Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
“If he really needed them so badly, why didn’t his doctor prescribe them for him?”
“You’d think someone would’ve, right?” Luca draws a deep breath. He blinks and gazes at me with sad eyes. Obviously, losing Peter has been hard on him, too.
“He, uh . . . When a nurse asked him about history of drug abuse, Peter made the mistake of telling her the truth. That, I guess, put him on a list of ‘drug-seeking’ patients,” Luca says, drawing air quotes with his fingers. He tells me his story slowly, like he’s telling me some kind of a twisted bed-time story.
“When he told them he wasn’t getting enough drugs to manage his pain, they didn’t believe him, even though he could hardly sleep. He’d ask them for medication, and they’d tell him to wait fifteen minutes, but they’d never come back with it. He’d watch the clock and keep asking every fifteen minutes anyway.
“Those dumbasses had no idea Peter had a high tolerance of pain medication because of his history, so they should’ve given him more. Instead, when the hospital told him to go home, they gave him even less because they were scared he was going to abuse his medication.
“Well, guess what he did when he was home and overcome with pain in the middle of the night?” Luca asks, his deep voice shaking with anger.
“He took the drugs that belonged to the clinic,” I answer.
My heart squeezes with every little detail of the story. I can imagine Peter stumbling down the stairs, grunting with pain in the dark, and finally finding relief after downing some pills.
“Yeah,” Luca says. “I tried to talk some sense into the people at the hospital, but they wouldn’t listen to me. It was like they wanted to punish Peter for having had addiction issues in the past.”
“Wow. I don’t know what to say . . . I . . . Are you sure the hospital wasn’t giving him the medication he needed? I find that hard to believe.”
“I overheard the nurses saying they were going to dry him out.” Luca pauses. “They denied it, of course. But I know what I heard.”
I put my hand over my mouth and try not to hyperventilate.
“I couldn’t have told Peter not to self-medicate,” Luca says. “After his frustration dealing with the hospital? I couldn’t be yet another person keeping him in pain. And pain wasn’t the only thing he was dealing with. He was scared, too.”
I nod as tears sting my eyes. I wouldn’t have been able to stop Peter either.
“I tried to get him to work out a dosage and let me control how much he took, but he started building resistance to the medication. He needed more and more to cope with the pain, and the whole thing fell apart.
“Maybe I should’ve taken all the pills away, but I couldn’t watch him suffer. He was sweating bullets. Cold sweat. And he kept making these . . . noises.” Luca looks into my eyes and says, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get so graphic.”
“No, no. I want to hear everything.” Tears roll down my cheeks.
“When Peter told you not to come home, he was already addicted to pain medication. Like I said, he didn’t want you to find out about it. But now I’ve broken my promise to him and told you anyway . . .” Guilt fills Luca’s eyes. “He asked me to do some things that weren’t quite right. But it wasn’t black and white, and I chose to listen to my best friend’s last requests.”
I nod. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I should be angry at Peter, at Luca, at the hospital staff, or at anyone. Nobody’s completely innocent, but nobody’s completely guilty either.
“I found some pill bottles in your bag,” I tell Luca. “I found them when I was at your tattoo parlor. By accident. I was trying to get something, but I dropped some other things instead.”
Luca pauses. “That’s why you left,” he says, as if he’s just solved a puzzle.
“Yeah. I thought you were stealing from me . . . Were you?” I hold my breath as I wait for his answer.
“No.” As Luca shakes his head, thunder rolls outside. “Peter told me the clinic could lose its license if anyone found out about the missing drugs, so he made me promise to replace whatever he took.”
“So the bottles in your bag . . .”
“The pills in those bottles were fake.” Luca nods. “Sugar pills. Peter put them back on the shelves himself.”
“And you replaced them with new ones.”
“Yeah. I got some stuff from the streets.”
“Is that why my mom calls you a dealer and a junkie?” I ask.
“She may have seen me talking to a shady guy when we were exchanging goods.”
“Does she know about Peter’s addiction?”