"Yes, sweetheart. You're home. Now, I need you to drink this tea, baby. It'll warm you up and you definitely need to be warmer," she gently urged the younger woman. Dane groaned, but she didn't say anything. "Here, it's not that hot." Nicole put the mug to Dane's dry, cracked lips.
Another groan came from the exhausted woman, but she lifted up to take the warm liquid into her body. After swallowing, she burst into a hacking cough. Nicole put the cup down to pat Dane on the back. As soon as Dane stopped coughing, she waved for the cup to come back. Nicole obliged.
"Yeah, that's helping get the taste of ass out of my mouth," Dane muttered. It sounded like she was talking with a mouth full of rocks. She focused her dull eyes on the floor.
"Ass?" Nicole echoed and she hoped it wasn't meant literally. She might never kiss Dane again.
"It's too bland to compare to garbage, but just as nasty. My mouth's so fucking disgusting. Throwing up would be an improvement," Dane remarked in a low, scratchy tone. Her mouth twitched, as if she was trying to smile, but it wasn't coming. She just looked like she was in intense agony. "Didn't think I'd be able to hold anything down. Stomach in knots. Doesn't like anything besides alcohol."
"Are you okay? Do you want something to eat?" Nicole asked in a rush. She wanted to move in any and every direction in order to bring some comfort to Dane and help her. Underneath the panic, she remembered her own pain, but right now Dane was at the forefront of her mind and would continue to be until she was sure Danny was all right.
"Lemme finish the tea, please," the younger woman requested in a tiny voice.
Nicole nodded and retrieved the mug. She held it to Dane's lips. Shaky hands took the cup, but Nicole kept a grip on it when she noticed some of the tea spilling. She smiled at Dane, whose eyes were still half-lidded and locked on the cup that she was having a problem holding. Dane seemed to be more focused on the tea than anything else.
"Do you want more?" Nicole asked when Dane was done with her beverage. "Should I make you some soup? Do you think you could eat?"
"No, but didn't think I could drink, either," Dane answered honestly. Her voice was clearing up. It no longer sounded like she held stones in her mouth, but her voice was still very small. Her breathing didn't sound very clear, either; each inhale and exhale betrayed how congested she was.
Nicole reached out and gently caressed Danny's cheek. "Well, let's try to get some soup in you. You need to warm up and get that phlegm out of your chest. Do you want another blanket? Make sure you lay down."
Dane shook her head while doing exactly as Nicole told her. Nicole fed Danny some soup, but Dane couldn't finish the whole bowl. Danny fell asleep right after eating. She put a pillow under Dane's head and another blanket on top of her to make sure she was warm. Nicole set herself up for some sleep, camping out on the living room floor in her pajamas. She wanted to be close by in case Danny woke up needing something, or worse—if she tried to sneak out again.
***
Dane's eyes shot open as her bladder demanded to be emptied. She sat up, trying her best to ignore the headache ringing in her ears. The pounding in her head felt like a sledgehammer was being smashed against her forehead. Her entire body throbbed in agony, but she had been ignoring that for days in order to make it through the day. It hurt to breathe, but not as much as before, and it didn't feel like she was drowning anymore. She almost tripped over something that she guessed was a fallen board.
She was about to curse and kick the board when she realized a few things. The first thing was that she was warm and the second thing was that she was naked. She blinked and squinted, attempting to take in her darkened surroundings. She hoped something looked familiar or she recalled where she was. She tried to recollect what happened. Everything was confusing. She needed to stop mixing legal and illegal substances. Everything seemed like a blur to her, past and present, sight and sound. Nothing made sense.
"Nick…" Dane whispered. She remembered hearing Nicole's voice. It was then that her eyes recognized she was in Nicole's living room.
If I'm in the living room, what the hell am I bumping into on the floor? She looked down and could make out a form that she was sure she'd know even if she were blind. A small smile settled onto her weary face.
"Definitely an angel," Dane decided.
She carefully stepped over Nicole and held in a wince as she put her weight on her lame leg. She willed herself to stay on her feet even though her leg was begging to stop supporting her. Gritting her teeth together, she suppressed a pained groan and slowly exhaled to ease the agony, only to have mucus caught in her throat. She shook her head as she realized she was in poor shape.
Little by little, she made her way to the downstairs bathroom and did her business. She washed her face, hoping that it'd make her feel better. Finding that a clean face made her feel almost human, she decided to take it a step further even though her legs wanted to give out. She managed a hot shower, but could only stand for a few minutes. She felt better now that she was clean. She returned to the couch, crawled under the blankets, and went right back to sleep, still wrapped in her towel.
The next time Dane awoke, she heard Nicole speaking in a low tone. She couldn't really make out what was being said, so she didn't bother trying. She glanced around to check her surroundings just to be sure that she was back at Nicole's place. A contented smile worked its way onto her mouth when she was sure she was home. Home… Before Dane's mind could start working and recall why she had left in the first place, her angel appeared before her. Worried eyes fixed onto Dane and for a moment Nicole couldn't speak. Dane couldn't speak, either, so they had a long moment of silence.
"How do you feel?" Nicole whispered. Her voice shook and her bottom lip trembled.
"Like shit, for everything…" Dane admitted looking Nicole in the eye.
Dane couldn't believe how much she screwed up and she doubted she'd ever forgive herself for it. She both hoped and feared Nicole would forgive her. From the deep sorrow that she could see on Nicole's face, Dane wouldn't have been surprised if the redhead put her out. She wondered what she could do to make things up to Nick.
Nicole kept the conversation about Dane and her current condition. "Do you need anything? I'll make you some oatmeal for breakfast with some apple juice, okay? Oatmeal should fill you up without causing your stomach too much distress."
"Sounds good," Dane croaked out before turning her eyes to the floor and looking like her world was about to come to an end. She coughed, rubbing her throat as she did so. "Can I have some headache stuff, too?" she groaned, putting her palm to her forehead.
The redhead nodded. "Sure. I'll try to get something for your cough, too. You need to get that stuff out of your chest. Do you think you're okay to make it upstairs to the bed? I think it might be better for you."
"I'm fine here, but I can probably make it to the bed. Are you sure you want me there?" Dane glanced up at Nicole with a curious glint in her eyes.
"Yes, I want you there." Nicole's eyes spoke even louder than her words, backing up the declaration with honesty so blunt that it struck Dane like a bat.
Dane couldn't believe the response. She climbed to her feet and kept a hold on the blanket, thinking she'd somehow offend Nicole with her nakedness. Nicole didn't say anything about the gesture and watched Dane limp heavily through the room.
"Danny, do you need help getting upstairs?" Nicole asked with concern, tilting her head to regard Danny's leg.
"I'm fine. I think I fell on my leg or something. It's not that bad," Dane answered through gritted teeth. She did her best not to scream in pain with each step. She didn't even have the energy to put on a fake smile. A hacking cough shot out of her mouth and shook her whole body. She worried about keeping herself together.
"I'll bring some ice for your leg and some tissues for you. You need to spit out that junk. Are you sure you can make it upstairs on your own?" Nicole frowned and cocked her head to the side as she examined Danny.
Dane forced out
a smile and nodded, trying her best not to fall to the ground in an agonized heap. She shifted her eyes to the ground, unable to maintain eye contact with Nicole. She limped to the stairs as Nicole made her way to the kitchen. It took Dane several long and excruciating minutes to get to the bedroom and she paused as she stood in the threshold while sweat dripped down her face. Surprisingly, it hurt to breathe more than it hurt to walk and she was ready to pass out from doing both at the same time.
"Danny, are you okay?" Nicole inquired, standing behind Dane with a tray in her hands. It held food, juice, and tissues.
"You shouldn't be helping me…" Dane whispered. A wheeze accompanied the words. She sounded a cross between perplexed and scared. From what she knew about other human beings, Nicole should've left her to die on the lawn.
"Danny, I still love you, no matter what happened or what happens. Now, go lay down on our bed," Nicole gently ordered.
Dane couldn't disobey. She automatically did as she was told and settled down on the bed. Nicole placed the tray down next to the prostrate woman. She moved over to Dane's dresser drawers and pulled out some clothing.
"Do you want to get dressed?" Nicole asked.
"Yes, please," Dane answered in a quiet voice.
Nicole handed the clothing to Dane and turned away, leading Dane to believe she was right in acting so modest about her body. Dane groaned as she tried to lift the shirt over her head, but she managed after a few tense seconds. She slid the shorts on, careful of the tray beside her.
"You can look now," Dane said, eyeing the mattress.
Nicole turned around and walked over to the bed. She checked the tray before sitting down on the empty space at the foot on the bed. She stared at Dane, who continued to gaze at the mattress.
"You should eat," Nicole pressed in a soft tone.
Dane nodded, eyeing the food. It was oatmeal, apple juice, yogurt, and a diced apple. She went for the apples first since there was some steam coming from the oatmeal. She also sipped the apple juice; it was her favorite drink. Nicole fidgeted as she watched Dane slowly eat. As the seconds ticked by it was clear that her anxiety grew exponentially.
"Should I take you to the hospital?"
Dane shook her head. "No insurance. Besides, I'll live."
"Is it okay to talk now?" Nicole asked, biting her lower lip.
"If you want…" Dane answered, eyes remaining on her food. Coughing, she reached for a tissue and spat into it. She tossed the tissue into a wastebasket by the side of the bed.
"Can you look at me while we talk?" Nicole requested with some hope in her voice. She took a deep breath when tired, dull eyes locked onto her form. "Are you really okay?"
"Better than I've been in days," Dane replied in a strong, sincere voice that was also low and scratchy.
Nicole swallowed hard. "What did you do to yourself?" She blatantly gave Dane's body the once-over.
The dirt was gone from Dane's form, but scars remained. There were small cuts and nicks all over her arms. Her legs were the same, and her lame leg was very swollen and discolored. Nicole flinched when she saw it again. She was amazed that the injured limb looked even worse now that it was clean.
"It's bad…" Dane whispered when she saw where Nicole's eyes settled.
"As bad as it looks?" Nicole's voice quivered.
"Hurts a lot. I wasn't sure how much longer it'd last. I just wanted it to bring me home…" Dane choked back a sob, which caused her to cough. The storm in her eyes was ready for a downpour, but she held it together. Everything hurt so much, but right now everything felt infinitely better. She wanted to focus on the present while she still had it instead of crying over the past and possibly mourning the future she could've had. So she finished coughing, used a tissue, and turned her attention back to Nicole.
Nicole nodded absently. "Well, you're home now, Danny. I'll take care of you…if you let me."
A tear rolled down Dane's cheek. "I will."
"Good, because I took off a day from work to pamper you and nurse you back to health. Depending on how things go, I might take tomorrow off, too. Now, back to my question, what did you do to yourself? Last night, you said you were high or drunk or both. Are you using and drinking again, Danny?" Nicole eyes flashed mixed with fury and worry.
Dane glanced away, looking as ashamed as she felt. "I just…I just wanted it to stop hurting…"
The sobs wanted to escape again, but she swallowed them. It made her words shake and her mouth trembled while her heart clenched in her chest over and over again. She wondered if she might actually be having a heart attack.
"Wanted what to stop hurting?" Nicole moved closer to the younger woman.
"I wanted the pain of being away from you to go away. For the first week, I was able to drown it out, ignore it, use music to cover it up…" Dane emotions threatened to choke her again. Her entire jaw shook and a few tears fell. She wiped the tears away before running her shaky hand through her hair three times. "…But, dammit, by the second week, it felt like my whole life had fallen apart. This was worse than when I figured out I couldn't play my guitar the way I used to. I thought I’d die then, but this was truly like dying a million painful deaths. I…I just needed something to take the pain away."
"So, you turned to drugs and alcohol?" Nicole huffed. Opening her mouth, she looked ready to erupt. Instead, drawing in a deep breath, she composed herself. Her expression and body language softened. She moved even closer to Dane.
A shaky dark hand traversed tangled ebony locks again and more tears silently fell. "I wanted something…something to make you go away. Something to forget how you felt in my arms…" She wiped her eyes and hid her face in her hands. She then suddenly wrapped her arms around her body as if she were cold. "…Something to forget how you touched me and how it felt to touch you. Just something to forget. It used to work…" Her face scrunched up. Her eyes frantically searched the air, looking for nothing. She put both hands through her hair and started pulling it.
Nicole quickly took one of Dane's hands in her own and regarded Danny with soft, tender eyes. "When you used before? When you were younger?" she asked in a gentle tone, distracting Dane from hurting herself anymore.
Dane nodded and rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand. "Yes. It worked then, but then again, it really just gave me another outlet for my emotions. When I wasn't fucked up in some fashion, I could get my emotions out through my music. When I was fucked up, it let my emotions come out… or so I'm told…hard to remember sometimes. The emotions weren't nice. I was angry, all the time. This time, I wasn't angry. I was…"
"You were?" Nicole prompted, pressing Danny's hand to remind the younger woman that she was still there.
"Sad." The short, simple word summed up her feelings best. Being away from Nicole was just sad. It was a perpetual type of sadness, dark despair that things would never get better and it ate away at all that was inside of her. Only one thing could fill that void: the one thing that she had walked away from and felt she needed to stay away from. "I kept crying, Nick. Crying for you, for me, for us, for everything we were and everything we'd never be. It killed me every second, every moment. It just kept killing me."
Dane clutched her chest and patted over her heart. She sounded like she was crying, but there were no tears falling. Another cough interrupted her, but it didn't keep her from revealing her odyssey to the redhead.
"Then I just thought I wasn't fucked up enough, so I'd do more drugs or drink more, but I just kept crying, kept being sad. No amount of liquor or weed could stop the tears."
"Weed? Is that the drug you did?"
Dane licked her chapped lips. "Couldn't touch anything else, no matter how sad I got. I just…couldn't." I couldn't disappoint you like that.
"I'm glad for that. You didn't totally ruin your time sober. We can work on this little backslide," Nicole encouraged.
Dane let out a hollow laugh and shook her head, disappointed in herself. "Funny thing is I left here because I was scared that I'd
start using again, that I'd get angry with you sometime."
"But, you weren't angry when you were high this time."
Dane ran her hand went through her hair before settling to massage her forehead. "Wasn't something I planned on, but now that I think about it, I just never really have a reason to be angry with you over anything. Being apart from you is just endless sorrow, complete and total depression. I don't want to be apart from you anymore. I hadn't wanted it since the night I left."
"Yet you managed to stay away for three fucking weeks," Nicole finally snapped. Her eyes flared with rage and her jaw tensed. A vein on the side of her head poked up from her skin.
Grey eyes looked off to the left and her voice was contrite. "I know. You should be pissed at me, but I thought it'd be better for you. Last night, I gave in under a fog of a four-day bender with no sleep. The sorrow was too much and my mind forced my body to go where the suffering would end. The only thing I remember from yesterday was thinking, 'I wanna go home. I hafta go home.'"
"It took you that long to realize how much you wanted to be with me?" Nicole demanded, tears welling up in her eyes now. "That long," she roared.
She reached up and grabbed Danny by the chin, forcing the musician to look at her. Dane flinched, seeing the depth of torment and suffering clouding usually lively, laughing eyes. Dane was so ashamed to know she was the one that put the hurt there, but she dared not look away. More tears burned down Dane's cheeks, brushing across Nicole's fingers. Dane tried to talk, but a guttural sob shook her
"I knew I wanted to be with you before we even kissed. I stayed away, thinking it'd be best for you. I wanted to spare you having to deal with me when I finally fell. I told you, I've been misrepresenting myself to you. Eventually, the old Dane was gonna come back. She would've hurt you."
Nicole's fingers clutched Dane's face to the point of pain and her usual soft, gentle voice came out as a booming yell. "You already hurt me. When you left, it hurt. It hurts all the way down to my core. I hurt in places I didn't know existed." Nicole flung Dane's face away from her and used the hand to hold her chest. "I hurt all over, everyday, all the time because you were gone." A vein in her neck popped up, joining the throbbing one on the side of Nicole's head.
Scarred for Life Page 35