exactly what I needed. I was so tired of the pity, of the stares.
“He got some pills laced with too much fentanyl. I warned him. After doctors started clamping down on opiate prescriptions, demand on the street increased, and fentanyl started getting into everything. His tolerance had gotten so high, and he wasn’t careful.” I gave a helpless shrug. “He’d pop a few pills, not even really knowing what they were, and then he’d have a bourbon. Then another. One day he had one too many, and he didn’t wake up.”
I jolted when Finn dropped into the chair on the other side of the table, bracing his forearms on the surface, his eyes heavy with understanding. “I know all about that shit. I lost a good friend the same way. Fucking fentanyl.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing how useless those words felt. I’d heard them so many times. But they were all I had to offer, so I said them anyway.
Finn nodded his acceptance. “There are drugs everywhere in kitchens. Fast-paced, tons of pressure. Coke and amphetamines to keep you sharp, then something else to take you back down. Alcohol, pills, heroin.” He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I lost more friends to heroin than anything else.”
“You?” I asked, even though it was none of my business.
Finn’s mouth quirked in a smile that was somehow sheepish and devilish at the same time. “Not for long. When I started, I was too scared to try anything. I needed my job. Then, when I knew I could find work and I realized no one cared what I put up my nose or in my veins as long as I got the job done, I tried everything. You knew me back then.” He gave that shrug I wasn’t hating as much as I used to. “I’d do anything. My roomate got into heroin big time. It was cheap, and his girl dumped him, and he got sucked in.”
“Did he—?” I didn’t have to finish the question. None of this fit with the picture I’d had in my head of Finn as a cook.
“I don’t know. I got out of there. The place we worked was a pressure cooker. Everyone was on something. The head chef was a psycho, but he’d built a reputation for the place, and it was enough to get me an offer for another restaurant with a chef I wanted to work with. I left and didn’t look back. I’m glad I was there, though. I learned a lot about the job and what I want from it. And what I don’t.”