Unmedicated
Chapter 1
“She’s not in, you know.” The smug, gloating tone in Debbie’s voice irritated Ian, but he did his best not to show it as he turned away from Mel’s door to face her obnoxious neighbour. She leaned against the wall, her customary sneer giving the impression that she was looking down on him even though he was the taller by almost a foot.
“I wouldn’t have knocked if I’d known she was out, would I?”
“Well, obviously any remotely sensible person wouldn’t have, but since it was you…” She smirked up at him. “She had to go home for the weekend. A family emergency. And she didn’t tell you.” The last four words came out in the sing-song cadence of a playground taunt.
What is her problem? This is university, not primary school!
Ian tore a page from his notebook and wrote Mel a brief note expressing his sympathies and indicating his willingness to help if there was anything he could do. For a moment he contemplated the possibility that she might want comforting once she was back, and then he felt ashamed of himself for even thinking of taking advantage of whatever had happened.
With a scowl he folded the note in half, and then shoved it under Mel’s door, making sure that it went all the way through to reduce the risk of Debbie filching and destroying it. He couldn’t prove that she was the one to blame for past communications going astray, but after the disappearance of a previous message had messed up a planned trip to the cinema, the grin he’d seen on her nasty little face had been just that bit too knowing.
He prepared to leave, noted that the way she was leaning almost blocked the corridor. “Excuse me, please.”
She sniffed disdainfully, and then pressed herself flat against the wall, leaving more than enough space for him to pass.
”Thank you.” He kept an eye at ground level in case she tried putting out a foot to trip him up.
Just after he’d passed her, she spoke again. “Oh, by the way…”
He paused, took a deep breath, looked back over his shoulder at her. “Yes?”
“I think I heard Lynn say something about wanting a word with you.”
“Er, thanks.” He went on his way.
Ian decided to go and find out what Lynn wanted before heading back to his digs. It wasn’t much of a detour, as her room was only a couple of floors up on the other side of the hall.
He knocked and, after a few seconds, the door opened.
“Oh, hi, Ian. What brings you here?”
Not the reaction of someone who was expecting him. Had Debbie’s message been some kind of prank? If so, it was a pretty weak one, as Lynn gave no indication of being displeased at seeing him. Still, best to explain, in case this was just part of the set-up for something more malicious.
“Debbie said you wanted a word?”
Lynn’s pale blue eyes went distant for a moment. “I don’t remember saying anything like that when she came over the other night… but it’s nice to see you anyway. Want to come in for a tea and a chat?”
“If I won’t be interrupting anything.”
“Nothing I wouldn’t mind an excuse to put off.” She stepped back, pulling the door wide open.
As she busied herself with the kettle and mugs, she asked, “Did you hear about Melanie?”
“A little.” He settled into the beanbag. “No details.”
“Her parents got raided by the Drug Squad this morning.”
“What?”
“I know. It’s crazy. Hard to imagine them with anything harder than aspirin. ’Cept now her mum’s had to be prescribed tranquilisers after having a bunch of policemen kick in their front door while she was cooking breakfast.”
He shook his head. “Any idea how it happened? Did they have the wrong house number or something?”
She shook her head and handed over a mug. “Her dad didn’t say. More concerned about how freaked out her mum was.”
“I’ll bet. Poor Mrs Daynes.” He tried to remember what he’d written in the note he’d left, hoping that there was nothing that might seem insensitive.
Clearly wanting to change the subject to something more cheerful, Lynn mentioned a comedy show she’d seen the other day, and from there the conversation went on to cover a variety of topics.
It was while Lynn was talking about missed essay deadlines that Ian was suddenly seized by the urge to kiss her. This startled him, not just because he wasn’t the sort of primitive that went around making sexual advances without permission, but also because he’d never felt that sort of attraction to Lynn before. She was by no means unattractive, but his feelings for Mel had left him immune to the charms of any other woman. Until now.
The desire was getting stronger. He should leave before he did anything stupid. With a little difficulty he started to extricate himself from the beanbag.
Lynn stopped mid-sentence and asked, “Are you all right?”
Ian wasn’t a good liar, but explaining what was up was out of the question. He didn’t want her thinking she was just some animal. He took refuge in vagueness. “Sorry… I need to go.”
“Something’s wrong. I can tell.” She always had been sensitive to mood changes. “Come on, tell me what’s the matter.”
“I can’t.”
She got up off her chair and crouched down in front of him, which only made things worse. “Please, Ian. I want to help.”
You won’t when I tell you. He buried his face in his hands. No option but to confess, and hope that she’d at least appreciate that he was trying to fight his baser instincts. “I’m really sorry, but if I don’t get out of here right now, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from trying to kiss you.”
She gasped. Better than a scream: maybe the friendship would be salvageable. But then she put her arms around him, and it was all he could do not to cave in.
“That’s okay,” she told him, but then she stiffened. “No, wait, it’s not.”
Mercifully, she let go of him and stepped back. “That’s not you. It’s me.”
Just like that, the compulsion was gone. Ian felt an undefined uneasiness which crystallised into concern for Lynn as she hurried across the room to the basin in the corner. Now it was his turn to ask, “Are you all right?”
She rummaged through a small bag and pulled out what looked like a prescription bottle. “How could I have been so careless?”
Ian struggled to his feet. He should go while he could. But something was upsetting her, and he’d be a lousy friend if he just left her to it. The number of times she’d been there for him when he’d been down…
“Lynn! What’s wrong?”
She tipped the contents of the bottle into one hand and started counting. Then her actions slowed. She picked a small white tablet out of her cupped hand, peered at it, gave it a sniff, and finally touched the tip of her tongue to it. “Shit!”
“Do you want me to call a doctor? An ambulance?”
Her head snapped up. “No!” The hand with the tablets in clenched into a fist, and then she hurled is contents onto the floor, where they bounced in all directions.
“What is going on?”
She looked at him, and he felt a rush of hurt and guilt and anger. “Just get out.“
He turned towards the door. Before he could grasp the handle, she spoke again. “No, I owe you an explanation. And I’m so, so, sorry.”
Her regret was almost palpable. Ian felt as if he was remembering everything he’d done that he wished he hadn’t, and all the missed opportunities he’d ever kicked himself for wasting.
Lynn closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, in and out. Ian felt his feelings subside.
She gestured for him to sit on the chair, and perched on the edge of her bed as he did so.
Looking down, unable to meet his gaze, Lynn said, “Ian, there’s something I have to let you know. But you must promise never to tell anyone else.”
“I… I don’t make promises I’m not confident I can keep. Can you swear that it’s not something I might need to mention to someone, sometime?”
“I can’t think of any reason why you ever would.”
“All right, then. I promise.”
She sighed. “The thing is… I’m a projecting telempath.”
“A what?”
“I have… a condition, a gift, an affliction. I can make people feel what I’m feeling.”
It occurred to Ian that he should be feeling sceptical, disbelieving, but there was only the sort of sensation of relief he’d felt in the past upon finally confessing to some wrongdoing that had been weighing on his conscience. Similar to how she must be feeling right now. Which was a strong indication that she was telling the truth.
That should scare him, amaze him, but it didn’t. It couldn’t, not while Lynn’s sensation of having unburdened herself of her secret was so overwhelming.
“It’s… I have these pills that suppress it, so I can be with ordinaries and not constantly be imposing my emotions on them. But someone’s taken them, left fakes in their place, and I didn’t notice this morning ’cause I overslept and was still groggy when I took today’s dose, and by now the effect’s worn off, so…”
Realisation dawned on Ian, and with it came a horror intense enough to pierce through the blanket of Lynn’s emotions.
“So I wanted to kiss you because you wanted me to kiss you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Sorrow blended with the horror like cream trickling into coffee.
“You’re in love with me?” Tears pricked his eyes.
“Yes.”
“So all those times I opened up to you about wanting Mel, and her not…?”
Her “Yes,” was barely audible.
He groaned and thumped his head against the back of the chair. “Fuck! How could I have been such a stupid, insensitive bastard?”
“Don’t.” She was on the verge of tears. He could hear it in her voice, feel it deep within. “I… Yes, I wished you felt like that about me, not about her, but at the same time I was so pleased that you trusted me enough to talk about it like that, I was happy that I could make you feel a bit better…”
He wanted to hold her and comfort her. Was that him or her? Did it matter?
An idea came to him. Not a feeling, so this was definitely him. Insane, absurd, but if it were possible… “Could you make me love you?”
She swallowed. “I… I have the ability. But don’t worry, I would never…”
“Lynn,” he interrupted, “I’m not stupid. I know that Mel doesn’t feel the same way about me that I do about her. And for months I’ve gone on hoping that that would change, that things would just click and we’d be more than friends. But I can’t fool myself forever. That’s not going to happen. I’ll just go on wishing and hurting, and she’ll feel bad because she likes me and doesn’t want me to suffer, but she still doesn’t love me, not that way. And sooner or later it’s all going to blow up somehow, and maybe once that happens we won’t even be able to stay friends.
“But you… You do love me. And you’re kind, and caring, and good to be with, and smart, and pretty, and fun, and you’d be the perfect partner if I felt that way about you. But I don’t.
“But I could.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? That way, everybody wins. You get me. I get you—and want to. Mel gets to stop feeling guilty about not loving me. Win-win-win.”
“You’re not thinking straight. You’re not feeling straight.”
He leaned forwards. “Ever since the first time I found out what unrequited love was like, my greatest fear has been being on the other side. Of being responsible for someone feeling as wretched and horrible and miserable as I did then. The way I sometimes feel over Mel.
“I wanted that never to happen. But it has happened. And what’s worse is, it’s happened with you, someone I like and care about, and… I don’t know if I can handle that. And I won’t even have anyone I can talk to about it, because the friend I always could talk to about the heavy stuff is the person I’d be feeling bad about making feel bad, and it’d just spiral into an endless loop of guilt and self-loathing.”
“Don’t say that.”
His shoulders slumped. “All right. I’ll go.”
“You don’t have to leave. Just…”
“I can’t stay.”
She sniffed. “Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
He stood in silence and crossed to the door.
“Promise me!”
He reached for the handle. “I’m sorry. I wish I could, but…”
Her fear pierced through him. She put a hand on the door, holding it shut. “Then I can’t let you go.”
His hand fell to his side. He thumped his forehead against the door.
“All right.” Her voice was heavy with resignation. “Come and sit next to me.”
He joined Lynn on the edge of the bed, sitting face to face with her. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on the sides of his head, her fingertips burrowing into his thick black hair to touch his scalp. And then it was as if they kept going, penetrating his skull without breaking through skin or bone, touching his brain, seeking out a specific spot and tweaking it just so.
And he was gazing into the gorgeous blue eyes of the most wonderful, beautiful, perfect woman he had ever known, ever could know, and he couldn’t help but put his arms around her, because he knew that the only thing better than the way she made him feel was the knowledge that she felt the same way about him.
She took her hands from his head and returned his embrace. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”
“So have I.”
She flinched away. “No you haven’t.”
He realised she was right. The hug felt like the fulfilment of months of longing, but it could only be a few minutes since he’d first wanted her. “Does it matter?”
“I want you. Not my own reflection in a you-shaped mirror.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s…” Her voice developed an edge. “…the person who took my tablets.”
He’d never seen Lynn angry before. Now he could feel it as well, and only the knowledge that her ire was not directed at him kept him from running away. “You know who it is, don’t you?”
“I have my suspicions. And I think I know how to sort things out.”
“Can I help?”
“Oh yes. But you have to do what I tell you and nothing more. Got it?”
He nodded. “Whatever you say.”
She stood up. “Let’s go.”
He took the hand she offered him and stood beside her. “Where are we going?”
“To get my pills back. If possible. And make the thief very, very sorry for taking them and messing with me.”
Ian gulped. “You’re scary when you’re angry.”
She grinned. “Good.”
“And… it’s kind of sexy.”
Her smile deepened. “Hold that thought.”
They went out.