BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 33

WEDNESDAY
24 OCTOBER, 1990
DORIAN

               I manoeuvre the door open with my elbow and wedge myself between it so it doesn't shut. 'Lucky for you, Alicia was working today so I got a whole tray–' It almost slips from my hold. 'Shay?'

Isaiah doesn't try to answer. To a stranger, he might look sound asleep — he's almost exactly where I left him: sprawled on his stomach with one knee bent to parallel his bent elbow — but his fingers have the whisper of a tremble in them. His muscles, stretched like clingfilm over bone, are too tight for sleep.

I slide the tray onto my desk and drop to my knees beside the bed. 'Shay?'

I seize his backpack only for confusion to stop me in my tracks. The moment I've unzipped it, dirtied pages gush out. They spawn endlessly like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat and I feel like I've scooped forever when I finally find half of Joseph Brodsky's Collected Poems on top of his balled-up uniform (Why is it so messy? You never shove things into your bag like this, like I do).

I'm about to ask when I remember my mission. I gouge his clothes onto the floor to finally unearth his medicine bag which I open so harshly, I nearly break the zipper. Temazepam, diazepam, pregabalin. Even when I've dumped all the packets onto the worn carpet, there's no sign of the glass bottle I'm looking for.

'Where's your codeine?'

Isaiah lifts a single finger to point at a packet of paracetamol I've tossed aside in my search. 'Just give me two of those.'

But it won't help! Paracetamol will be as effective as a plaster on a stab wound. 'Where's your codeine?'

'My muma used it.'

'What do you mean your mum used it?'

'She used it.'

Realisation dawns on me. I don't give myself time to dwell on it. 'Okay, I'll take the coach to town and get some more from the chemist–'

'I get one refill a month. I can't tell them; they could ring NSPCC.'

His features crack with agony. It might be expected that he would contort and scream — I'm sure he is, internally — but even the expression of pain will cause him more, so he has to retain an appearance of absolute calm (I hate that you're so good at it, you shouldn't have to be). It's his fingers that give him away, the way his knuckles strain.

I check for codeine a final time before I grab the paracetamol, his diazepam too, and rush to the sink in the corner of my room to fill a glass of water. I fetch a straw, then leave everything on my desk.

I stroke his temple. 'This might hurt,' I warn, as if he doesn't know.

And it does hurt. He manages only a feeble whimper when I hoist his arm over my shoulder but the sound strikes a ravine through my chest, breaching both my lungs to be flooded with water. Still, I have to sit him against the wall. He told me six years ago he prefers it like that, for pain to be delivered in one hard blow rather than consistent jabs — rip off the plaster at once.

I fetch the glass of water and paracetamol, pop two into my hand, and climb onto the bed beside him. I cup on the back of his neck for support as he bends his head to get the pills down which takes several attempts — there's a reason he's prescribed liquid codeine.

He stops drinking when the glass is half-empty, not because he's no longer thirsty but because he becomes too fatigued to swallow.

I return to the basin to get his toothbrush. Isaiah crashes here often enough for me to keep one for him beside mine. His orange, mine blue. With it, I straddle his lap, careful to keep my weight on my heels and not his legs. 'Aeroplane's coming.'