Finn looked at her with eyes full of desperation.
‘What is it?’ she said.
And for a moment, just a moment, it looked like he was about to tell her something. Something that would change everything. A confession, perhaps. Instead, he smiled with one half of his mouth and put his hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t worry about me, Kel. Just pass your exam tomorrow. That’s all you have to do.’
Kelly’s throat constricted. Her eyes moistened. ‘Just one more day, old friend. Just hold on for one more day.’ She leaned down to kiss his forehead and his comforting, familiar smell overwhelmed her. How easy it would be to fall into his embrace. To press her body against his own as though they were one entity. Kelly and Finn, the warriors who would take on the world together.
But she couldn’t. It was probably more dangerous now than ever. So she stood up, crossed to her own bed and slipped under the sheets with her back to him. ‘Goodnight, Finn,’ she whispered.
‘Goodnight, Kel.’
Despite all the pressure of her past, present and future, Kelly fell immediately into the death-like embrace of exhausted sleep. She was sinking within a breath, drowning within two and completely submerged within three. There were no dreams. Only darkness.
Chapter Forty-five
Finn was sweating from the exertion of remaining still. His whole body was supercharged, every neuron screaming at him to get up out of bed and feed the beast. Instead, he continued to lay on his covers with his legs crossed at the ankles, shoulders propped up on a few pillows as he pretended to watch television. He had his AirPods in, but they weren’t connected. He needed to be able to hear Kelly’s breathing.
To his immense relief, she seemed to fall almost immediately asleep. Finn recognised the drop into long, deep breaths with extended breaks in between that he had listened to on so many nights before this one. When Kelly started twitching – a shudder of the shoulders, a jab of an arm, a jerk of a leg – he knew it was safe.
All the same, he slid excruciatingly slowly off the bed, tiptoeing on the carpet to make as little noise as possible. He closed the bathroom door with the handle down and gently released the mechanism so it would slide noiselessly into its slot. He risked the seemingly cacophonous snip of the bathroom lock and, when he didn’t hear movement on the other side of the door, knew he hadn’t woken her.
Finn flicked on the lights under the mirror, snatched the plastic bag from the waistband of his jeans, where it had remained since the exchange, and laid it out on the bathroom counter. The marble was clean and smooth and perfect for cutting coke. He didn’t have his regular mirror or straw, so improvised with a twenty dollar note. His nose burned at the inhalation and he collapsed onto the toilet seat, breathing heavily as he waited for the drugs to enter his bloodstream.
It took less than a minute for the ecstasy to flow. He almost laughed with blessed relief and had to clasp his hand over his mouth to stop himself. He stood up, again strong and brave and assured. He wanted to wake Kelly and tell her everything. How much he missed her. How much he loved her. How sorry he was for all that he had done. Even in his super-charged state, though, he knew that was a bad idea.
The coke had dispelled his anxiety and he could finally think clearly enough to plan his day tomorrow. He had loosely understood that he needed to return to Melbourne by late morning so that he could make the audition on time. Then, as soon as it was over, he’d be on a plane back to Newcastle to meet Kelly at the hospital. Her exams took the entire day and, though she had a break in the middle, she’d said she needed to stay in the zone so she couldn’t meet him for lunch.
Finn hadn’t told Kelly about his plans, of course. He couldn’t burden her with his concerns. And she’d probably tell him not to make all that effort on her part. Not to fly back to pick her up. But that simply wasn’t an option for Finn now. He was never letting her go again.
He scrolled effortlessly on his phone, booking plane tickets, filling out the forms, making the payments. He had to remind himself to blink and, each time he did, his eyes stung like he’d opened them in the surf. When he was done, Finn was still so buzzed that he knew sleep would be an impossibility, at least without help. He opened the plastic bag and popped out two of the pills that rattled around loosely beside smaller sealed bags of white powder.
As he filled a glass with water and placed the benzos on his tongue, a voice deep inside his mind shouted that this was a dangerous practice, combining the two drugs, but he had no choice. He had to sleep, and he had to be rid of the crippling fear and paranoia. Only the drugs could help him now.
When Finn lay down to sleep, his mind was a maelstrom of euphoria and depression. Elation and despair. Heaven and Hell. His head was heavy, but his heart was light. For she was there, just across the room. They were together again.
The unbearable weight of joy and sorrow overwhelmed him.
Finn closed his concrete eyelids and fell into the abyss.
Chapter Forty-six
Kelly suspected Finn was high. He’d been energetic, enthusiastic and optimistic all morning, and the hotel coffee wasn’tthatgood.
But there was nothing she could do about it, so she simply muted the voice of concern that whispered coldly in her ear. This was it. She had to get through her exam. Finn had to get through one more day. Then she could rescue him from this crippling addiction that had taken hold of his life.
One more day.
They took an Uber to the hospital and Finn insisted on walking Kelly in. She’d been going to refuse until she looked at the automatic glass doors and thought about everything that lay beyond them. She took Finn’s hand and they walked towards her destiny.
Finn stood quietly behind her as she checked in, showed her ID, filled out the requisite paperwork and was directed to a waiting room, where she would be called for her first case. At 9:30 a.m. precisely, she would be given one hour to examine her patient. Then she would have ten minutes to prepare her findings, before presenting to the examiners for twenty-five minutes. Years and years of training. Thousands of hours of study. And it all came down to twenty-five minutes. After that, she would have an eight-minute break, be given two minutes to read the brief clinical background for her short case and then have fifteen minutes to review the patient in front of the examiners.
This pattern would repeat across the day and, by five p.m. precisely, she would have completed four short and two long cases. One hour and fifty minutes in front of the examiners to prove she was good enough to be admitted to the Advanced Training program. One hour and fifty minutes to determine the course of the rest of her life.
If it wasn’t already over.
It was 9:15 a.m. Kelly’s leg shook as she and Finn sat beside each other in silence in the waiting room. The plastic seat was uncomfortable and her lower back ached, but Kelly didn’t move. She feared that if she stood up, she’d walk straight out the door and never come back.
